Capital Murder Public Defenders are Keeping Busy
By: Lauren Murphy
Updated: April 15, 2008
In the wake of the Rosendo Rodriguez trial, a new public defender office has its hands full.
"In a death penalty situation, there is no room for error and we know that there is error," said Jack Stoffregen, chief of the West Texas Regional Public Defender Office for Capital Cases.
This is the state's first and only office of its kind.
"The office was formed to make sure we have a pool of people to defend these people, and to make sure representation was effective," said Stoffregen.
They only take cases in which the accused is poor, and the death penalty is an option.
Stoffregen has been involved in death penalty cases since the seventies, but says it's too consuming and too specialized for a court appointed attorney.
He knows that over the next several years some of his clients will be sentenced to die, but says this new office will help keep justice alive.
