Is Congress Listening?
Federal Courts Are Sending the Message, but is It Being Heard?
It
is shaping up to be, as one chief judge put it, "a financial
crisis unlike anything in modern history." And federal judges,
alarmed that Congress may fund the Judiciary for fiscal year 2005
at or barely above fiscal year 2004 levels, are writing to
their members of Congress. They're describing how court
services and the delivery of justice would be affected by
cuts in funding. Their message is clear. Without sufficient
funding, the federal courts can't function.
In
June, Chief Judge Donald Molloy of the District of Montana
wrote to his fellow small court chief judges urging them
to bring this impending crisis to the attention of their
congressional delegations.
"It is important to take
the time to help them understand how we operate
shorthanded, before they can comprehend the magnitude of
having no lapse funds to cover operations," Molloy wrote.
The
chief judges of the Southern, Central, Eastern and
Northern Districts of California joined in a letter to
Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA),
all 53 California members of the House of Representatives
and the chairs and ranking members of key appropriations
committees and subcommittees. "The courts are in peril,"
they wrote. "Our ability to provide justice in a timely and
responsible fashion is being jeopardized." The chief
judges detailed how court staffing, supervision and treatment
of defendants, and court proceedings would be impacted. They urged
adequate funding for the courts in FY 2005, otherwise they
would have no choice but to drastically cut services to the
public.
In Alaska, Chief Judge John W.
Sedwick presides over a district that serves an area twice
the size of Texas, with, he notes, a minimal number of
employees. All the court's judges joined in a letter to
Senator Ted Stevens (R-AK), chair of the Senate
Appropriations Committee, describing a district in which the probation
unit has no staff except in Anchorage and Fairbanks, and
where district and bankruptcy courts at Juneau and
Ketchikan already have pooled funds to keep one person in
the Juneau office for a full work week and in the Ketchikan
office for about one-quarter of a work week. Further staff
reductions were inconceivable at all but the Anchorage
court.
"Bluntly put," Sedwick and his fellow judges
wrote, "the courts stand on the brink of a fiscal abyss. If
Congress chooses to fund the courts at FY 2004 levels next
year, it will plunge the courts over the precipice."
Administrative Office Director Leonidas Ralph Mecham hand
delivered the letter to Stevens.
Earlier
this year, the judges of the Northern District of Ohio signed a
letter to appropriators asking for a FY 2005 budget "adequate
for us to maintain our constitutional and statutory
obligations." In the Northern District of Ohio, a hard
freeze for FY 2005 would cost the jobs of 15-20 employees
in the clerk's offices, nearly a dozen probation office
employees, and initiate a rolling staff furlough in the
pretrial services office.
"We don't have bloated
budgets," the judges protested in their letter. "We have
been struggling in recent years to manage the demands of
criminal and civil filings that have been increasing in
both number and complexity. Our dedicated court employees
have been doing more with less. While nobody questions the
priorities of national defense and the war against terrorism,
the decimation of the judicial branch should not be a byproduct.
. . . Please do your utmost to insure an adequate level of
funding for the federal Judiciary in FY 2005."
The
Districts of Oregon, the Western District of Pennsylvania,
and the Eastern District of Wisconsin were among the
courts writing to their congressional delegations. Chief
Judge Rudolph T. Randa's (E.D. Wis.) letter also sounded a
growing concern for the courts—time is running out in this
Congress. As Randa wrote in mid-June, the House
appropriations subcommittee had approved the Judiciary funding
at $391 million over FY 2004, but $159 million below the full request.
"We
are deeply appreciative of the encouraging funding news
but know very little time remains for our appropriation
bill to be passed by the full House and considered by the
Senate. We respectfully urge you to act expeditiously to
avoid operation by the Judiciary under any continuing
resolution or freeze. This would be extremely harmful."
Harmful
indeed. Randa wrote that a hard freeze would result in an
estimated cut of between 10 and 25 percent in the
Judiciary's staffing, and a 50 percent cut in operating
funds.
"Rest assured that we will continue on the cost
containment measures started by our Judicial Conference
Executive Committee," Randa wrote, "but these efforts will
never be enough to cover any significant cut in the
Judiciary's request."
In fact, in courts
like the Southern District of Illinois where they are
already operating below the prescribed staffing formula, cutting
positions to cover the expected shortfall is not an option.
"Instead,"
Chief Judge G. Patrick Murphy wrote in a memo to the court
family, "the court has determined that hours of operation
will be reduced and salaries will be commensurately
reduced." The entire federal Judiciary confronts, as Murphy
expressed in his memo, "a financial crisis unlike anything
in modern history."
Administrative Office Director
Leonidas Ralph Mecham has encouraged judges to educate
local members of Congress about their impending budgetary
hardships.
"Too often we hear that since the federal
courts don't have a constituency, Congress fails to hear
about Judiciary concerns," Mecham said. Not anymore.
"Judges throughout the country are demonstrating admirable
leadership by speaking out about what lies ahead for the
judges, court staff, and litigants who use their courts. If
the funding level is not adequate, staffing and service will be
compromised. It is a sobering message," said Mecham.