El Paso County Public Defender
500 E. San Antonio
Suite 501
El Paso, Texas 79901
Phone (915) 546-8185
Fax (915) 534-8186
publicdefender
@epcounty.com
El Paso County Public Defender
- About Us
- The El Paso County Public Defender's Office represents indigent individuals charged with juvenile, misdemeanor, and felony offenses from pretrial up to and including appeal, as well in post conviction matters. In order to represent a client, we must be appointed by the Jail Magistrate or one of the County or District Judges in El Paso County.
- Our goal is to provide our clients the best legal representation. Once appointed to a case, we make every effort to contact our clients at the earliest possible opportunity, and use every resource at our disposal. Our staff includes thirty attorneys, five of whom have been licensed attorneys more than thirty years, and five more with more than twenty years experience. All together, we have over 540 years of legal experience and on average our attorneys have been licensed 18 years. In addition, we have investigators, case workers, social workers and legal support staff working in the Public Defender's Office.
- Public Defender Goals and Objectives
- Goal 1: To provide quality legal representation to our clients on felony cases, extradition cases, post-conviction writs, and misdemeanor charges.
- Goal 2: To be available on a moment's notice to meet the Courts' needs for an attorney in situations where prompt legal action must be taken to enforce and protect an individual's rights.
- Goal 3: To assist members of the private bar with complex cases and issues as required by the Courts and members of the private bar.
- Goal 4: To serve as "troubleshooters," where a situation has developed on a case, usually through someone's inaction or error, which could result in injustice to a client if an attorney does not take steps to rectify the situation and enforce the clients rights.
- Goal 5: To train and supervise less experienced and less specialized attorney's who have been appointed on felony cases.
- Goal 6: To help speed up the criminal justice process for clients who should be released which also helps keep the jail population down.
- Objective 1: Remain available on short notice for court settings, advisory meetings, filing of writs, and for juvenile court purposes.
- Objective 2: Continue working with the courts, jail and Court Administration on various test projects aimed at saving the County money and increasing the efficiency of processing criminal cases..
- Objective 3: Continue to be involved in community education and crime prevention functions.