Val Verde County public defenders office handles most county criminal cases

Val Verde County’s move toward a public defenders office has already reshaped how most criminal cases are handled, with the new regional office taking on about 90 to 95 percent of the county’s caseload so far this year. County commissioners were told the Far West Texas Regional Public Defenders Office had opened 525 cases by the time of the June meeting, a rapid expansion that officials say could lower long-term indigent defense costs while keeping cases moving through the courts.

The office began contracting with Val Verde County in 2025, opened its Del Rio location at 313 Pecan St. on Oct. 1, 2025, and started taking all county cases on Dec. 1, 2025. Its regional headquarters remains in Alpine at 206 W. Ave. E., and the office lists business hours of Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Central. County officials say the shift gives the county a more centralized defense system than the old case-by-case model built around appointed private lawyers.

Paul Chambers, the first assistant public defender and head of the Val Verde County office, told commissioners the transition has moved faster here than in some other counties, where it has taken as long as 21 months to move cases over. That speed matters in a county where criminal defense has long depended on piecemeal appointments, including a separate capital murder defense agreement with the Regional Public Defender in Lubbock that cost the county $15,177 a year.

The new public defenders model was tied to a $1.6 million Texas Indigent Defense Commission grant approved in June 2025 for Culberson County to expand the Far West Texas Regional Public Defender Office into Val Verde and Terrell counties. The county’s own agenda packet says that office operates as a department of Culberson County, and commissioners later considered an interlocal agreement with Culberson County on July 30, 2025. Val Verde County district and county courts also adopted an Operation Lone Star indigent-defense addendum on April 24, 2025, to create a countywide alternative program for certain jailable misdemeanors and non-capital felonies.

The biggest test ahead is whether the office can keep up as it grows. Commissioners and County Judge Lewis G. Owens Jr. questioned Chambers about hiring decisions involving local staff members related to Sheriff Joe Frank Martinez and County Attorney David Martinez, underscoring the scrutiny that will follow the program as it expands. State funding now covers about 80 percent of the office budget, but the next decision point will be how fully Val Verde County commits to the new model as the office settles into day-to-day handling of criminal defense in Del Rio.