Cactus County

About this Data

In 2022 and 2023, researchers at the Deason Center collected data from thousands of misdemeanor cases across four counties in Texas. These data allowed the research team to illustrate changes in the proportion of defendants represented by different types of counsel at different points in misdemeanor cases.

Green areas generally represent the subset of cases where defendants were either represented by counsel or were seeking an appointed lawyer. Red areas represent cases where the defendant was unrepresented. 

Moving from left to right, the diagrams trace the period between magistration and arraignment. The proportion of defendants in red and green areas changes depending on whether they request or apply for counsel, the outcome of any of those requests or applications, and whether they retain counsel privately.

County Findings

Magistration in Cactus County took place at the county jail, and was performed by magistrate judges. Magistrate judges had authority to appoint counsel and provided paper application forms during magistration to defendants who requested them. After a defendant filled out an application, the magistrate would review it, make a determination on their eligibility for appointed counsel, and, for those deemed elgible, fill out an order appointing counsel. At arraignment, the County Court judge would often ask unrepresented defendants if they wished to apply for counsel. The judge then would either ask the defendant to fill out the application or would obtain information from them orally and fill it out on their behalf in court. The County Court judge would then appoint counsel in cases where the defendant qualified.

Data Legend

1: Application present. Cases were coded ‘yes’ if researchers found an application and the date of the magistration and the date on the application matched. They were coded ‘no’ either if no application was found, or if an application with a later date was found. Two cases were coded ‘retained’ because documents indicated the defendant already had a privately retained lawyer in another pending case.

2: Application decision. Cases were coded as ‘approved’ if a signed order of appointment appeared in the case file indicating the person was approved for appointed counsel following their application at magistration. They were coded as ‘denied’ where such an order indicated the defendant’s application at magistration was denied. (Center researchers found no cases without signed orders.)

3: Arraignment counsel status. The identity of a defendant’s attorney at arraignment was inferred from documents from that arraignment. Cases were coded as ‘court-appointed’ if the attorney’s name matched that on an approved application from a date on or before the arraignment. Cases were coded as ‘Retained’ if the attorney’s name matched that on a ‘letter of representation’ dated on or before the date of the arraignment. Some other cases were coded as ‘Retained’ when researchers found other documents (such as a notice of hearing or motion) that incidentally indicated an attorney was retained on the case. Where no indication of an attorney’s presence at arraignment was found in arraignment documents, cases were coded as ‘unrepresented’.

 

Where the data came from

Deason Center researchers collected documents from a total of 701 misdemeanor cases disposed between January 1, 2021, and September 12, 2022 in Cactus County. Documents were first retrieved from the County Court Clerk’s office and a public, online jail data portal. Researchers were not given direct access to magistration records in Cactus County, but were able to obtain needed information with the assistance of local attorneys. Without showing Center researchers the records, attorneys looked up records one-by-one in a county magistration database and dictated key information which researchers transcribed. Magistration database records were matched to County Court Clerk records using the defendant’s name, their charge, and offense date.

565 cases are shown in the Cactus County diagram, with magistration dates ranging from May, 2013, to July, 2022. 136+XX cases were excluded as follows:

  • 19 were excluded because Center researchers determined the magistration records they had obtained could not be true matches for County Court Clerk records.
  • 23 were excluded because they were among a set of old cases (all dating from prior to 2013) administratively closed by county officials, and where magistration records had all been either lost or destroyed due to the case’s age.
  • In one case, a technical problem with the magistration database prevented retrieval of magistration information.
  • In 93 cases no magistration record was located by researchers in the magistration record database.
  • XX cases were excluded because they were magistrated using a substantively different process than described here.