Travis County Commssioners Court
December 30, 2003
The Closed Caption log for this Commissioners Court agenda item is provided by Travis County Internet Services. Since this file is derived from the Closed Captions created during live cablecasts, there are occasional spelling and grammatical errors. This Closed Caption log is not an official record the Commissioners Court Meeting and cannot be relied on for official purposes. For official records please contact the County Clerk at (512) 854-4722.
Citizens Communication
Now, citizens communication. Is first, one citizen has signed in. Gus pena. A citizen who has not visited with us in quite some time.
>> there's a reason for that, judge.
>> good morning, gus.
>> good morning Commissioners, good morning, judge, happy late christmas to you all and happy new year to you all, may god keep you all safe, healthy and strong, gracias Commissioner Gomez. You know the high respect that i've had for you all, i've always praised you all's work for the adequacy, not one time, o times, three times. I want to tell you something, the criminal justice system is fouled up. The criminal justice system needs a great reform. It needs a whitewash. People are framed, people are falsely accused, and it takes a lot to clear up your name because a lot of people tend to believe what is said out there. You have seen a lot of defendants out there, a lot of clients that have claimed to be innocent and guess what? For the latter part of their lifetime, they go to civil court and find out that they indeed are innocent but a lot of people trash them, with trash talk. When an individual is -- is accused much a crime, they are incarcerated. Sometimes the wait is up to 17 days to get a court-appointed attorney or to get a court date. That's not acceptable. Court-appointed attorneys. I don't know what accountability process the county has to ensure that the inmate of the client or the defendant has appropriate or good legal representation or adequate legal representation, I don't know what it is all is but you all need to do that because it's not being done. Court-appointed attorneys do not visit their client at del valle. Horror stories where they wait 17 to 21 days until they get their court date. Fair and speedy trial, no, there are a lot of glitches in this system. I think each and every one of you all know me. I don't give up, when I take a task, advocate, I don't give up, I see it to the end. My god give me the courage, wisdom, I am going to take this on, to the legislature, whenever I have to, but there needs to be reform. Somewhere, somehow, you all need to revisit and look at that court-appointed attorney system. When clients or inmates request copies of certain documents that they need in order to provide information, that will help their case, it doesn't happen. I will grant you this much. Some attorneys do visit their clients at del valle. But the majority of them don't. I'm not criticizing attorneys because I have a lot of friends that are attorneys here that I in it when I was a bailiff here, I have a lot of good friends that I always support, but there has to be an accountability process to make sewer that the -- that they receive outstanding representation, otherwise things happen in front of the judge that are counter productive for the client or the inmate. Like I said, some attorneys, court appointed attorneys don't visit clients in del valle for one reason or another, they have that telepromise or telecast system they don't use it. A lot of inmates and families suffer because of this. Something has to be done because it is counter productive for the clients. If you have any questions give me a call, I will give you my cell phone number, 636-[indiscernible], we will sit down and talk, talk about how things happen to the family structure when people are falsely accused or framed for something that they didn't do. I will leave it at that. Travis County and the city of Austin, the state of Texas, the federal government need to really remain cognizant of the fact that all of us need transitional housing for homeless families, a lot of push and effort has been done for sro, single room occupies, I appreciate all of the effort that you have done and all of the organizations that have advocating for this. But the fact remains that transitional housing for homeless families, there really isn't a strong advocate for that. I read in the [indiscernible] paper that there is some sort of a push but I think mayor pro tem goodman back in 1995 who started the push for assistance for transitional housing. I'm hoping that we get even stronger advocacy and push from the Commissioners court. I grant you all have done a great job in housing, affordable housing, I commend you all, harvey, the rest of them, he's a good friend of mine, but still we need to get transitional housing for homeless families. Living in a hotel is not productive, kids can't thrive or do their home work. I can tell you where, how many, i've visited, been there, done that. I rode capital metro this morning, my car broke down, I'm not here to solicit any kind of oh, sorry about that, all that. I had a good time. It was good. But a rider I asked her about getting off on congress avenue to get to lavaca and she gave me the wrong information, she sent me eastbound, hoked the horn, said, sir I think that I gave you wrong information, lavaca is that way. I said I know ma'am, she was very helpful, very professional, I appreciate that very much. I will leave it at that, but i've leave this one last thing that I started a long time ago, kiss your children, hug your children, tell them that you love them, because you might not have them tomorrow. Good bless you, happy new year, thanks for what you do for the county and for everybody else also, thank you very much.
