2021-11-11T15:31:56-08:00 2020-12-31 742981758 Dunagan Jack LLP 3724 Jefferson Street Suite 307 Austin TX 78731 990 2020-01-01 383740913 Texas Fair Defense Project TEXA 5126375220 314 E Highland Mall Blvd 204 Austin TX 78752 Amanda Woog Executive Director 2021-11-11 true Amanda Woog 999009999 Gary Joseph Jack P00184408 5124208997 X 2 AAL1 IAL1 FAL1 2020 2022-09-23 18:48:47Z Amanda Woog 314 E Highland Mall Blvd 204 Austin TX 78752 994184 false X www.fairdefense.org X 2006 TX Texas Fair Defense Project's mission is to fight to end the criminalization of poverty in Texas. We envision a system of justice that upholds the dignity and civil rights of all people, regardless of income, race, or gender. 11 11 8 32 0 924439 986228 188094 0 87 81 7875 1112620 994184 459153 0 264816 459690 0 32479 247507 100624 512323 1019467 600297 -25283 960066 2051663 2026 1118906 958040 932757 Texas Fair Defense Project's mission is to fight to end the criminalization of poverty in Texas. We envision a system of justice that upholds the dignity and civil rights of all people, regardless of income, race, or gender. false false 887100 459153 Texas Fair Defense Project is a team of dedicated attorneys and advocates fighting to end the criminalization of poverty in Texas. We use direct legal services, policy advocacy, strategic litigation and community lawyering to uplift the clients and communities we fight alongside and at the same time hold legal systems and actors accountable. Our client population is disproportionately targeted by the criminal legal system simply because they cannot afford access to justice. They cannot afford to hire an attorney in their criminal case, cannot purchase their freedom through cash bail, have had their drivers licenses revoked because they could not pay ticket and related debt, or are held in jail for failing to pay court debt they cannot afford. They are disproportionately people of color, and are caught in a cycle of poverty, debt and criminal justice involvement because they lack the financial resources to break that cycle. Texas Fair Defense Project provides direct legal services to help clients who are trapped in the criminal legal system find an exit ramp out of system involvement and on with their lives. In 2020, we started a pro bono program to recruit and train volunteer attorneys to represent clients, which allows us to significantly expand our reach. The services we offer are otherwise unavailable to people who cannot afford to hire an attorney: they are in the corners of the criminal law where the government will not provide an attorney to those who cannot afford one, but a person is unlikely to be able to navigate a way out of the system without an attorney or financial resources. The majority of these services are part of our drivers license recovery and criminal debt program, where we help people resolve their court debt and the attendant consequences, such as drivers license suspension, warrants and the threat of jail time. In 2020, TFDP represented 86 individual clients in their traffic ticket and related debt cases, served 143 people at our clinics, and trained 47 pro bono attorneys with 12 cases referred for pro bono representation. Through these services, close to $40,000 in ticket and related debt was waived, and over 50% of clients who participated in these programs have successfully recovered their driver licenses. In addition, we launched with Texas Appleseed an online toolkit and webinar for people to represent themselves pro se: more than 1,700 people have visited the site since it launched. In fall of 2020, we began providing expunction, record sealing, and early termination of probation services. Our 2020 strategic litigation cases focused on modern-day debtors prisons and access to quality counsel. For example, we challenged a sheriffs policy of refusing to disclose the list of people in his jail; the governors executive order that held people in jail during the pandemic because they could not pay bail; and courts practices of assessing attorney fees to people who have been appointed attorneys because they were indigent. We also filed judicial complaints against judges in Harris County for refusing to appoint the public defender office, in violation of state law, which quickly led to an increase in appointments to that office. Our class action lawsuit, Daves v. Dallas County with Civil Rights Corps and ACLU-TX continues against Dallas County for their unconstitutional bail practices with the parties currently in discovery and an appeal pending in the Fifth Circuit. With 2020 being an interim year for the Texas Legislature, our policy efforts focused on local reform. This workespecially in large, urban jurisdictionstouches thousands of lives a year and positions us for reform on the state level. Our local work has focused on pretrial reform and drivers license recovery. We published with our partners at Texas Appleseed two locally-focused reports on drivers license suspensions: Driven By Debt Houston; and Driven By Debt Dallas. Both reports resulted in media coverage and interest from local policymakers to address the problems described in the reports. In Harris County, we achieved a significant victory toward ending drivers license suspensions for unpaid court debt by successfully advocating for the County to end its participation in the OmniBase program. As a result, 30,000 drivers license holds were lifted, and Harris County courts have stopped suspending drivers licenses for unpaid debt. Likewise, Austin City Council terminated their OmniBase contract in Spring of 2020. Over the past three years, TFDP has organically grown our community lawyering program, and that work only intensified in 2020. In our community lawyering work, we act as legal support to community organizations and coalitions led by people directly impacted by the criminal legal system. In 2020, our community lawyering program ramped up amid the protests against the police and calls for reductions in police budgets. We worked in Austin with partners the Austin Justice Coalition, Just Liberty and Texas Appleseed on the #wefund campaign to support reductions in the Austin Police Department budget, achieving a $20 million cut through postponement of cadet classes, as well as an additional $120 million in potential cuts as Austin considers what police functions should move to civilian control. In