Sequestration's Impact Being Felt in Federal Indigent Defense

The Hill publishes, "Sequestration threatens to eviscerate federal public defenders," commentary by Michael S. Nachmanoff.  He's the Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia.

In 1963, the Supreme Court ruled in Gideon v. Wainwright that all defendants facing serious crimes are entitled to a lawyer. For more than eleven years, I have proudly worked for the Federal Public Defender program, an organization founded by Congress to fulfill this constitutional mandate.

This afternoon, I will testify before members of the Senate about the threat that sequestration poses to the survival of the Federal Defender system.  It is a bitter irony that, exactly fifty years after Gideon, budget cuts threaten to destroy a program regarded as the flagship of indigent defense in this country. It is equally ironic that these cuts will end up costing the taxpayer more money than they save.

"Public defenders say sequester is hurting poor clients," is by Lisa Rein at the Washington Post Federal Eye blog.

Public defenders and their advocates told a Senate panel Tuesday that the budget cuts known as sequestration are taking heavy toll on legal representation for the poor, causing delays and lengthy furloughs that could worsen next year.

“We are cutting ourselves to the bone,” Michael S. Nachmanoff, Federal Public Defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, told a subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee, which held a hearing on the effects of sequestration on the federal court system.

“We are on the verge of being crippled, and we’re a model of quality and efficiency, ” he said.

Federal defenders already were facing a 5 percent budget reduction when $85 billion in spending cuts began coursing through federal agencies in March, lopping another 5 percent from the budget this fiscal year. Some courts have limited the hours they hear criminal matters. Defenders across the country are taking up to 15 days without pay, forcing postponements in many criminal proceedings.

While the U.S. District Courts, federal marshals and U.S. attorneys were spared furloughs because the Justice Department was able to shift money into the accounts that pay their salaries, the defenders are paid from a different pot of money and got no such reprieve.

"Sequestration's Biggest Victim: The Public Defender System," is by Sam Stein & Ryan J. Reilly at Huffington Post.  This lengthy report is filled with human scale details.

It's roughly 164 miles from Lubbock, Texas, to Abilene; not the furthest drive you can do in the Lone Star State but still a bit of a haul. On a good day, you can make the trip in about three hours, which is what Helen Liggett discovered in April when she had to visit a client in the Taylor County Jail.

Liggett is an assistant federal public defender for the Northern District of Texas, based in Lubbock. Her client Leroy Gream had been caught on camera loading an ATM onto a cart and attempting to steal it from Hendrick Memorial Hospital in Abilene on Christmas Day of last year. Gream, 55, pleaded guilty to bank theft, a charge that carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. But like most people who try to steal an ATM, he didn't have the money to pay for his defense. Liggett was assigned to his case.

On April 8, she drove to Abilene to attend Gream's arraignment at the federal courthouse, which was scheduled for the next day. On May 8, she went back for his interview with the United States probation office in preparation for his pre-sentencing report.

In each instance, Liggett chose to pay for the trip -- $185 for gas and a hotel room -- out of her own pocket. It was either that or not visit her client at all. The budget cuts brought on by sequestration wiped out any travel budget her office had.

In an age of across-the-board budget reductions, Liggett forewent all travel reimbursements for March, April and May. She began buying her own pens and copy paper. She's also been furloughed one day a week and has occasionally taken on the furlough days of her lesser-paid secretary and paralegal. There used to be eight people in her office, but in late June, her boss said that they would have to make due with three.

Earlier coverage of the federal budget sequester begins at the link.