Judge Michael Denton oversees a Council at First Appearance magistration test shift on Nov. 8, 2024, at the Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center. The program provides lawyers to people arrested in Travis County Jail as they go through the magistration process, when the judge sets bails and tells them the conditions of their release.
Until now, if you were arrested in Travis County and couldn’t afford a lawyer, you wouldn’t necessarily get one during your first appearance in front of a judge. But as of this month, Travis County leaders have hired enough staff to operate its long-awaited counsel at first appearance program, or CAFA, daily from 2 to 11 p.m.
An arrestee’s first appearance is where a judge sets bail and determines the conditions of their release. National research has shown having a lawyer present at this time can reduce both jail time and bail amounts.
Activists have been urging the county to provide arrestee’s lawyers for years. In September, Travis County Commissioners responded to the pressure and agreed to spend $15.5 million to get a program up in running. Since then, they’ve been on a hiring spree.
“We’re interviewing all the time for this,” Geoff Burkhart, Travis County’s executive for community legal services, said.
So far, Burkhart’s team has hired 14 attorneys to take on CAFA clients, many of which are bilingual.
“The good news is we will have a Spanish speaking attorney at every single CAFA shift,” he said. “Approximately 14 to 17% of all persons arrested and magistrates in the County are Spanish speakers.”
Attorneys are only one piece of the puzzle. The county has hired dozens of other positions over the past few months, including case workers, judges and security officers.
Burkhart said the county is on track to hire roughly 86 more people by July. Once those positions are filled, the county will expand the program to run daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m.
“Once we get there in July, we should be in a position where 100%, or nearly 100%, of all persons arrested and magistrated have an attorney by their side,” Burkhart said. “We’re very excited about that.”
However, a nationwide shortage of criminal defense attorney’s could threaten the program long term. Bradley Hargis, the executive director of Capital Area Private Defender Services, which takes about a quarter of CAFA cases, said the attorneys in his office are consistently working overtime.
“An attorney’s time is finite. Most of our attorneys, especially the active ones, work 50 and 60 hours a week already. Many of them are asking not to take more cases, but because of shortages, we are often coming to them asking them to take more cases,” Hargis said. “So it is a combination of trying to control case loads but also make sure everyone has a defender.”
Travis County officials said they are looking into recruiting law students to ease the load on attorneys.
Travis County is also still grappling with a lawsuitthe American Civil Liberties Union filed against them in April over not providing counsel at first appearance to arrestees. The case is still pending in federal court.
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