West Texas Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases

About the Program

Category: Criminal Justice and Public Safety (Best in Category)

Year: 2009

The West Texas Regional Public Defender for Capital Cases (WTRPD) was established at the end of 2007 as a collaboration of 65 counties in West Texas to provide legal defense services to individuals charged with capital murder offenses. In response to the counties’ desire to have qualified defense attorneys available in a budget-efficient manner, the counties grouped together to create a cost-sharing system where all counties could benefit from the services of public defenders, mitigation experts, investigators and legal secretaries. Centrally located in Lubbock County, the WTRPD has opened two additional satellite offices in the northern and southern parts of the region to make access to defense services more rapidly available to defendants. The program has also partnered with Texas Tech University’s School of Law to receive interns to assist the office in their work. Since the office began accepting clients in January 2008, it has represented 14 capital murder defendants in eleven counties, with ten pending cases and four cases successfully disposed of by guilty plea, none of which have resulted in defendants receiving the death penalty. The counties are estimated to have saved over $300,000 dollars in legal expenses from the collaborative effort, and its overall success has prompted counties outside of their region to contract with the WTRPD.