WASHINGTON (CN) — As budget constraints threaten to shrink the federal judiciary’s already barebones staff of public defense attorneys, a group of Senate Democrats are urging judicial administrators to ensure the program is fully funded in the upcoming fiscal year.
Lawmakers and judicial policy organizations have warned for months that funding for the government’s public defender’s office laid out in proposed 2024 spending legislation does not meet demand. The U.S. Judicial Conference in August told congressional appropriators that the office’s suggested budget fell short by as much as $150 million, and that inking those funding levels would force hundreds of layoffs.
Now, a group of Senate Democrats have foisted blame for the shortfall on the federal judiciary’s administrative office, telling its directors in a letter dated Feb. 29 that accounting decisions made when drafting judicial spending proposals “gave inadequate weight to the foundational and fundamental services the Federal Public Defender program provides.”
“Federal Public and Community Defenders are fundamental to the fair and efficient functioning of federal courts across the country,” wrote the Senate Judiciary Committee lawmakers led by Vermont Senator Pete Welch. “Preserving the public defender workforce is essential to our justice system.”
Under 2024 spending levels, the federal public defender program is in “dire straits,” the letter said, pointing out that budget shortfalls could lead to up to a 12% reduction in the office’s workforce. Those figures match the Judicial Conference’s August report, which forecast that the federal public defender’s office could cut as many as 493 full-time positions.
Federal public defenders are already short-staffed, the Democrats told judicial administrators. The office is down roughly 100 full-time positions compared with authorized staffing rates for the 2023 fiscal year and is about 400 positions behind the administrative office’s own projected needs, they said.
“An overwhelming majority of the Federal Defender budget is dedicated to personnel and space, and any cuts will have devastating impacts,” the lawmakers wrote.
With the 2025 budget season already fast approaching, the group of Judiciary Committee Democrats implored judicial administrators not to repeat the same decisions that led to the current public defense spending gap.
“We urge you to give appropriate weight to funding for Defender Services in you budgetary request that will, at a bare minimum, provide enough resources to ensure federal public defender programs are fully staffed,” the letter says.
If the federal public defender’s office remains underfunded it could have serious consequences for the government’s ability to represent Americans who can’t afford their own counsel.
In its August report, the Judicial Conference warned that staffing cuts would cut down on how many appointments the office could represent and would delay payments to private attorneys who take on public defense cases under the Criminal Justice Act. The stall in payments, which the conference projected could last months, may push private lawyers away from public defender service altogether, it said.
Over 90% of federal defendants rely on court-appointed representation.
The judiciary, meanwhile, is taking some steps to address the issue: In its 2025 budget request, judicial administrators asked Congress to hike funding for the federal defender’s office to roughly $1.7 billion — around 20% or so higher than proposed 2024 spending levels.
For now, though, the federal judiciary and other government programs are being held aloft by a series of stopgap budgets pushed through Congress as lawmakers struggle to find reach a consensus on a package of full-year spending bills.
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