Dallas Public Defender purge raises legal and policy concerns

by Scott Henson of Grits For Breakfast

Several readers emailed recently to say the axe continues to fall around the Dallas Public Defender's office in the wake of top PD Brad Lollar's forced resignation. I don't know the total body count and won't name names out of courtesy to those who lost their jobs, but the purge has now gone well beyond Brad Lollar.

One reader rightly raises the question of whether County Commissioner John Wiley Price may have violated state law prohibiting undue influence by commissioners courts in employee hiring, citing:

Texas Local Government Code § 151.004.

COMMISSIONERS COURT MAY NOT INFLUENCE APPOINTMENT.

The commissioners court or a member of the court may not attempt to influence the appointment of any person to an employee position authorized by the court under this subchapter.

Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch. 149, § 1, eff. Sept. 1, 1987.

Similarly, rumors are flying into my email box about open records requests by the media seeking to determine whether Commissioner John Wiley Price violated Dallas county rules by personally vetting personnel files of Public Defender attorneys. At issue is a county ordinance stating:

Sec. 86-673. Outside request to access files.

Any request for access to an employee's file not made by the employee requires the following:

(1) Submission of a written request; and

(2) Review of the written request by the civil section of the district attorney's office prior to release. The written request must be immediately forwarded to the civil section of the district attorney's office for review due to strict time constraints for objecting to such requests for information.

(Ord. No. 2000-173, § 17.02, 1-25-2000)

If Price did not seek such permission from the DA's office, he may have violated the law.

The stated reason for these dismissals is a county budget crisis, but providing counsel for indigent defendants is a constitutional requirement for counties, and if there aren't enough PDs then more expensive private counsel must be appointed to do the job. Indeed, Dallas' public defender office keeps Dallas' indigent defense costs much lower than its neighbors.

I still can't help reaching the same, nebulous conclusion I came to when Brad Lollar was first fired: "This seems like an instance where there's a back story that explains most of what's going on that we just don't know right now. Maybe Price is just on a crusade against lazy bureaucrats, or perhaps there's a less obvious agenda at play that I can't identify at the moment." We still don't know that back story, but the budgetary reasons given for the Dallas PD purge simply don't hold water.

Mark Bennett, the blogger at Defending People and the President of the Harris County Criminal Lawyers Assocation, told the Houston Chronicle Price's interference must be viewed as a "cautionary tale" if Harris creates a public defender. The incident justifiably "reinforced his skepticism of any indigent defense system run at the whim of county commissioners."

Though I'm a supporter of public defender systems, given what's happening in Dallas it's hard to argue with Bennett's cynical conclusion. That's the reason above all else why Price's actions deserve wide disapprobation.