Advance News investigating "costly" lawyer/indigent cases

By G. Romero Wendorf

If you visit almost any of the courtrooms in Hidalgo County, be they state District Court or County Court-at-Law, the majority of the cases, or so it seems if you sit in the gallery, involves a seeming un-ending stream of cases involving indigents, i.e. county prisoners who claim and/or have proven that they lack the money to hire a private attorney and are, therefore, being represented by a public defender. The defendants standing before the bench include many individuals who are charged with relatively serious crimes: aggravated assault; family violence; terroristic threats; armed robbery; DWIs; discharge of a weapon; attempted murder; big cocaine drug busts; human smuggling; arson; evading and/or resisting arrest. The list of alleged crimes seems almost endless.

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