The Jackson County courtroom has a bunch of new faces in District Court these days. They’re called Crossroads Defenders and they’re a public defender’s office located in Victoria, serving multiple counties, Jackson County Included.
Chief Public Defender Brian Watson founded the office alongside area judges, including Jackson County Judge Jill Sklar. Local judges had long been working toward a solution to the dwindling public defender numbers, and Watson said Crossroads Defenders is there to not only defend clients, but to fill a growing need in areas like ours.
“There is a trend in rural Texas, and really across the United States, of lawyers retiring, aging out, and there is no one to replace them,” said Watson. “Especially in court appointed wheel systems or indigent defense systems.”
The Sixth Amendment to the United States constitution guarantees that those who cannot afford an attorney will be provided one, and Jackson County Judge Jill Sklar said the county bears the responsibility to ensure that happens.
“We have a constitutional duty to make sure that every defendant is represented in a criminal case,” she said. “If you’re looking at jail time, then you have a constitutional right to counsel.”
That counsel, though, is getting harder and harder to come by, because older attorneys are retiring, and according to Sklar, there’s nobody to replace them.
“I think, over the years, as young people have graduated, gone off to law school, started careers on their own, a lot of them aren’t coming back to the rural areas,” Sklar said. “They are going to the to the city and the suburbs, so our wheel has shrunk dramatically.”
Crossroads Defenders was built “from scratch,” to address the issue, according to Watson, and officially began in May of 2024.
“When I started out we didn’t have a building. From scratch means from scratch. We had nothing - not a pen, not a piece of paper. I started working out of the jury room in Victoria at the courthouse.”
Lawyer availability wasn’t the only problem. The other major factor in indigent defense is funding. Where does the money come from to pay for all this?
While Jackson County taxpayers do foot a portion of the bill, and court costs paid by those convicted of crimes contribute, the bulk of the funding comes in the form of grant money, from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission, according to Watson and Sklar.
“The state, recognizing that rural Texas has an issue with providing indigent defense attorneys, created this public defender office or public defender grant that then allows for counties to draw more funds down if they will team up with other counties to create a public defender program,” said Sklar.
Some cases will still require outside attorneys. Death penalty cases, for example, require specialized capital defense attorneys. However, Crossroads Defenders will handle the vast majority of criminal indigent defense.
Today, Crossroads Defenders has their own building, 15 attorneys, and eight support staff.
In addition to focusing on outcomes inside the courtroom, they also look at solutions to other factors that can contribute to their clients’ involvement with the justice system. Attorneys work to address issues facing their clients like poverty, substance use, employment, mental health and more, with the hope that addressing underlying elements can keep their clients off of future criminal dockets entirely. They serve Jackson, Victoria, Lavaca and Refugio Counties.
