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The Texas Fair Defense Project (TFDP) is a nonprofit organization based in Austin, Texas that works to improve the fairness of Texas’s criminal courts and ensure that all Texans have access to justice. TFDP focuses on improving the public defense system and challenging policies that create modern-day debtors’ prisons filled with poor people who cannot afford to pay commercial bond fees and post-conviction fines and costs.
Please consider making an online donation to TFDP. You can learn more about our work through the videos featured on the
Giving Library website.
Our new website will be coming in 2013. In the meantime, check out our Facebook page for updated news and events.
What's New
The Texas Fair Defense Project has sued to obtain the release of a Bastrop resident who was thrown in jail because he was unable to afford to hire a lawyer to help defend him against Bastrop County criminal charges. Read the application for writ of habeas corpus.
The Texas Fair Defense Project has sued to obtain the release of a Beaumont resident who was thrown in jail after she asked for a court-appointed lawyer to help defend her against a Jefferson County criminal charge. Read the press release and application for writ of habeas corpus.
This year marks the 50th Anniversary of Gideon v. Wainwright, in which the Supreme Court held that states must provide lawyers to criminal defendants who cannot afford to pay a lawyer. The right to counsel recognized in Gideon is one of the most important and fundamental rights in a free society, but Texas and other states still struggle to fulfill Gideon’s promise. TFDP joins advocates across the country in marking this anniversary and reaffirming our commitment to helping all people, rich or poor, secure fair treatment and equal justice when they are accused of a crime.
In Heckman v. Williamson County, TFDP represented a proposed class of individuals who were denied lawyers to help them defend against misdemeanor criminal charges. In June 2012, the Texas Supreme Court ruled that TFDP’s clients had the right to seek class action relief in the civil courts for systemic violations of the right to counsel. Williamson County and the misdemeanor court judges agreed to settle the case in January 2013, and to adopt new policies in order to meet their obligation to provide lawyers to criminal defendants who can not afford to pay an attorney.
