Federal Budget Cuts Diminish Public Defender Services

Federal budget cuts in 2013, known as sequestration, caused a “very, very serious problem” for federal public defenders in providing constitutionally mandated representation of indigent defendants.

When Steve Nolder, the director of the public defender’s office in southern Ohio, began looking to how he was going to cut his office’s expenditures by 11 percent, he concluded his best option was an altruistic one. He fired himself.

Over the last few years, Nolder had hired lawyers to keep up with the 1,100 cases it saw in 2012 alone. “The people that came here to work for me from outside the district, moved their families here, are not necessarily licensed to practice law in the state of Ohio — they don’t have to be to practice solely in federal court,” Nolder said. “And it seemed to me wholly unfair to target these people, the last in, to be the first out, knowing they had no opportunities in the legal community.”

“And one of the curses or benefits of being in the legal community for as long as I have is, hopefully, you have established a reputation, and, through that reputation, you maybe can do something else,” he said. “I’m going to do criminal defense work. That’s all I have ever known. I don’t have anything else in my DNA to do. And you know what? I’ll be all right … I will be fine. I worry about the office. I hope they are fine too.”

A $308,000 cut within six months makes that outcome debatable. Nolder’s office cut travel, rid itself of cellphones, quit paying for expert witnesses, and ended workforce education and training. A receptionist quit and a lawyer was retiring in June; neither was replaced. The entire staff was going to be furloughed for 17 days. Yet, the hole was not filled.

Ending his tenure as a public defender seemed the office’s best option. “It’s very emotional. It’s been an emotional 45 days to come to this point,” Nolder said as his voice broke.

Other public defenders feel Nolder’s pain. “Things, I gotta tell you, are really tough right now,” said Rene Valladeres, Nevada’s top public defender. “It’s unfortunate that this public defender decided to go ahead and resign, but I can’t blame him, I guess. Things are very difficult right now.”

“The sequester has hit the public defender program very hard. I’ve had to cut travel budgets; its cut everyone’s budgets,” said Dennis Terez, the chief public defender for the Northern District of Ohio. “It’s forced every defender to find money for benefits and salaries to avoid layoffs, but the problem is, nationwide, roughly 85 percent of every defender office [budget] is either salaries or benefits or rent, and you can’t change the rent.”

“It’s a little bit unpredictable. We don’t quite know how this will get handled in every regard,” Terez said. “But certainly, it’s a very, very serious problem.”

The top public defender for the Northern District of Texas, Richard Anderson, said an “outstanding” young lawyer was leaving his office because he could not afford a 25 percent pay cut.

“I have really spent the last seven years really investing in the legal acumen of my office. To see that start to disintegrate…” Anderson said. “I have already moved from infinite rage to some sort of degree of quiet acceptance on my grief cycle, but I hope that articles will shine a light where we can get some relief.”

The workload of public defenders’ offices will not decrease, and all are reporting the need to furlough lawyers.

“One of the hallmarks that makes this a great system—the federal system of justice—is that the indigent are given representation that is quality representation,” Valladares said. “That’s under siege; that principle is under siege right now.”

“A lawyer…might decide that they ordinarily in the past would have had an expert work on some aspect of a case and now they’re thinking, ‘Is that going to cost me a furlough day if I hire this expert—and [cost] everybody else in the office a furlough day?’ So it really becomes a terrible ethical dilemma,” said A.J. Kramer, a Washington, D.C. public defender.

Even a Supreme Court Justice is worried. “At this moment, I would say the public defenders are below the level that would be minimum,” Justice Stephen Breyer told the House Appropriations Committee in March. “And it does really seem to me that there is a serious problem in terms of crime, in terms of justice, in terms of adding cost to the system if you can’t protect the defenders.”

When public defenders cannot represent poor defendants, “the panel” of private defense is used to select an attorney. They often cost more, but have less expertise, says Nolder. “So what Congress is forcing the American public to do is buy the $600 hammer,” he says. “Pay more for less. It doesn’t make sense.”

“These are not luxury services that we’re providing,” Nolder said. “These are constitutionally mandated services, and because they’re mandated, someone has to do it. We either do it, or the panel does it.”

Sources: www.huffingtonpost.com, www.npr.com

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