Forgotten in jail with no lawyer: how a Texas city fails poor defendants

Join The Transient, The Texas Tribune’s every day publication that retains readers on top of things on probably the most important Texas information.

---

Jolie McCullough reported for The Occasions’s Native Investigations Fellowship, which helps deal with the decline in native journalism, from Eagle Cross, Texas, a neighborhood with few reporters.

EAGLE PASS — Fernando Padron was caught in a South Texas jail cell. Accused of stealing bank cards that he used to purchase diapers, a motorbike and different items for his household, he had not been introduced into court docket or spoken to a lawyer.

He didn’t hear something about his case for 9 months. Lastly, in March 2023, prosecutors charged him with a misdemeanor, and he was launched. However his ordeal had simply begun.

Over the following two years, he can be arrested repeatedly in reference to the theft. He was pressured right into a seemingly improper plea deal in a single court docket, solely to be charged once more in one other. At one level, he was in jail for six months earlier than officers concerned in his case realized he was there.

Padron, 27, is a U.S. citizen with no prior convictions, and his offense was minor sufficient that elsewhere in Texas, he may not have been jailed in any respect. However he was within the dysfunctional Maverick County court docket system, the place primary tenets of American justice usually don’t apply.

Officers right here brazenly acknowledge that poor defendants accused of minor crimes are not often supplied attorneys. And folks frequently spend months behind bars with out prices filed towards them, for much longer than state legislation permits. Final yr alone, at the least a dozen folks had been held too lengthy uncharged after arrests for minor nonviolent crimes, interviews and data reviewed by The New York Occasions present.

Some defendants appear to have been forgotten in jail. Two males had been launched after The Occasions requested about them, half a yr after their sentences had been accomplished.

“The county is not at the level that it should have been for years,” conceded Maverick County Decide Ramsey English Cantú, who oversees misdemeanor court docket. He mentioned he had been attempting to “revamp” and “rebuild” the native justice system since he was elected in 2022.

“It’s been a challenge for me,” he added. “But at the end of the day it is unjust.”

Underneath the U.S. Structure, folks dealing with jail time are entitled to a lawyer — paid for by the federal government if they can’t afford their very own — and a good and environment friendly court docket course of. However these protections are tenuous, particularly in rural elements of America, research have proven. In Texas, one of many states that spend the least on indigent protection, The Occasions discovered latest examples of individuals held past deadlines with out prices or attorneys in six rural counties.

Maverick County stood out. It’s in one of many state’s poorest areas, and plenty of defendants can not afford a lawyer; some spend months in jail as a result of they can’t pay a bail bondsman $500 or much less. But over the previous 20 years, state auditors have repeatedly famous the county was failing to adequately present indigent counsel. In 2023, when greater than 240 misdemeanor defendants requested illustration, the county decide appointed attorneys in solely a handful of circumstances, data present. Nonetheless, the state has imposed no penalties.

With nobody to information them, defendants enter a disjointed justice system the place it may be perplexingly troublesome to determine why somebody is in jail, if there even is a purpose. Misdemeanor court docket information are virtually all the time lacking key paperwork. Felony court docket information are sometimes not obtainable till greater than a yr after a defendant’s arrest. The jail typically reported having no file of individuals regardless of just lately holding them for months.

Protection attorneys and constitutional legislation students, responding to The Occasions’s reporting, referred to as the county’s practices “atrocious,” “Kafkaesque” and “not a criminal system at all.”

“The lack of transparency and the lack of public defenders in this jurisdiction has allowed this completely inept system to persist,” mentioned Rachel Kincaid, an affiliate legislation professor at Baylor College in Waco and former federal prosecutor. “There’s no pressure on them to do anything differently.”

In jailhouse interviews, some defendants mentioned that they had no thought what was occurring of their circumstances.

“They haven’t told me anything,” Juan Sanchez, 21, mentioned in Spanish in Might, shivering on a jail stool with no shirt or pants in a knee-length suicide prevention vest. He had pleaded responsible in November 2023 to trespassing on the native mall in trade for his launch, however was not let loose till June, shortly after The Occasions requested officers why he was nonetheless there.

“They really don’t give you information here,” mentioned David Burckhardt, 36, who had been jailed for 5 months with out prices after being arrested in August 2023 on accusations of vandalizing his neighbor’s automobile. “You just got to do your time.”

However it’s what occurred to Padron that finest illustrates the repercussions of the county’s lapses. Advised particulars of his case, 4 veteran Texas protection attorneys mentioned that in different counties they more than likely may have secured a sentence of 30 days or fewer, with some probability he would get no jail time.

Padron has now spent 20 months in jail, lacking his son’s first two birthdays. His case remains to be not resolved.

