The US Senate and House of Representatives have advanced spending bills that would cut millions of dollars from the budget of Defender Services, which represents poor defendants charged with federal offenses.
Earlier this week, Reuters And NPR reported that the $1.5 billion budget requested by federal public defenders was cut in two recent appropriation bills. The Republican-controlled House recommended $1.41 billion, while the Democratic-controlled Senate countered with $1.38 billion.
The reduction appears to stem from a pandemic-era saving of $110 million that public defenders applied to their current budget, allowing Congress to allocate a lesser amount of new money. However, Congressional proposals for the coming fiscal year would respect the lower amount, increasing the possibility of cuts, furloughs and delays for public defenders and the clients they represent.
No member of the Colorado congressional delegation sits on the appropriations committees. Colorado Politics sent questions about the cuts to some congressional offices, but did not receive a response.
Virginia L. Grady, who heads the Office of the Federal Public Defender for Colorado and Wyoming, spoke to Colorado Politics about the effect Congressional spending cuts, if passed, would have on the administration of justice and the provision of a criminal defense.
FAST FACTS:
- Virginia L. Grady has served as the federal public defender for Colorado and Wyoming since 2013, having joined the office in 1990.
- Congress created the public defense system and private “panel counsel,” who represent indigent defendants when the public defender has a conflict, after the 1963 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Gideon v. Wainwright.
- There are 4,100 employees in the federal public defense system.
- Defense services imposed a hiring freeze in response to potential congressional spending cuts and estimates it should cut 500 positions.
Colorado Policy: When did you learn that the House and Senate were proposing to cut tens of millions of dollars from the public defenders budget?
Virginia Gradi: We only found out when the house brand — that’s what they call it — house brand release was at the end of June. It was the first. The same process happens in the Senate Appropriations Committee, and it happened last Thursday.
The Senate’s rating was even worse than the House’s. No idea this was happening until we saw the markings.
pc: I guess when the House released its proposal, you weren’t very surprised because it’s a Republican-controlled House. They are interested in reducing expenses. But in a Democratic Senate, one would expect something different. Is it correct?
VG: We are not politicians – it should be bipartisan. Traditionally, the House mark and the Senate mark are not that far apart. So the two together – to say we were caught off guard doesn’t describe the depth of our shock.
pc: Reportedly, this reduction is the product of the pandemic and the postponement of approximately $110 million in savings. So the budget you are currently in was set at a lower rate, but you had the carryover.
VG: The House began by asking what the vote was. They started with the 2023 budget request. Defender Services had money from previous appropriations that was “in the bank”.
So when the House looked at our budget proposal for 2024, they just looked at the appropriation, which was $1.38 billion, knowing—I don’t know if they looked or not—that that was only a fraction of what we needed. It’s about 93%. But it’s a lot of money.
The next thing that happens is last week, the Senate Appropriations Committee takes it from there and their group looked at our agencies. I don’t know what they did. But that’s how we lost $70 million.
pc: Have you spoken since last week with any members of the Colorado congressional delegation?
VG: Yes I have.
pc: What was the response?
VG: Concerned, let me say this. Very concerned. Other advocates contacted other senators. We try to do as much outreach as possible to educate members of Congress on these appropriations committees about the incredible damage they are doing to our organization.
pc: Is the concern bipartisan in Colorado?
VG: I don’t know the answer to that. We need as many defenders as possible because the possibility of correcting this mistake is, as I understand it, quite limited. It must be done now.
pc: Let’s say the most restrictive amount, the Senate amount, takes effect. What will this mean for your office budget?
VG: I do not know yet. We are already hurt. And everyone is. Because as soon as this news came out, Defender Services declared a hiring freeze. Basically loaded, we couldn’t hire. We all have vacancies, but we couldn’t fill them.
We have just been investigated by the US Courts Administrative Office. A study was done to assess our staffing needs, and it revealed that we were already operating with a fairly large staffing deficit. We have not started adding these employees. These budgets have just erased these additional FTEs (full-time equivalent workers).
Are three vacancies I can’t fill hurting us? Yes, they do. So we are already under water. Our budget consists of approximately 80-82% salary and benefits. Add rent – because we all pay rent for our space – that gets you almost 90% of the money already committed. It’s not like, “Oh, we can’t buy furniture.”
We have clients in 10 to 13 different prisons in the state of Colorado. And in Wyoming, the vast majority of detained customers are in Scottsbluff, Neb. So just to see our customers, to take care of them, that’s a lot of time on the road. I’ve lost count, but a considerable number of our clients and customers (private, government paid) are in Pahrump, Nevada. It’s on the edge of Death Valley. So we have to go there and see our customers.
I say all this because the lack of staff is a factor. You can never have enough people to hunt all these cases. We used our carryover money to reduce the amount of fresh money Congress had to give us. Now, this year, in this budget, we are being penalized for that.
pc: In the public defenders’ budget request, there are specific reasons why things are more expensive now: the increased caseload since the COVID-19 pandemic, the Jan. 6 rioter lawsuits at the U.S. Capitol, and the Supreme Court ruling. McGirt v. Oklahoma decision referring certain criminal cases to federal courts. Do any of them affect your desktop?
VG: Yes. We didn’t take the January 6 cases, but there were a lot of offices that did. The coverage of these cases – it requires a trip to DC There are all kinds of other work and expenses that go into this representation. This will reduce our ability to cover these cases.
Same for the McGirt case. It’s a tap of violent crimes and other lower level cases that come from the homelands and we won’t be able to help.
pc: What other impacts would this level of budgeting have for your office and your clients?
VG: I think this will result in more clients being detained for longer periods of time because we won’t have enough staff to move cases forward. It will just clog the folders. And records are already running slowly in many jurisdictions. We will not have enough staff to work on these cases.
I’m not just speaking for us, but for the panel attorneys, because they’re not in a position to pick up the slack for us.
We are the product of a promise in the Constitution that all persons charged with crimes have the right to counsel. Our cases cover the full range of topics. It’s not just guns and drugs. We have cases that involve complex fraud charges, murder cases, we have a lot of cases rooted deep in serious mental health issues. All of this forces us to retain experts to advise us on the content of what we’re reading, to help us navigate — for example, what’s wrong with our client? What mental health issue does our client have?
The travel, the cost of investigating these cases, the cost of bringing in experts – our clients come with a host of other issues that we need to identify and resolve. Not just to help the client through the process, but to help the court understand who they are.
All the time and money needed for this comes from this very small part of our budget.
Defenders have been working 24/7 to figure out what we need to do. Now we are only covering our tracks.
