The request for appointed counsel usually arrives as a single sheet handed across a counter, sometimes at magistration in the small hours, sometimes at the clerk's window a week later, and almost always at a moment when the person filling it out has not slept much and has not gathered a single document. It is a sworn statement. That matters more than its plainness suggests, because the signature at the bottom is made under penalty of perjury, and the numbers written above it will be read by a judge who has seen several hundred of these forms and has a fair sense of what a household actually costs to run.
What the form is asking, line by line
Texas counties write their own indigence standards, within the framework the Legislature set and the Texas Indigent Defense Commission oversees, so the affidavit's layout varies from Harris County to a two-court rural district. The questions underneath do not vary much. Expect monthly income and its source, employment and how long it has lasted, cash on hand and in any bank account, vehicles and what is still owed on them, real property, dependents and their ages, monthly obligations including rent, utilities, child support and existing debt, and whether a spouse has income available to the household. Many counties peg the threshold to a multiple of the federal poverty guidelines that the Department of Health and Human Services is responsible for publishing each year.
A careful reader checks two things before writing anything. First, whether the form asks for gross or net income, because the difference is often several hundred dollars and the wrong figure is the most common reason a form gets kicked back. Second, whether the expense section is there at all. Some affidavits collect income and assets and nothing else, which means the rent and the car note that make the income insufficient never reach the judge unless you attach them or say them out loud at the hearing.
Income and assets are not the same question
Judges distinguish between what comes in each month and what could be converted to cash. A paid-off truck worth six thousand dollars is an asset even though it does not put a dollar in your pocket, and it can be the difference between appointment and denial in a county that counts nonexempt property. Retirement accounts, equity in a house, a tax refund already filed for, and money a relative has offered to lend are all fair game for questioning. What generally does not count against you is income belonging to someone with no legal obligation to pay your legal fees, which is why a parent's salary is usually irrelevant and a spouse's usually is not.
The bond question, and how it is actually treated
Everyone assumes that posting bail ends the conversation. It does not. Texas law is explicit that a court may not consider whether a defendant posted bail, except to the extent that it reflects the defendant's financial circumstances, and the practical effect is that the source of the money is the whole issue. If a grandmother paid a bondsman ten percent on a five thousand dollar bond, that is her five hundred dollars, not yours, and saying so plainly at the hearing usually resolves it. If you posted a cash bond yourself out of savings, the court will reasonably ask what else is in that account. Bring the receipt and the name of whoever paid.
Appointment can be partial, and the bill can come later
A judge who finds you indigent for now can still order you to contribute, either as a flat sum paid into the registry or as a monthly payment while the case is pending. And under the statute governing appointed counsel costs, if the court later determines you have financial resources enabling repayment, it can order you to repay all or part of what the county paid your attorney, typically as a line item in the judgment alongside court costs and any fine. So read the appointment order rather than filing it. Check whether it says partial, check what dollar figure appears, and check whether the judgment at the end includes attorney fees you did not expect.
The timing works in your favor if you ask early. Once a request is made, the appointment is supposed to happen within one working day in smaller counties and three in the larger ones, which means the sheet you fill out at the counter on Tuesday should have produced a name and a phone number by Friday.