“I got out and I was doing things right,” he mentioned on the jail after his third arrest stemming from the theft. “And then, all of a sudden, you have an arrest warrant. And I left my girlfriend and son by themselves.”

The Free State of Maverick

About half of Maverick County’s residents reside within the metropolis of Eagle Cross, which is on the Mexican border, about 150 miles southwest of San Antonio. Most residents’ first language is Spanish, and individuals who reside within the neighboring Mexican metropolis, Piedras Negras, cross usually to work, store or go to family.

The county has a historical past of scandals, together with a federal investigation into bribery and contract-rigging a decade in the past that despatched 4 of 5 commissioners to jail. A veteran police officer mentioned locals jokingly name it “the Free State of Maverick” as a result of officers are likely to do what they need and take care of the ramifications later.

The area can be on the forefront of America’s crackdown on immigration. Since 2021, Texas cops have arrested 1000’s of migrants in Maverick County for trespassing, in an effort to discourage crossings and enhance deportations. After authorized challenges, the state created a particular prison system to expedite the method by rapidly charging migrants and assigning them attorneys.

The justice system for native residents reveals far much less urgency. It took on about 350 circumstances final yr, a overwhelming majority of them misdemeanors or felony drug possession. The police and the Sheriff’s Division usually take weeks or months to report an arrest to prosecutors. The prosecutors then take months to resolve whether or not to go to court docket, for prices so simple as resisting arrest or trespassing. Throughout this time, prosecutors usually are not advised, and usually don’t examine, whether or not a defendant is in jail.

Neither legislation enforcement company answered questions in regards to the delays. Jaime Iracheta, the county lawyer, mentioned misdemeanors in Maverick County undergo layers of vetting. Another jurisdictions file such prices inside days, if not hours.

Though these main the justice system are all Democrats — a relic of the get together’s historic energy with Hispanic voters — they’re divided into rival factions. Iracheta, whose workplace prosecutes misdemeanors, endorsed English Cantú in his 2022 run for county decide. Sheriff Tom Schmerber, who has overseen the jail since 2013, is an ally of the decide’s predecessor, David Saucedo.

When Decide English Cantú ran towards Saucedo, his second cousin, he referred to as Saucedo a “bully” who gave his “cronies” massive salaries “not to do anything.” Saucedo referred to as his opponent “self-serving” and accused him of serving to unfold an “almost comical” rumor that he was a assassin.

In interviews, officers didn’t dispute that the county had not launched some folks on time, however blamed each other for the failures.

“The unfortunate inability of communication between the Sheriff’s Department and the prosecutor’s office, I think, is what has delayed this situation,” English Cantú mentioned.

He added that misdemeanor court docket, the place he presides about as soon as a month, was held much less usually underneath Saucedo. Saucedo mentioned his personal predecessors held misdemeanor court docket even much less incessantly.

Iracheta mentioned the Sheriff’s Division was the issue. “We have extreme issues over there, but I can’t control who the people elect,” he mentioned.

The sheriff didn’t reply to interview requests, however the jail’s case supervisor, Daniella Ramos, criticized the magistrates who set bail. She mentioned she sends them weekly jail rosters to allow them to order defendants to be launched, however they go “into the abyss.”

Kina Mancha, the county’s longest-tenured Justice of the Peace, countered that the jail had typically didn’t comply with orders to let folks go. “They’re not doing their job,” she mentioned.

With out public defenders, the county depends on native attorneys to signify poor defendants, paying a couple of hundred {dollars} per case. However in felony court docket, the few prepared attorneys are sometimes not appointed till defendants seem earlier than a decide — usually months or years after their arrest.

In misdemeanor court docket, attorneys are not often appointed at any time. Typically, the one lawyer within the room is the prosecutor. Cantú’s main job is serving because the county’s chief govt, akin to a mayor. Like most Texas county judges, he doesn’t have a legislation diploma.

The First Arrest

Born in San Antonio, Padron has spent most of his life in Piedras Negras. He dropped out of faculty round age 12, when his mom was killed, and in recent times has frequently crossed the worldwide bridge to search for day labor in Eagle Cross.

On the evening of his arrest in June 2022, Padron wanted diapers for his toddler son, Fernandito, however had no cash. He recalled telling his girlfriend: “I’m going to go to someone and see what I can do. I’ll take any job right now.”

He entered the USA and noticed a home the place he thought he may supply to wash the yard or wash the truck. But it surely was darkish exterior, he mentioned. When he seen the truck door was unlocked, he snatched the pockets inside.

Later, he would describe the choice as rash, including that he wished he may apologize and work to repay what he took. “I got carried away,” he mentioned in Spanish.