March 2020, TFDP attorneys recognized the COVID-19 crisis would bring outbreaks to detention facilities, including local jails, where social distancing is virtually impossible, people detained do not have access to sanitizing agents, medical care is abysmal, and many people detained are medically vulnerable. We immediately began working with local community organizations and stakeholders in Austin/Travis County to avert a crisis, as well as working on a toolkit for local officials across Texas to empower them to depopulate their jails in the face of a serious outbreak risk. Early in the crisis, we saw significant population reductions across Texas, including by more than 25% in Travis County. In late March 2020, Governor Abbott issued Executive Order GA-13, purportedly under his emergency powers related to the COVID-19 pandemic, which suspended sections of the Code of Criminal Procedure that are critical to equity and fairness, including judges ability to grant personal bonds to many defendants, good time release for many defendants, and the closest thing Texas has to a speedy trial statute for all defendants. Within 10 days, we filed a lawsuit with the ACLU-TX and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law against the Governor and the Attorney General to enjoin enforcement of that Order. We represented several criminal defense organizations, the NAACP, and all misdemeanor judges in Harris County. We won a short-lived injunction against the Order, which was later overturned by the Texas Supreme Court on standing grounds in an order where the Texas Supreme Court clarified that in individual criminal cases, courts should assess the legality of the Order and overturn it if they find it illegal. Following the Supreme Court order, we learned that people were being held in the Harris County jail past their good-time release dates pursuant to a provision in GA-13 suspending release on good time for certain people. We filed a series of writs of habeas corpus challenging the constitutionality of the Executive Order, and one judge adopted our proposed order declaring the Executive Order unconstitutional, ordering the Sheriff to release all people being held under this provision. Dozens of people were released, and the Harris County Sheriff is no longer enforcing this provision of the Executive Order. 887100 true true false true false false false false false false false false false false true false false false false false false false false false false false false true false false false false false false false false false false false false false false false false false false false true 3 0 false 8 true false false false false false false false 0 false false false false false false false X 11 11 false false false false false false false true false false false true true false true true false true false false X Amanda Woog 5126375220 314 E Highland Mall Blvd 204 Austin TX 78752 Amanda Woog Exec Director 40.00 0.00 X 95000 0 0 Amy Grinstein Chair 2.00 0.00 X X 0 0 0 Allison Hartry Secretary 2.00 0.00 X X 0 0 0 Andrea Marsh Treasurer 2.00 0.00 X X 0 0 0 Mauria Atzil Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Daniel Bloch Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Jennifer Brevorka Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Ben Cukerbaum Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Carlos Doroteo Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Xylia Gomez Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Fernando Martinez Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 Chauntelle Wood Director 1.00 0.00 X 0 0 0 95000 0 false false false 0 65119 921109 986228 0 81 81 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 Other revenues 900099 7875 7875 7875 994184 7956 456653 456653 2500 2500 0 0 95000 66500 14250 14250 0 305729 252562 45417 7750 0 26716 21271 3978 1467 32245 25674 4801 1770 0 0 5977 5977 0 0 0 0 0 23020 18328 3428 1264 0 0 49170 39150 7321 2699 1241 1241 0 0 0 0 308 245 46 17 1827 1827 Other expenses 8971 2976 2733 3262 Client DL reinstatement fees 5117 5117 Dues and memberships 2691 2691 Bank and online donation fees 2302 2302 0 1019467 887100 99888 32479 577348 223625 300958 1566913 75000 245000 0 0 0 0 0 5092 9947 308 0 0 0 0 0 1360 6178 960066 2051663 2026 6531 1112375 2026 1118906 X 731776 678867 226264 253890 958040 932757 960066 2051663 -25283 X false false false X 392503 411003 429286 924439 986228 3143459 0 0 392503 411003 429286 924439 986228 3143459 175760 2967699 54 60 67 87 81 349 0 950 231 1125 7875 10181 3153989 188094 0.94090 0.94280 X RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED RESTRICTED false false 4651 4651 1014816 1019467 176947 44237 false 78821 80747 101848 176947 438363 657545 48460 420 564 4651 54095 19705 20187 25462 44237 109591 164387 Agency fund 1112375 1112375 true Austin Justice Coalition 1603 E 38 1/2 St Austin TX 78722 813138826 501(c)(3) 456653 0 AJC mission 1 0 Form 990, Part VI, Line 11b: Form 990 Review Process The Project's CPA prepares a draft of the return. The Executive Director reviews the draft and then provides an electronic copy to the Board before it is filed. Form 990, Part VI, Line 12c: Explanation of Monitoring and Enforcement of Conflicts From Article IX of the Project's Conflict of Interest Policy:To ensure the Corporation operates in a manner consistent with charitable purposes and does not engage in activities that could jeopardize its tax-exempt status, periodic reviews shall be conducted. The periodic reviews shall, at a minimum, include the following subjects:(1) whether compensation arrangements and benefits are reasonable, based oncompetent survey information and the result of arm's length bargaining; and(2) whether partnerships, joint ventures, and arrangements with managementorganizations conform to the Corporation's written policies, are properly recorded, reflect reasonable investment or payments for goods and services, further charitable purposes and do not result in inurement, impermissible private benefit or in an excess benefit transaction. Form 990, Part VI, Line 15a: Compensation Review & Approval Process - CEO, Top Management The Executive Director's compensation is determined by the Board, based on competent survey information. Form 990, Part VI, Line 19: Other Organization Documents Publicly Available Certain other documents are available upon request.