>> thank you.
>> thank you, gus.
>> could I address a couple of things, gus before you leave. Do you think that most people that get arrested and are incarcerated, do you think that they have done something that would indicate that they did something against the wall. You may find out down the way maybe you didn't do what we thought you did. But don't you agree that most people that get arrested are at least are put in the system to come before the judicial system, there is great suspicion that they have done something illegal. Can you and I both agree.
>> I agree there are a lot of people accused of a crime and are guilty of a crierjs but there are a lot of people out there accused of a crime and falsely framed that are not guilty of a crime.
>> which one is it a lot of, a lot of not or a lot of. I think most of the time when you get arrested gus I think that you have done something where law enforcement thinks that you disobeyed the law.
>> okay.
>> my gripe on this thing, because I agree, I think I would like to see this looked at very hard, but wherever we start talking about all of these things like clients needing to be taken care of, transitional housing, education, all of these -- I mean it's just money. I'm a little upset that we need to spend three-quarters of a million to a million for court appointed attorneys. You know what, when you break the law, I'm offended that I have to turn around and find a budget to turn around and to pay for your attorney if you are going to be disobeying the law, then I hope that you have some money in your pocket that you can afford an attorney. Because we have some programs that's coming up here before us pretty soon that are great program. I mean dare for example. I mean, it's just money. I'm not happy with the way that system works, I'm not happy with the fact that we have got to incarcerate probably the same person two, three, four, five, six times because we can't break the cycle of them breaking the law. But I will tell you that I'm going to -- I'm going to get heavily involved in this thing because I'm not interested in continuing to pay for people that shouldn't be breaking the law. And then I have to put a roof over your head, I have to feed ya, I have to give ya clean clothes, I have to keep it climate controlled, I have to pay for your attorney, I have to pay for your drugs if you are sick, I'm going to tell you, you're right, about one thing, the system needs some tweaking. But I think that we need to have a lot of people in this community stand up and recognize that there are ways that we probably can make some changes in this whole system. But I will be -- you can bet that I'm going to be on top of this because it is something that I have a great interest in. And then we might have the money to do some of the things that we know that we have got to do with homeless and, you know, I don't know why a homeless person has four children. I mean, i've got -- I took an article to Commissioner Gomez's office yesterday that was in the Friday paper about a lady incarcerated at del valle, 24 years old, her oldest daughter was 10 years old, she had five children and she was 8 months pregnant with another child. Something is wrong with this system. I mean, you know, I want to find a way to stop that end of it versus us just having to spend money after money after money and I think that it's a matter of us sitting down. We have got a lot of smart people in the justice system, we have a lot of smart people with the elected bodies. So, you know, if you will work with me, I'm going to need some help from people like you that I know will roll up your sleeves.
>> I will work with y'all, too, because we need instruction on the constitution and how it applies to counties.
>> yes, ma'am, that is very true. Let me --
>> we are way beyond citizens communication, unfortunately. Let's put an agenda item on. We will have unlimited time. And I may even have some recommendations then.
>> I just want to say this.
>> huh-uh. You took five minutes instead of three.
>> other people have taken more than five minutes. We will work with you Commissioners daughter --
>> anybody else for citizens communication whether you signed in or not? Anybody else whether you signed in or not? Then the consent items are next.
Last Modified: Tuesday, December 31, 2003 6:52 AM