Criminal Justice Act Hearings to Be Aired Online

The first of a series of public hearings, conducted as part of a comprehensive and impartial review of the Criminal Justice Act, will take place November 16-17, 2015, in Santa Fe, New Mexico, and can be seen live via online video.

The hearings will be held in the State Capitol Building, from 1:15-5:30 p.m. on November 16 and 9 a.m. - 6:30 p.m. on November 17. Live video, and further information about the review process, is available at https://cjastudy.fd.org.

The hearings will be conducted by the Ad Hoc Committee to Review the Criminal Justice Act, which is composed of federal judges, defense attorneys, a federal court employee, a former federal prosecutor, and a law professor. It is chaired by Judge Kathleen Cardone, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.

Over the next several months, additional hearings will be held in Miami; Portland, Ore.; San Francisco; Birmingham, Ala.; Philadelphia; and Minneapolis. 

The Committee also welcomes written comments by email, at CJAstudy@ao.uscourts.gov. Comments also can be mailed to:

CJA Study Committee
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
Thurgood Marshall Federal Judiciary Building, Suite 4-210
One Columbus Circle N.E.
Washington, DC 20544.

Comments may be submitted anonymously, by requesting that identifying information be concealed.

The Criminal Justice Act was passed in 1964 to create a system to provide defense services to financially eligible criminal defendants. Most federal court criminal defendants cannot afford their own lawyers and are represented by court-appointed counsel.

Judicial Conference policy supports a periodic, comprehensive and impartial review of the CJA program. The last such study was completed in 1993.