News Archive

An editorial in the San Antonio Express-News makes the push for the indigent to be represented by a public defender at the initial hearing phase, something that does not currently happen routinely. Dean Emeritus Norm Lefstein was interviewed for the piece, which appeared in the newspaper's online edition on July 21.

Initial hearings are known as magistration in Texas, when charges are filed and bond is set. While the judge, defendant, and prosecutor are all there, often no one is present to advocate on behalf of an indigent defendant.

“It’s a terrible hole,” Dean Emeritus Lefstein said in the editorial “You lose a lot, potentially, when you don’t have a lawyer there because that’s when pretrial release decisions start to be made.”

Dean Emeritus Lefstein led the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law from 1988 to 2002. He is a nationally-recognized expert in the areas of indigent defense, criminal justice, and professional responsibility, and received the Robert O. Dawson Indigent Defense Distinguished Service Award from the Texas Indigent Defense Commission in Summer 2016. He taught criminal law, criminal procedure, and professional responsibility at IU McKinney.