Justice Sequestered
By THE EDITORIAL BOARD
The madness of Washington’s across-the-board budget cuts known as
sequestration is causing real damage to the American justice system —
undermining the sound functioning of the courts and particularly
imperiling the delivery of effective legal representation to poor people
accused of federal crimes.
The $350 million reduction in the federal judiciary’s budget for fiscal
2013 has resulted in a roughly 8 percent cut to the network of
high-quality federal defender offices across the country. It has forced
the layoffs of many experienced lawyers who have devoted their
professional careers to the underappreciated and underpaid work of
representing indigent federal defendants. And it has inflicted a pay cut
on the defenders who remain on staff in the form of up to 20 unpaid
furlough days.
These hits to the core legal staff have been accompanied by other blows,
including reductions in lawyer training, research, investigation of
cases and expert help, including interpreters. The cuts have also meant
crippling reductions to federal probation and pretrial services,
including mental health treatment, drug treatment and testing, and court
supervision — all with disquieting implications for people’s rights and
public safety.
In April, a major terrorism trial in New York City being handled by
Federal Defenders of New York was postponed until January after lawyers
in that office told the judge that budget cuts had left them short of
resources and staff. The defendant’s family has since hired a lawyer on
its own. Many courts no longer conduct trials on some or all Fridays to
accommodate the furloughs of federal defenders and strains in other
areas, like courthouse security and the availability of federal
marshals.
Judges in certain jurisdictions have warned that they may have to
suspend civil jury trials if financing is not restored. All this comes
on top of the budget-driven problems plaguing state courts, where
representation of impoverished defendants is also grossly underfinanced.
The cuts for federal defenders may actually end up costing taxpayers
more. Because indigent defendants still have a right to counsel, new
cases that would ordinarily be handled by a federal defender will
inevitably be taken up by court-appointed private lawyers. That will
lead to worse results at a higher cost, according to academic studies.
That things have reached this point is a deep embarrassment for a nation
grounded on the rule of law. Yet it appears that the situation is about
to get much worse. Federal defender offices have been told to prepare
for another round of cuts of roughly 14 percent for the 2014 fiscal year
that begins Oct. 1.
The executive committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States,
which sets policy for the federal judiciary, should seek ways to
minimize the damage. For instance, it might reallocate funds from less
critical administrative areas, spreading the pain of new furloughs
across the judiciary staff (except judges). Or it could budget for a
delay in fees to court-appointed private lawyers, thus lessening the
need for immediate deductions.
But there are really no good alternatives here, given the continuing
partisan standoff in Congress as well as lawmakers’ unwillingness to
provide the emergency supplementary financing the courts have asked for.
Reducing the hourly rates private lawyers are paid, as some have
proposed, would simply compound the existing problem of finding capable
private lawyers who will fully defend indigent clients.
One thing that might help is a louder and more forceful declaration from
Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. about the damage the sequester is doing
to America’s courts — the subject of a much-needed Senate Judiciary
subcommittee hearing scheduled for Tuesday by Senator Christopher Coons,
a Delaware Democrat. If nothing else, drawing attention to the plight
of federal defenders should make it harder for anyone to claim that the
sequester’s impact is no big deal.