Providing defendants a fair shake
In 1961, someone stole $50 in jukebox money from a Florida pool hall. The lone eyewitness said he saw Clarence Earl Gideon leave the hall with his pockets filled with change. Gideon was arrested, jailed and charged with a felony.
Poor and uneducated, Gideon asked the court to appoint an attorney to represent him. The court refused, and Gideon was convicted.
While serving his five-year sentence, Gideon asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hear his case. The court agreed.
In Gideon v. Wainwright, the Supreme Court held every person in America has the right to an attorney in a felony case, even if they can’t afford one. Writing for the court, Justice Hugo Black stressed that “lawyers in criminal courts are necessities, not luxuries.”
Thanks to Gideon, people arrested in Bexar County have a lawyer by their side. But access to a lawyer means little without quality representation.
In 2021, the Bexar County Public Defender’s Office represented 1 in 10 defendants who couldn’t afford an attorney. Their clients benefit from a defense team that includes lawyers, investigators and social workers. Their lawyers receive training, mentoring and oversight, so when public defenders go up against prosecutors in Bexar County, it’s a fair fight. Not every defendant will walk free, but every defendant will receive quality representation.
But 9 in 10 defendants were represented by private lawyers paid by the county on a case-bycase basis. Some of these attorneys are nationally renowned legal experts, while others just dabble in criminal law. Most fall somewhere in between.
While there are many capable defense attorneys in Bexar County, they are at a comparative disadvantage: Most of these attorneys lack ready access to basic resources — investigators, social workers, training, mentoring and oversight — that their public defender counterparts take for granted. Although a defendant may happen upon an effective attorney, there is no guarantee that every defendant will receive quality representation.
The new Bexar County Managed Assigned Counsel, or MAC, program can help change that.
A MAC is like a public defender office, but the lawyers are private attorneys rather than county employees. Like a public defender office, attorneys have ready access to investigators, social workers, coaching, mentoring and monitoring — the building blocks of quality representation.
A MAC also helps ensure attorneys are impartially selected and fairly paid. And when lawyers fall short of their duties, and coaching and mentoring have failed, the MAC can stop appointing those attorneys to cases — taxpayer dollars are too precious a resource to waste on poor representation.
MAC programs have worked well in Colorado, Michigan and Massachusetts. And here in Texas, MACS have already proven effective in Travis, Lubbock and Collin counties.
A MAC isn’t a cure-all. But working together, the MAC and the Bexar County Public Defender’s Office can help ensure that everyone arrested in Bexar County gets a fair shake. It’s a concrete step toward quality representation.
Back in 1963, Gideon’s case was sent back to Florida for a new trial. This time, the court provided him with an attorney. That well-trained and well-resourced lawyer investigated the facts, researched the law and took the case to trial — and Gideon was found not guilty.
Let’s make sure all Bexar County defendants have access to quality representation, too. It can make all the difference.