Fernando Padron was stuck in a South Texas jail cell. Accused of stealing credit cards that he used to buy diapers, a bike and other goods for his family, he had not been brought into court or spoken to a lawyer.
He did not hear anything about his case for nine months. Finally, in March 2023, prosecutors charged him with a misdemeanor, and he was released. But his ordeal had just begun.
Over the next two years, he would be arrested repeatedly in connection with the theft. He was pressured into a seemingly improper plea deal in one court, only to be charged again in another. At one point, he was in jail for six months before officials involved in his case realized he was there.
Mr. Padron, 27, is a U.S. citizen with no prior convictions, and his offense was minor enough that elsewhere in Texas, he might not have been jailed at all. But he was in the dysfunctional Maverick County court system, where basic tenets of American justice often do not apply.
Officials here openly acknowledge that poor defendants accused of minor crimes are rarely provided lawyers. And people regularly spend months behind bars without charges filed against them, much longer than state law allows. Last year alone, at least a dozen people were held too long uncharged after arrests for minor nonviolent crimes, interviews and records reviewed by The New York Times show.
Some defendants seem to have been forgotten in jail. Two men were released after The Times asked about them, half a year after their sentences had been completed.
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