Texas Defender David Payma Published in The Dallas Morning News

Texas Defenders is proud to announce that David Payma, Dallas criminal defense attorney and co-founder of Texas Defenders Law Firm, has been published in The Dallas Morning News with an opinion commentary examining the performance, technology, spending, and case backlogs of the Dallas Municipal Court.

Published on August 24, 2026, Payma's commentary, “Dallas Municipal Court is broken. Here's the proof,” draws on both public budget data and his firsthand experience practicing in the Dallas court system.

Read David Payma's full commentary in The Dallas Morning News:
“Dallas Municipal Court is broken. Here's the proof”

For Payma, the issue goes far beyond statistics. As a criminal defense lawyer who regularly represents people navigating courts throughout Dallas and North Texas, he sees how inefficiency in the justice system can affect real people, their jobs, their families, and their ability to put a legal matter behind them.

A Dallas Criminal Defense Attorney Calling for Accountability

David Payma helped found Texas Defenders with a straightforward mission: provide people accused of crimes with experienced, aggressive, and accessible criminal defense while holding the government to the standards the law requires.

That philosophy extends beyond individual cases.

Criminal defense attorneys occupy a unique position in the justice system. They see what happens after an arrest or citation, when a person attempts to obtain a court date, when a case remains unresolved, and when government procedures that may appear routine on paper create substantial problems in the real world.

In his Dallas Morning News commentary, Payma turns that experience toward Dallas Municipal Court itself.

His central argument is simple: when a government institution repeatedly fails to meet its own published performance goals, taxpayers and residents deserve to know why.

What David Payma Found in the Dallas Municipal Court Budget

Payma reviewed publicly available City of Dallas budget and performance information and highlighted numbers that raise serious questions about how Dallas Municipal Court is operating.

According to the figures discussed in his commentary, the Dallas municipal court system costs taxpayers approximately $28.4 million per year while collecting roughly $13.3 million in fines and fees.

That represents a difference of approximately $15 million annually.

Cost alone, however, is not Payma's primary criticism. Courts serve an essential public function, and the effectiveness of a justice system cannot simply be measured by whether it generates more revenue than it spends.

The more significant issue is what Dallas taxpayers are receiving in exchange for that spending.

Payma points to the city's own performance measures.

The judiciary division has been budgeted to docket 175,000 cases annually. According to the figures Payma analyzed, only 93,002 cases were docketed during fiscal year 2024-25—approximately 53% of the stated target.

Yet the target was again set at 175,000.

Payma argues that repeatedly missing a performance target should cause government leaders to ask why the target is being missed, whether staffing and resources are properly allocated, and what structural changes are necessary.

Simply resetting the same goal does not solve the underlying problem.

Dallas Municipal Court's Case Disposition Problem

One of the most concerning figures discussed in the commentary involves how quickly cases are resolved.

According to Payma, Dallas Municipal Court's stated goal has been to resolve 90% of cases within 60 days of citation.

The actual performance cited in his commentary was dramatically lower:

• 38% in fiscal year 2023-24

• 39% in fiscal year 2024-25

For defendants, those percentages can translate into something much more tangible than a line in a municipal budget.

A delayed court case can mean additional time spent worrying about an outstanding charge. It can mean missed work, difficulty navigating warrants or license issues, repeated trips to court, and uncertainty about when a relatively minor legal matter will finally be resolved.

As Payma wrote in The Dallas Morning News, the backlog has a human cost.

Outdated Technology Makes Resolving Dallas Cases Harder

Payma also focuses on something that will sound familiar to many attorneys and defendants who have attempted to navigate the Dallas Municipal Court system: outdated technology.

People increasingly expect routine government services to be available online. Courts in major Texas cities have adopted systems that allow users to perform many basic tasks electronically rather than requiring unnecessary in-person appearances.

Dallas has lagged behind.

Payma specifically highlights the technology attorneys have encountered when attempting to resolve Dallas warrants online, noting that part of the city's system has required attorneys to use Microsoft Internet Explorer—a browser Microsoft discontinued in 2022.