After shopping for diapers at a grocery retailer, Padron went to a Walmart and purchased a motorbike, a hair straightener and a “Frozen” coloring e-book earlier than the accounts had been frozen. He was heading again towards the border at round 10 p.m. when the police, responding to a name from the bank cards’ proprietor, discovered him and chased him down. The police reported recovering items price a bit of greater than $300.

They arrested him on a number of potential prices: the misdemeanors of fleeing the police and stealing the pockets, and a number of counts of utilizing stolen bank cards, a low-level felony. A Justice of the Peace met with Padron, famous on a type that he wished a court-appointed lawyer and set his bail at roughly $40,000. He in all probability may have paid $4,000 or much less to a bail bondsman and been launched, however Padron didn’t have that. He was despatched to the county jail.

Texas legislation lays out what ought to have occurred subsequent. His type requesting a lawyer ought to have reached English Cantú inside 24 hours and been dominated on inside days. Prosecutors had 30 days to formally cost him with any misdemeanors and 90 days for felonies; after each deadlines, he ought to have been launched.

None of that was carried out.

English Cantú mentioned in an interview that he doesn’t get the lawyer request types. This shocked a number of county magistrates, who mentioned jail workers had promised a yr in the past to start constantly forwarding them to the court docket.

“Was that being done? I don’t know,” mentioned Jeannie Smith, a Justice of the Peace of practically 15 years. “Is it being done now? I don’t know.”

And not using a lawyer to comply with up on his case, Padron stayed in jail for 9 and a half months.

Misdemeanor prosecutors lastly charged him in March 2023 with one crime, evading arrest. He was launched and a month later reported to court docket, the place he was supplied a plea deal: a yr of probation, together with a $600 nice, $270 in court docket prices and a month-to-month $40 price.

Padron hesitated. He knew he couldn’t pay, he mentioned later, and he had already been jailed so lengthy. Shouldn’t he get credit score for that? he recalled asking the prosecutor.

The prosecutor more than likely shouldn’t have supplied Padron a deal in any respect. State legislation bars Texas prosecutors from talking in court docket to a defendant who has requested for a lawyer earlier than a decide guidelines on the request. (Though prosecutors mentioned they solely discuss to defendants who’ve waived their proper to counsel, the legislation specifies these waivers are invalid if a request for a lawyer is excellent.)

A protection lawyer may have pushed for Padron to get time served, a sentence equal to the months he had spent in jail, ending his case with out probation. Or requested the court docket to waive fines and costs, given his incapability to pay them. However Padron didn’t have a lawyer, and the prosecutor warned him the following supply could possibly be worse. He took the deal.

“It’s Almost Over”

Six months later, in November 2023, Padron was arrested for violating his probation as he crossed into Eagle Cross for work. He had not attended his month-to-month check-ins or paid his dues.

This time, he was in jail for six and a half months, apparently by mistake, earlier than something occurred in his case.

“I found out he was in custody because he called me from the jail,” the probation officer advised English Cantú in a Might 2024 listening to.

The decide referred to as the delay “unacceptable.” “We need to move these individuals as quickly as possible, especially if they are inmates,” he added.

Padron stood expressionless. The ten-minute back-and-forth was in English, which he doesn’t perceive.

In Texas, misdemeanors like Padron’s evading arrest cost have a most sentence of 1 yr, and judges are required to credit score defendants for time already served. Padron had been incarcerated for a complete of 16 months. Nonetheless, the prosecutor requested for one more 44 days in jail.

English Cantú switched to Spanish to ask Padron why he violated probation, and he responded that with a child and little work, he couldn’t afford the charges and was afraid to examine in with out them. The decide paused, after which sentenced him to 34 extra days. (The decide declined to touch upon particular person circumstances.)

“The good news is it’s almost over,” Padron mentioned on the jail a few weeks later, determined to reunite together with his household. In July, he was launched for what he thought can be the ultimate time.

A month later, he was once more stopped on the border and despatched again to jail. Greater than two years after his preliminary arrest, he was now being charged in felony court docket for utilizing the bank cards.

Delays on Delays

By then, the sufferer of Padron’s crime had moved on.

Yaqueline Salinas had been livid in 2022 when she acquired an alert that her bank cards had been getting used on the close by Walmart. She drove round till she noticed Padron, whom she acknowledged from her neighbor’s safety cameras, and flagged down the police.

But it surely took felony investigators a yr to ask for her bank card statements, she mentioned. The financial institution had refunded her cash, so she by no means responded. “I felt bad, honestly,” Salinas later mentioned in an interview in Spanish, remembering the Pampers that fell off the bike Padron was driving. “He’s already missed so much time with the baby.”

She assumed his case had been resolved way back. “He went back to jail?” she requested a Occasions reporter. “Oh my god.”

