County officials in my county are considering creating a public defender office. Our county is relatively small, about 50,000. I'm not sure what I think about it. Does anyone have an opinion about the impact, positive or negative, a public defender might have on the justice system, the community, or the prosecutor's office?

I don't know much about it, never having worked in a county with a PD office, but intuitively it seems to me that the cost could be higher for a county that size because you then have all the overhead expenses, not just the attorney fees. But I guess the cost-benefit analysis really depends on what they're paying attorneys now, versus how many attorneys and staff they would hire, and how much they would pay on salary in addition to the property/space, office supplies and equipment, etc. I also think that you could run into some resistance from the current defense bar who are getting the appointments, because a lot of defense attorneys make their money off appointments, and if those all go to a PD, that's income out of their pockets. You could always have some sort of hybrid PD/appointment wheel system, but that seems even more complicated to me. These are just my initial thoughts, and others may have perfectly valid viewpoints on the other side.

Rob, you might wish to talk to the prosecutors in Kaufman County. Their PD office would be most comparable to that being contemplated in Hood. Another good source of info is http://www.courts.state.tx.us/tfid/pdf/2008revisedblueprintfinal.pdf

I can't imagine that a public defender office for a jurisdiction with only 50,000 residents would be cost effective. You might look at joining an office already operating in an adjoining county. But, otherwise, use of contract lawyers or a court-appointed system would likely make the most sense.

One problem I have seen with PDs in the smaller jurisdictions is that the office starts to conflict out of a lot of cases after 2-3 yeras because of co-defendant's and of clients beating up or stealing from other clients.