By Jim Bethke
By Hon. Dan Hinde
By the State Bar of Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program – Judicial Initiative Subcommittee
By Hon. Harriet O'Neill
This is the second of a two part series. In the last article, I discussed some of the key provisions of the Fair Defense Act and the purpose of the Task Force on Indigent Defense. In this part, I will highlight key changes made by the 82nd Legislature to the Texas Fair Defense Law and address the value and purpose of the Performance Guidelines for Non-Capital Criminal Defense Representation adopted by the State Bar’s Board of Directors on January 28, 2011.
As courts go, the Civil District Courts in Harris County, Texas are relatively high-tech. We have fairly modern audio-visual equipment in each courtroom. Lawyers can electronically file documents, and since around 2008, all of the courts are “paperless.” By this I mean that our case files are now kept digitally.
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The behavior of a lawyer who has practiced in your court for years has clearly changed and now you think that the problem must be alcohol, drugs, depression or something serious. What should you do? The short answer is to make confidential contact with the Texas Lawyers’ Assistance Program (TLAP) through its Judges’ hotline: 800-219-6474.
A district court judge was riding the circuit one particular morning, hearing cases across a 5-county area – a task he shared from time to time with other circuit-riding judges. He called the docket. His first matter was a child-protection case. The forensic evidence showed that the child, barely one year old, had both arms broken. Clean fractures indicating they had been deliberately snapped. The child was in foster care, unaware at her young age of what had happened, why she had been torn from her home, and who these strangers were she was now living with.
A summary of this years Texas judicial conferences.
