Director's Annual Report

Measuring Effectiveness, Containing Costs

The Administrative Office contracted for a series of surveys to gather information about the quality of representation provided by appointed counsel under the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) and related statutes. During FY 2005, more than 460 appeals, district, and magistrate judges, more than 500 CJA panel attorneys, and all chief federal defenders were surveyed. Survey results have been incorporated into the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services' long-range strategic planning, and will be further used to inform the AO, Judicial Conference and Congress about the Defender Services program.

The AO planned and implemented or provided assistance and support for nearly 30 training events for federal defender staff and CJA panel attorneys in FY 2005. A research and planning group has been formed to investigate how to make effective use of distance learning to reach more trainees at a lesser cost per person.

In the technology area, a four-year effort to combine Defender Services program information systems and databases, as well as data from related Judiciary information systems, into a consolidated source of information for reporting and analysis is nearing completion. The Defender Services Management Information System is intended to integrate core workload, resource utilization, staffing, and cost data to assist in evaluating and effectively managing the Defender Services program. Other expected benefits include: enhanced assessment and management of technology investments, closer linkages between automation projects and the business processes, and the creation of a framework to accommodate future components of the automated program management infrastructure. Additionally, a three-year process of converting all federal defender organizations nationwide to the Lotus Notes e-mail system was completed.

A high priority cost-containment initiative of the Defender Services Committee is the development of a source to provide objective case budgeting advice for judicial officers, in order to limit costs of CJA representations in capital and large non-capital cases. A small percentage of CJA panel attorney representations consumes a disproportionately high percentage of program resources. In September 2005, the Judicial Conference approved a pilot program for three circuit positions to assist courts in the case budgeting of high cost CJA panel representations. In October, Director Mecham invited circuit chief judges to identify representatives to help the AO refine the pilot program's requirements. Nine circuits were represented at the December 2005 meeting. In addition, the AO is working with the Federal Judicial Center to produce a case-budgeting training video for judges, which should be completed by March 2006.

In another effort to contain costs, the Judicial Conference approved an amendment to the CJA Guidelines for cases in which the defendant is indicted for a capital offense and it is subsequently determined that the death penalty will not be sought. The intent is to discourage courts from continuing more than one counsel and to avoid the maximum compensation rate.