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D.C. Area Federal Courts Reduce Staff because of Sequester Cuts

D.C. Area Federal Courts Reduce Staff because of Sequester Cuts

by Derek Gilna

The sequester represents only a 3% across the board cut of federal spending, but it will have a noticeable impact on the operation of U.S. district courts, in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia. However, according to Congressional leaders, the actual loss of federal judicial funding will be closer to 5%, or $350 million dollars.

According to the Washington Post, “federal prosecutors, public defender and U.S. marshals ... in Maryland, Virginia, and the District, have all been told to plan on the possibility of taking more than a dozen furlough days beginning as soon as this month.”

The presiding judge of the U.S. District court in Washington, D.C., Royce C. Lamberth, has announced that he will call off criminal proceedings every other Friday beginning April 26. He also hinted that this could be just the beginning of cutbacks, stating, “The real question is, what happens next year? We just don’t know.”

Most federal expenditures for building operations and other large fixed expenses must continue to be made, so the obvious area to cut is employee salaries. This will in all likelihood result in the continue furloughing of probation officers, less drug testing, less courthouse security, and more trial delays. It will also result in bathrooms, courtrooms, and hallways not being cleaned as often.

The public defenders offices have also not been exempted from the cutbacks. Many will be forced to take as many as 27 days of unpaid leave before the end of the fiscal year in September. That, of course, means lower salaries for public defenders that receive modest compensation to start with, and possibly staff turnover.

Michael S. Hachmanoff, federal public defender for the Eastern District of Virginia, stated, “It’s tremendously demoralizing, even for people who are used to fighting against extraordinary odds. These cuts are devastating. At some point, the program can’t survive.”

Maryland’s federal public defender, James Wyda, said that attorneys in his office have begun taking the first of up to 20 furlough days: “We hate doing it, because we’re supposed to take cases (involving travel and expert witness costs). It’s a very difficult time for our lawyers and our program, and I think it’s a sad day for our justice system.”

Federal prosecutors fared no better when it came to furloughs. They have been told by Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. to prepare for no more than 14 furlough days. The Justice Department says that the sequester will result in 1,600 federal civil cases and 1,000 fewer criminal cases being handled by prosecutors.

Looming in the distance is the budget for the new fiscal year beginning October 1, where it appears that there will continue to be reduced funding across the entire Justice Department. Attorney General Holder has already been forced to transfer money from other agencies to avoid layoffs and furloughs of prison guards in the Bureau of Prisons (BOP).

Left unsaid in all of these doom and gloom statements is the collective yawn that can be heard emanating from the average taxpayer, for whom a 3% reduction in income is not all that uncommon. Other observers familiar with the empty silence in most federal courtrooms after 3 pm most days were probably even less impressed. Anita Jarman, a spokeswoman for the D.C. Superior Court, commented that a training conference for judges that was to be held at a golf and spa resort in Pennsylvania had been moved to a local site, showing that in these days of declining budgets even judges have to endure some inconvenience.

 

Source: www.washingtonpost.com

           

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