The Texas Fair Defense Act of 2001 requires all Texas courts to establish procedures to provide court-appointed lawyers to indigent defendants. This legislation also established the Task Force on Indigent Defense, now the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC or Commission) to oversee indigent defense services and provide state grants to counties. Half of all criminal … [Read more...] about Resolution Spotlight: Indigent Defense
Resolutions
Resolution Spotlight: Rural Ambulance Funding
An ambulance desert is defined as an area in which people are more than 25 minutes from an ambulance station. According to a national study and related research report, “Geographic Disparities in the Provision of Ambulance Services,” 94.9 percent of Texas counties include an ambulance desert. The data, released in May 2023, also indicated that Texas has the third-highest … [Read more...] about Resolution Spotlight: Rural Ambulance Funding
Resolution Spotlight
Mentally Incompetent Inmates
In many Texas counties, the county jail has become a de facto mental institution housing mentally ill inmates awaiting due process without their medications and/or life-sustaining therapies. Some 1,753 inmates in Texas county jails are awaiting transfer to state hospital beds, as reported by the Health and Human Services Commission to the Joint Committee on Access and … [Read more...] about Resolution Spotlight
Resolution Spotlight: Regulating Fireworks
Texas has a very diverse landscape, and the Panhandle’s fire season is basically 365 days a year, said Hutchinson County Judge Cindy Irwin. Hutchinson County is well aware of the devastation fire can cause. The Smokehouse Creek Fire, which started in Hutchinson County on Feb. 26, 2024, eventually burned more than 1 million acres across the Panhandle making it the largest … [Read more...] about Resolution Spotlight: Regulating Fireworks
Resolution Spotlight: Elections and Countywide Polling
Countywide precincts, or vote centers, allow voters the option of voting at any of the countywide polling places on Election Day instead of their assigned precinct polling location. A pilot program to test vote centers was authorized by the 79th Legislature’s House Bill 758. Vote centers have been reauthorized by the Texas Legislature ever since. Lubbock County participated … [Read more...] about Resolution Spotlight: Elections and Countywide Polling