Many Were Held In Rural Texas Kinney County Jails, For Over 100 Days -- WITHOUT Being Charged.

Now that they are finally seeing judges, the detainees are almost universally being. . . set free.

The Constitution guarantees the right to be promptly charged, or released. Usually six elapsed days at max., especially if not a felony case. Most of these men were only charged several weeks later, on unconstitutionally-vague non-felony charges -- charges that did not even specify whose land, or where, the supposed accuseds were. . . "trespassing". Again, they rightly are being set free. In sum, Texas is a. . . failed state, as to any matter that impacts local migrants' rights. It seems Abbott cannot. . . read. Here's a bit, from a local outlet:

. . .[W]ith nearly every step into the new state criminal justice system for migrants, Kinney County officials have stumbled.

When arrests first began in the ranching county, about 150 men sat in prison for weeks without being appointed attorneys, which Texas law requires to happen within days of a person requesting one. In September, a state district judge ordered nearly 250 men, the majority arrested in Kinney County, to be immediately released from state custody on bond because they were being illegally detained, held for more than a month without the state filing charges against them.

In three court hearings for migrants last week, defense attorneys challenged the cases against migrants arrested in Kinney County because the prosecutor’s charging documents didn’t include necessary information — like where the migrant allegedly trespassed, to whom the property belonged and what notice was given to the defendants that entry was forbidden. At least some of the complaints listed vaguely that the defendant “did then and there, with notice that entry was forbidden, enter agricultural land of another. . . ."

Many of Kinney County’s legal mistakes have stemmed from the county attorney’s office, which prosecutes misdemeanor crimes like trespassing. The office has only one lawyer, Brent Smith, who was recently elected to the job without any listed experience in criminal law, according to his LinkedIn profile. In court, Smith has been noticeably absent, instead enlisting other prosecutors from across the state to act as temporary assistant county attorneys. . . .

George Lobb, an Austin attorney representing a migrant client, said more concerning than Smith’s absence from court is his activity outside of the courtroom, where he repeats anti-immigration rhetoric in memos and on social media and has spoken against migrants. . . .

At a minimum, most of these folks could obtain a dismissal by simply showing the prosecutor's on record statements, as evidence of prosecutorial bias. We shall see. . . but many officials in, and residents of, rural Texas seem to have. . . lost their minds.

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