A state commission has found that El Paso County failed to give indigent suspects access to lawyers in a timely manner and didn't fairly distribute cases among attorneys.
The El Paso Times reported Sunday that the Texas Indigent Defense Commission uncovered the issues following a review of hundreds of cases in 2013. The commission monitors counties to ensure compliance with the Fair Defense Act.
Large counties like El Paso are supposed to appoint an attorney to indigent suspects no later than a day after one is requested. The review found that El Paso followed that law roughly two-thirds of the time. The threshold set by the commission is 90 percent compliance.
The report comes after El Paso made changes to its indigent defense system that took effect in September.
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