Even with out her data, felony prosecutors carried on. However it could be one other yr earlier than Padron was indicted.

Final yr, felony indictments within the county had been introduced, on common, practically 14 months after against the law, greater than twice the time it took for misdemeanor prices, a Occasions evaluation reveals. Felony prosecutors work for the district lawyer and barely coordinate with the county lawyer’s misdemeanor prosecutors, they mentioned.

Because of this, defendants like Padron typically plead responsible to a misdemeanor, considering they are going to be freed, solely to be rearrested — or by no means let go — as a result of the police had additionally listed a possible cost for felony prosecutors to contemplate.

That’s the reason Sanchez, the person held for trespassing on the native mall, was not launched till seven months after his responsible plea: The jail was nonetheless holding him on an excellent housebreaking allegation that prosecutors later mentioned they weren’t pursuing.

One other man, 22, was arrested final April, accused of smashing his father’s automobile home windows and working from the police. In September, he pleaded responsible to evading arrest, a misdemeanor, for time served. However the jail continued to carry him, ready for the district lawyer to cost him with vandalism. In February, when The Occasions requested the district lawyer why the person was nonetheless there, he mentioned his workplace had no file of the case. The person was launched that day.

The Proper to an Legal professional

In interviews, English Cantú and Iracheta, the county lawyer, had been fast to level to enhancements that they had made.

Iracheta mentioned he had sped up misdemeanor prosecutions in recent times by requiring the police to ship him circumstances inside 30 days. Nonetheless, in 2024, his workplace took half a yr on common to file prices.

“Filing within six months is reasonable,” he mentioned, noting that the statute of limitations for misdemeanors is 2 years. “We are actively working to improve efficiency,” he added.

Final fall, English Cantú accepted a state grant to rent a coordinator to assist appoint attorneys; the coordinator began this month.

From July to December, the decide additionally assigned attorneys in 31 circumstances, in response to audit reviews, in contrast with none within the first half of the yr. He denied one request. Nonetheless, virtually all these appointments got here after defendants appeared in court docket; scores of extra requests logged by magistrates earlier within the course of had gotten no response, state reviews via December present.

In felony court docket, Padron’s case continued. He was lastly given a lawyer, Luis De Los Santos, in August 2024.

De Los Santos was initially appointed to deal with Padron’s felony prices about 5 months after his first arrest, in response to a court docket administrator. However Padron mentioned he by no means heard from the lawyer, and nothing was ever recorded in his court docket file. Twenty-one months later, afterPadron was indicted, De Los Santos was assigned to the case once more. (He didn’t reply to questions on his first appointment.)

In October, after Padron’s first felony court docket look, De Los Santos appeared unsurprised that his consumer had been in jail so lengthy. Moments later, the decide, Maribel Flores, mentioned that she doesn’t normally understand how lengthy a defendant has been held till late in a case. However requested by a reporter about Padron’s time in jail, she mentioned that in such conditions, “usually we’ll just do time served.”

In November, the prosecution agreed for Padron to be launched on bail with out price. However the cost hung over him.

“I really don’t want to get probation, because for any little thing they’re going to lock me up,” he mentioned the following morning. “I’m going on two and a half years for the same thing.”

He reported to court docket once more in December, when the prosecution supplied Padron a plea deal: not time served, however 5 years of probation, which generally entails practically $4,000 in charges.

De Los Santos advised Flores that he thought of the supply “fairly reasonable.” However Padron was hesitant, and the lawyer requested for extra time to clarify the deal to him. Flores put the case off once more till January.

Padron missed that listening to. The subsequent day, exterior his house, he mentioned he had overslept and located his bike lacking when he awoke, leaving him no approach to get to court docket on time. His son was about to show 3, and Padron was despondent on the thought of being despatched to jail once more.

Throughout the border, a brand new warrant was written up for his arrest.

Ana Facio-Krajcer, Alexa Ura and Guadalupe González contributed translation. Kirsten Noyes contributed analysis.

Jolie McCullough is a reporter specializing in prison justice techniques in rural Texas as a part of the Native Investigations Fellowship at The New York Occasions. Extra about Jolie McCullough

Disclosure: Baylor College and New York Occasions have been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no function within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full checklist of them right here.

---

We are able to’t wait to welcome you to the fifteenth annual Texas Tribune Competition, Texas’ breakout concepts and politics occasion occurring Nov. 13–15 in downtown Austin. Step contained in the conversations shaping the way forward for training, the economic system, well being care, power, expertise, public security, tradition, the humanities and a lot extra.

Hear from our CEO, Sonal Shah, on TribFest 2025.

TribFest 2025 is offered by JPMorganChase.