Justice of the peace indicted over truancy cases

Justice of the peace indicted in truancy cases

By Jeremy Roebuck

jroebuck@themonitor.com

EDINBURG — Hidalgo County Justice of the Peace Mary Alice Palacios’ legal problems mounted Wednesday, a day after she became the focus of a federal civil rights lawsuit.

An Hidalgo County grand jury returned an indictment against the judge charging her with official oppression in her work with truant students, District Attorney Rene Guerra said.

In March, a Monitor investigation revealed that Palacios had sent dozens of teens to jail for terms as long as four months in truancy cases.

Although each was incarcerated for failure to pay fines associated with missing classes, Palacios’ court had no records that any had been advised of their right to an attorney or that they could dispense with their charges through alternate means like a payment plan or through community service, the newspaper found.

In many cases, extended jail terms exacerbated the students’ original attendance problems and in some cases resulted in them being kicked out of school.

Copies of Wednesday’s indictment were not immediately available that evening.

Palacios declined to comment when reached by phone. It was not clear whether she had retained an attorney.

Since 2008, the judge has handled the vast majority of truancy matters in Hidalgo County, including all the cases coming from the Donna, Edcouch-Elsa, Edinburg and Hidalgo school districts.

Her court sent more than 137 teens — all 17 or older — to jail last year for failure to pay fines associated with missing school.

State law protects minors from serving jail sentences for truancy. But once they become legal adults, arrest warrants can be filed against them should they fail to pay fines on open cases or miss scheduled court appearances.

One option available to courts is to sentence them to jail time, with credit awarded toward their fines at a rate of $100 for each day served. However, a judge must first prove they have the ability to pay but have not made a good-faith effort to clear up the debt through other means such as payment plans or through community service, according to statute.

Many of the teens profiled in The Monitor story said incarceration was presented as their only option. Their files in Palacios’ court were missing key documents that would have proven such legally required checks had taken place.

“These people are being intimidated into accepting the court’s decision,” Guerra said in March. “And there’s something that’s very questionable as to her legal authority here.”

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