That may sound like a small technological inconvenience, but Payma argues that it reflects a much larger problem.

A modern court system should make it easier—not harder—for defendants and attorneys to resolve cases appropriately.

The Human Cost of an Inefficient Court System

Court statistics can become abstract very quickly.

A defendant experiences them differently.

A person may have to take unpaid time away from work to appear in court. Someone may struggle to determine what needs to be done to address an outstanding citation or warrant. A case that should be resolved relatively quickly may remain open for months.

For people living paycheck to paycheck, even a few hours away from work can create financial consequences.

Payma's criticism is therefore not directed at the individual judges, prosecutors, clerks, or other employees working inside Dallas Municipal Court. In fact, his commentary specifically recognizes the hardworking people operating within the system.

The concern is structural.

Good employees cannot necessarily overcome outdated technology, inefficient procedures, unrealistic performance targets, or policies that have remained unchanged for years.

Meaningful reform requires examining the system itself.

Why Criminal Defense Lawyers Play an Important Role in Government Accountability

The American criminal justice system is intentionally adversarial.

Prosecutors represent the government. Judges oversee proceedings. Defense attorneys protect the rights and interests of people accused of violating the law.

That structure gives criminal defense lawyers an important perspective on how courts actually function.

At Texas Defenders, our attorneys regularly deal with law enforcement agencies, prosecutors, courts, judges, clerks, jails, and other government institutions throughout North Texas. That experience allows us to see both what works and what does not.

Holding government accountable is also an essential part of criminal defense.

When the government accuses someone of a crime, it carries the burden of proving that allegation. Police officers must comply with constitutional restrictions. Prosecutors must follow applicable law. Courts must provide defendants with the procedural protections they are guaranteed.

A defense lawyer's responsibility is not simply to accept the government's version of events.

It is to examine it.

That same willingness to ask difficult questions is at the heart of Payma's Dallas Morning News commentary.

David Payma and Texas Defenders

David Payma is co-founder of Texas Defenders Law Firm and a Dallas criminal defense attorney representing people accused of crimes throughout Dallas and North Texas.

His publication in The Dallas Morning News reflects the broader role Texas Defenders attorneys seek to play in the North Texas legal community: representing individual clients while also participating in the public conversation about criminal justice, courts, government accountability, and the legal system.

Texas Defenders represents clients facing a wide range of criminal allegations, including DWI, assault, family violence, drug possession, theft, weapons offenses, probation violations, and other misdemeanor and felony charges.

Our attorneys handle criminal cases throughout Dallas County, Tarrant County, Collin County, Denton County, and surrounding North Texas communities, including Dallas, Fort Worth, Plano, Frisco, McKinney, Denton, DeSoto, Duncanville, Cedar Hill, and neighboring cities.

Dallas Deserves a Better-Functioning Court System

Payma's commentary ultimately is not an argument against Dallas Municipal Court.

It is an argument for making it better.

Dallas residents should be able to resolve straightforward court matters using modern technology. Court resources should correspond with actual caseloads. Published performance goals should mean something. And when a department consistently falls far short of its own benchmarks, elected officials should investigate the reasons rather than simply repeating the same targets in the next budget.

As Payma concludes in his commentary, criminal defense attorneys spend their careers holding the justice system accountable for their clients.

Dallas taxpayers deserve accountability, too.

Read David Payma's Dallas Morning News Commentary

Read the complete August 24, 2026 commentary from Texas Defender David Payma:

Dallas Municipal Court is broken. Here's the proof — The Dallas Morning News

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About Texas Defenders

Texas Defenders Law Firm is a North Texas criminal defense firm based in Dallas. Our attorneys represent people accused of misdemeanor and felony offenses throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

If you or someone you care about has been arrested or charged with a crime in North Texas, call Texas Defenders at 214-306-9696 to speak with our team about your case.

Texas Defenders Law Firm
3302 Swiss Circle
Dallas, TX 75204
214-306-9696