County’s Cite And Divert program delayed
In a swath of recent criminal justice reform policies and programs, Hays County has struggled to implement Cite and Divert as it passes more than a month after the announced launch date.
In the meantime, Hays County has made recent progress in other areas of criminal justice reform policy, including the Vera Population Study, which is currently pulling data from the Hays County Jail and should be finalized by Vera in January. The county also boasts a new Indigent Defense Coordinator, Veterans Treatment Court and additional Pretrial Bond Officers; all measures aiding the effort to keep those who have been arrested for low level crimes out of jail during the pandemic.
Cite and Divert Delayed
On July 8, Hays County officials, including Sheriff Gary Cutler, District Attorney Wes Mau and representatives from the police departments of San Marcos, Kyle, Buda and Texas State University, announced the launch of a new Cite and Divert program planned to start Sept. 1.
Officials then delayed the implementation, according to District Attorney Wes Mau, in order to better comply with the latest COVID-19 related guidelines from Gov. Greg Abbott, which were expected to relax in-person court restrictions starting Oct. 1.
Two months later, the program will likely be unavailable until closer to January, for the same reason as the first delay.
“Along with the courts themselves, the COVID mitigation concerns have also greatly impacted community supervision programs such as supervision officer meetings, community service options, and rehabilitative classes that would normally have been done in person,” Mau said. “The expiration date for such restrictions has since been pushed back more than once, and is now set for the end of the year. Those rules are out of local authorities’ control, but I am hopeful that the courts will return to business as usual around the start of the new year, and that the other programs will resume as well.”
The Cite and Divert Program would have given law enforcement officers an additional option when dealing with criminal cases. The Cite and Divert Program adds an additional diversion aspect to the more commonly known cite and release program, giving people who have committed certain low-level offenses a chance to avoid having the offense ever filed in court and becoming part of their criminal record.
Rather than appearing before a magistrate, eligible residents will have an opportunity to meet with a prosecutor from the Hays County Criminal District Attorney’s Office who may determine that a course of diversion is most appropriate. Once the person satisfies the requirements determined by the prosecutor, community service as one option, the program successfully concludes, and their record remains clear of that offense.
Local Criminal Justice reform and activism group Mano Amiga described the program as a victory, keeping residents out of jail and their criminal records clean.
The delays come as pretrial cases, some of which were likely eligible for Cite and Divert, have increased exponentially this year. In just 2020, their caseload increased from 198 pretrial defendants in February to 870 in September; a 440% increase in eight months, and a 1,374% increase in nearly four years.
The increase in cases was part of a widespread effort in Hays County Law Enforcement to keep the jail population low during the pandemic and resulted in the Hays County Commissioners Court approving the hiring of a third pretrial bond officer. The jail’s weekly average has hovered around 440 inmates, just 100 fewer inmates than pre-COVID numbers, many of whom have been waiting months for in-person jury proceedings to resume, and others who are in and out within 48 hours for low level offenses.
Commissioner Lon Shell, chair of the county’s Criminal Justice Coordinating Commission, said in addition to the COVID-19 impact, the increase in pretrial case load is also an indicator that law enforcement is getting more comfortable with the program and better at using it.
“Adult Probation — which should be separated from Pretrial Services –– continues to grow through the hiring of additional bond officers,” said Eric Martinez, Mano Amiga’s policy director. “Pretrial Services will monitor people with citation-eligible offenses after they’ve been booked, arrested and magistrated, but not people in a similar circumstance who could avoid this process entirely via Cite and Divert?”
Mau says the District Attorney’s office will continue to work toward implementing a cite and divert option for local law enforcement to increase street time for officers and expedite case resolution for minor offenders. “I must add that the current statutory procedure for dealing with these cases is still in place,” said Mau. “Persons who are committing these crimes can still be arrested or released with a citation to appear before a magistrate and have their cases dealt with in an appropriate way under the legislatively-authorized process found in the statutes.”
Vera Jail Population Study
In the meantime, the much anticipated Vera Jail Population Study has passed a benchmark; The Hays County IT Department has completed the requirements for its end of the project, according to Hays County’s Director of Information Technology Jeff McGill.
“The county is sending us daily data and we’re working with partners in the county to begin our analysis and design a dashboard for the data,” said James Wallace-Lee at Vera. “We’re expecting to have a finalized version with adequate data by January.”
The study is intended to improve the available jail population data for public information, jail population analysis and social science research. The agreement highlights an ongoing need to track jail population statistics and to provide the information that policymakers and the public need to understand and respond to what is driving the growth, or decline, of the jail population.
Veterans Treatment Court and future Mental Health Court
Hays County’s Veterans Treatment Court just added another service provider to its program.
The Veterans Treatment Court has saved the county over $250,000 and positively impacted 103 Veterans’ lives. The program has drastically improved over the last three years increasing its graduation rate from 62% to 93%.
From the Hays County website, the Veterans Treatment Court’s mission is to successfully rehabilitate veterans by diverting them from the traditional criminal justice system and providing them with the tools that they need to lead a productive and law-abiding lifestyle.
Shell hopes that this program will model a future Mental Health Court, spearheaded by Judge Tacie Zelhart. Although delayed, Shell says he expects the Mental Health Court to be developed, “sooner than later,” thanks to the successful model of the Veterans Treatment Court.
Other Indigent Defense Work
Hays County’s Indigent Defense Coordinator Program, funded by the Texas Indigent Defense Commission (TIDC) has been in effect for over a year now, working to improve the appointment process and document that Hays County is in compliance with the Fair Defense Act.
Indigent Defense Coordinator Kelli Pulpan said in a commissioner’s court meeting that her efforts have taken a lot of work off of court staff and judges. She has been appointing felony attorneys to misdemeanor cases and sending representation applications to inmates to increase representation rates.
Also funded by the TIDC, the pilot Padilla Program started in Hays County is being expanded to the rest of the rural areas of Texas.
The Padilla program provides expert assistance to defense attorneys counseling clients whose immigration status could be affected by a conviction. Through the Texas nonprofit myPadilla, defense attorneys are provided with an online platform to interview clients, submit secure intake forms and receive written advisory information individualized for each of their clients.
“Putting all that together, we are working on how best to structure pretrial services and a public defender, all those issues are going to come together,” Shell said. “We have already talked about pretrial bond officers creating an independent pretrial bond office ... See how that can be put together, what role can each organization play and what our options are on that.”