Chief Public Defender Talks Indigent Defense at Crowded Luncheon

SAN ANGELO – The head of the Concho Valley Public Defender's Office explained his job to a packed room full of conservatives at lunch Wednesday at Napoli's Italian Restaurant for the monthly Pachyderm Club meeting.  

Stephens is the Chief Public Defender for the newly created Concho Valley Public Defender's Office which provides attorneys for individuals deemed indigent by a court.  

According to a recent article, in Tom Green County, the public defender’s office serves as an oasis in the legal desert so common to rural parts of the state.

“I’ve only ever practiced in rural Texas as a public defender,” said Joe Stephens, the chief public defender at the Concho Valley Public Defender’s Office. “I just firmly believe that this is where the need is the greatest.”

Stephens’ office serves a combined population of about 300,000 replacing a system in which private lawyers were assigned on a rotational basis. Instead of ad hoc representation, the new system provides consistent defense for impoverished residents and serves as a needed counterweight to prosecutor offices, he said.

“We are in jail all the time. With every single docket that is happening in any of our counties that demands our presence, we’re there,” Stephens said. “Ideally, it lifts the bar of representation and police work and prosecution and everything across the state.”

The Concho Valley Public Defender’s Office serves 12 of the roughly 70 Texas counties covered by public defender offices, which includes rural and urban parts of the state.

Stephens told attendees the state of Texas through the Texas Indigent Defense Commission funds 80% of the first year cost of the Concho Valley Office which was created by the Tom Green County Commissioners Court in 2021.  The TIDC grant is a five year commitment which pays 67% of the projected cost.  Stephens says the cost savings from the change from appointing private attorneys to the public defender's office allows the grant to pay for program completely.  

As we reported in January 2023, the Texas Indigent Defense Commission awarded the newly created Concho Valley Public Defender's Office a new grant to expand from the Concho Valley into the Big Country after the Tom Green County Commissioners Court approved the plan allowing the local office to work jointly with a new one in Abilene that will cover five additional counties.

Tom Green County Commissioners accepted the TIDC state grant which will provide approximately $2 million to startup the Public Defender's Office in Taylor County which will be operated jointly with the Concho Valley Public Defender's Office under the direction of Chief Public Defender Joe Stephens. The Taylor County office will provide indigent defendants with court appointed attorneys for Taylor, Callahan, Coleman, Jones and Shackelford counties. Each county participates in funding the local portion of the Public Defender's Office.  

The joint operation also includes two additional attorneys for the Tom Green County Office.