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More than half of the 11,500 inmates crammed into the Harris County Jail have not yet been found guilty of a crime but await their day in court confined with convicted criminals in conditions that repeatedly flunk state and federal safety inspections. The most common accusation against them: possession of a crack pipe or minuscule amount of drugs. Though the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right to a speedy trial, at least 500 county inmates have been locked up for more than a year as they wait to be judged, according to an analysis of inmate data by the Houston Chronicle. About 1,200 have been jailed six months or more though many face only minor felony charges, such as bouncing checks, credit card fraud, trespassing or even civil violations. In fact, around 200 inmates, theoretically innocent until proven guilty, appear to already have served more than the minimum sentence for the crime they allegedly committed, based on the newspaper's analysis of inmate data provided by the Harris County Sheriff's Office. That's what happened to 60-year-old Billy Holmes. Twice. Holmes was arrested the morning of May 16, 2005, by two officers who said he fled when they responded to a disturbance call. Holmes, who has a pair of 20-year-old prior felony convictions, waited nearly a year in jail for his first trial. Then in March 2006, Holmes testified in his own defense that the search was illegal and the pipe wasn't his. As a black man, he argued, he'd been unfairly chased and arrested after being approached as he stood holding a garden hoe and chatting with a friend in front of his home. The jury split. It took five hours of deliberations before jurors decided he was guilty after reviewing statements from arresting officers who said they found the pipe in his hip pocket. He got the minimum sentence of six months. By then, Holmes already had served more time than the given sentence as he awaited trial in Harris County's jail. in June that the county explore alternatives to prosecution for minor nonviolent offenses, release more inmates before trial and try to process all but the most complicated cases, like those involving the death penalty, in less than six months. Drug Charges Common Harris County faces the threat of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit over inhumane and unsafe conditions in its jails, chock full of low-level drug offenders like Holmes. In fact, about a third of all county jail inmates face drug possession charges. Only a handful of accused felons -- just 376 out of more than 38,000 cases last year -- get released before trial based on their own pledge to appear when required, according to reports from the county's own Pretrial Services program. That's a tiny fraction of the 14,966 people who scored as low risk in pretrial interviews last year, one of the major factors judges consider in making bonding decisions. As a result, many people who can't afford to post bail simply stay in jail, including some accused only of misdemeanors. "We're looking at all of that, on scheduling of court cases and so forth, about giving priority to jail cases," said District Attorney Pat Lykos. "Right now you cannot tell by looking at the case how long someone has been in jail ... I can't give you answers right now because we don't have the data to base a rational answer, but we're going to get it and we're going to get it soon." In all, thousands of inmates accused of nonviolent crimes but not yet convicted remain packed into cells so crowded that many sleep on mattresses on the floor. Others are shipped to overflow cells that Harris County rents 387 miles away in Epps, La., at a cost of $9 million last year. "That's one of the ... biggest travesties," said Mark Hochglaube, a Houston attorney who has studied the problem as part of a county committee on indigent defense. Even a person who claims innocence, Hochglaube argues, when faced with the possibility of being locked up for months before getting to trial, will likely plead guilty because first offenders often can get out sooner if they don't fight. Holmes, his lawyer Joseph Varela says, insisted on his right to trial -- even though in the end, it meant Holmes served far more time than he would have otherwise. In fact, Holmes has racked up about 800 days in jail at a total cost to taxpayers of more than $32,000 related to his charge of possession of a lone crack pipe -- a minimum of $40 a day not counting legal or court costs, transportation and other expenses. Houston attorney Patrick McCann, a long-time activist on criminal defense issues, said he believes that the judges' reluctance to release drug and other nonviolent, low-level offenders who can't pay bail is the biggest factor behind the county's dangerous jail overcrowding. Caseload is another factor keeping people locked up longer. The county's 22 district courts handled 45,163 cases filed in 2008, while a decade ago, they handled 27,628 cases. Half of Harris County's district courts have backlogs of a year or longer for 50 or more felony cases involving jailed inmates, the Chronicle analysis showed. Some defendants have waited as long as three years or more to see their cases resolved. A group of Harris County judges recently requested that the county commissioners fund a public defenders office to handle criminal appeals and so-called state jail felonies, low-level cases that commonly clog the jails and courts. So far the commissioners have not responded to that request. Instead that proposal has been folded into the work of Harris County Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, a group formed to study bond, prosecution and other systemic problems behind a 50 percent boom in the jail population from 7,600 in January 2004 to 11,500 in February 2009, the county consultant's report says. The county's annual bill: more than $192 million. Not Yet Judged But JailedA county consultant has recommended inmate case processing should not exceed six months. 11,000: Inmates regularly jailed in Harris County facilities 1,880: Detained pretrial on a single drug possession charge 1,200: Waiting more than six months to be judged 500: Waiting more than a year to be judged Sources: Houston Chronicle analysis of inmates jailed in
July; Harris County consultant's June report on jail crowding. |
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