Rodney Ellis - Texas Senate Record - Criminal Justice

Criminal Justice

In 2001, Ellis authored and passed the Texas Fair Defense Act, overhauling the Texas indigent defense system by focusing on four critical issues: timely appointment of counsel, method of counsel appointment by the courts, reporting of information about indigent representation services, and minimum standards for counsel. The legislation required all criminal courts in Texas to adopt formal procedures for providing appointed lawyers to indigent defendants.

The Texas Fair Defense Act also created a new state indigent defense commission, the Task Force on Indigent Defense (now called the Texas Indigent Defense Commission), to oversee the implementation of the Texas Fair Defense Act and administer a new state program for awarding indigent defense grants to counties.

In 2009, Ellis sponsored and passed legislation to establish the Tim Cole Advisory Panel to identify and study the factors that contribute to wrongful convictions. The panel was named in honor of Tim Cole, a young man who died in prison after being wrongfully convicted of rape.

As a result of the work of the Tim Cole Advisory Panel, in 2011 Senator Ellis authored a package of legislation to reform and improve the reliability of the Texas criminal justice system, which included eyewitness identification reforms to address the leading cause of proven wrongful convictions, and legislation to ensure that if there is DNA evidence available to prove someone’s innocence, it can and will be tested.

In 2009, Ellis authored and passed legislation to create the Office of Capital Writs, the state's first statewide public defender office, to manage death penalty appeals. Texas has the highest number of executions since 1979 - over four times the next state with the second highest number. Texas also has a high number of wrongful convictions relative to other states in the U.S. The Office of Capital Writs is "entrusted with advocating on behalf of indigent individuals sentenced to death in Texas. The office works within the judicial system to safeguard the Constitutional rights of the individual through high quality legal representation."

Ellis has "led legislative efforts to increase compensation for the wrongfully imprisoned." In 2001, Ellis authored and passed legislation that increased the amount of compensation, increased the statute of limitations for claiming compensation, and allowed convicted persons found to be innocent to seek relief and compensation from the courts, rather than by pardon. In 2011, Ellis sponsored and passed comprehensive exoneree compensation reform legislation, which provided health care to the wrongfully convicted, established standards for attorney’s fees in compensation claims, and helped exonerees to receive compensation.