The Office of the Federal Public Defender, Western District of Texas, operates under authority of the Criminal Justice Act of 1964 (CJA), 18 U.S.C. § 3006A. It provides defense services in federal criminal cases and other covered matters to individuals who are financially unable to obtain adequate representation. A person’s eligibility for defender services is determined by the federal court. Defender organization attorneys may not engage in the private practice of law.
The defender organization for this district is headquartered in San Antonio, and it has staffed branches in El Paso, Del Rio, Austin, and Alpine.
The primary purpose of this site is to support CJA panel attorneys of the Western District of Texas in their appointed cases. Additionally, information is provided for federal defendants and others interested in criminal cases in our district. None of the information on this site is intended as, or should be taken as, legal advice.
The Office of Defender Services' Training Branch's Annual Federal CJA Trial Skills Academy (TSA) is scheduled for April 22-27, 2012, in San Diego, California.
A new crop of amendments to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and Federal Rules of Evidence took effect on December 1, 2011. Most of the procedure rule changes are designed to make the rules more technology friendly; the evidence rules have been restyled to make them easier to understand, but without changing any substance. A summary of the amendments is available here; also available are clean versions showing the amendments incorporated into the procedure and evidence rules.
The Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-220, lowered crack cocaine sentences based on quantity-based statutory minimums. After substantial litigation, the Department of Justice has agreed that the new lower minimums apply to all cases sentenced on or after the Act's effective date, August 3, 2010. Despite the Government's concession, the courts of appeals remain divided over whether the reduced minimums apply to crack offenses committed prior to that date. The Supreme Court recently granted certiorari in a pair of cases—Hill v. United States and Dorsey v. United States—to resolve that question.
A new set of amendments to the United States Sentencing Guidelines took effect on November 1. The Sentencing Resource Counsel Project has prepared a helpful summary of the amendments. Significant changes include: making permanent the temporary amendments promulgated in the wake of the Fair Sentencing Act; a limitation on the use of certain prior convictions for enhancments under the illegal reentry guideline; a recommendation that a term of supervised release not be imposed on alien defendants likely to be removed from the United States upon completion of their terms of imprisonment; increased penalties for straw purchasers of firearms and for exportation of firearms and ammunition; and elimination of language from the mitigating role guideline that tended to discourage application of the adjustment.