Texas Fair Defense Project
Incorporated in 2006, the Texas Fair Defense Project works to improve the fairness of Texas’s criminal courts and ensure that all Texans have access to justice. TFDP aims to improve the public defense system and challenge policies that create modern-day debtors’ prisons filled with poor people who cannot afford to pay fines and costs related to their criminal case or commercial bond fees.
THE CASE
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TFDP along with the Civil Rights Clinic at the University of Texas School of Law and the private law firm Susman Godfrey are filing a class complaint against a Texas jurisdiction seeking injunctive relief for all people at risk of being jailed as a result of the unconstitutional practices of the jurisdiction, in violation of long-standing U.S. Supreme Court precedent holding that an individual cannot be jailed for the inability to pay a fine.
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Garces Robles, et al. v. Ramirez, et al., WDTX
TFDP’s case seeks damages for four plaintiffs who were overdetained for periods ranging from 13 to 42 days under Operation Lone Star (“OLS”). OLS is the migrant arrest program launched in Texas in 2021 whereby state and local law enforcement arrest people they suspect are undocumented and charge them with trespassing. Arrestees are then funneled into a criminal legal system separate from the one that handles all non-OLS cases. They are detained in prisons converted into jails, prosecuted for trespass with enhanced sentencing under a state “migration disaster” declaration, and deported, all with financial incentives from the state to counties that participate. OLS has flooded courts with thousands of excess cases and established a shadow detention and criminal legal system.
In the interplay of the usual law enforcement entities with new agencies, procedures, and facilities, migrants are routinely overdetained, the plaintiffs in this case among them. They now seek relief from the counties, local officials and private contractor who caused them to be held for weeks to months after their cases had ended. TFDP looks to establish precedent for use in future litigation challenging both OLS and overdetention and to affirm the bedrock principle that the government may not confine people without legal authority.
CASE UPDATES SINCE GRANT YEAR
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Gonzales et al. v. City of Austin
Through their grant brought litigation on behalf of persons who were jailed for being unable to pay misdemeanor tickets in violation of their constitutional rights not to be incarcerated because of non-criminal behavior—poverty. Suit was dismissed without prejudice, but settlement discussions resulted in the cessation of the practice.
