The Price of Justice

Hidalgo County is set to pay $8.6 million this year for providing attorneys to criminal defendants who couldn’t afford to hire their own. It’s a cost both state law and the U.S. Constitution obligate local governments to pay – but one that is becoming harder to afford. Hidalgo County’s indigent defense spending has increased from $2 million in 2001 to a projected $9.9 million in 2010 – a 375 percent growth over a decade. Some say that’s just the price of justice in a region with one of the poorest, yet fastest growing populations in the nation. Others insist the county’s model of offering low-income legal services is inefficient, open to abuse and largely unmanageable.

Click here for the searchable database of attorney payments and cases