[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2014
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
APPROPRIATIONS
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida, Chairman
JO BONNER, Alabama JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
TOM GRAVES, Georgia MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
KEVIN YODER, Kansas ED PASTOR, Arizona
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
John Martens, Winnie Chang, Kelly Hitchcock,
Ariana Sarar, and Amy Cushing,
Subcommittee Staff
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PART 5
Page
Supreme Court.................................................... 1
District of Columbia Courts and Court Services and Offender
Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia................... 31
The Judiciary.................................................... 107
S
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Printed for the use of the Committee on Appropriations
Part 5
FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2014
?
FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2014
_______________________________________________________________________
HEARINGS
BEFORE A
SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
________
SUBCOMMITTEE ON FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT
APPROPRIATIONS
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida, Chairman
JO BONNER, Alabama JOSE E. SERRANO, New York
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
TOM GRAVES, Georgia MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
KEVIN YODER, Kansas ED PASTOR, Arizona
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
NOTE: Under Committee Rules, Mr. Rogers, as Chairman of the Full
Committee, and Mrs. Lowey, as Ranking Minority Member of the Full
Committee, are authorized to sit as Members of all Subcommittees.
John Martens, Winnie Chang, Kelly Hitchcock,
Ariana Sarar, and Amy Cushing,
Subcommittee Staff
________
PART 5
Page
Supreme Court.................................................... 1
District of Columbia Courts and Court Services and Offender
Supervision Agency for the District of Columbia................... 31
The Judiciary.................................................... 107
S
________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
80-953 WASHINGTON : 2013
COMMITTEE ON APPROPRIATIONS
HAROLD ROGERS, Kentucky, Chairman
C. W. BILL YOUNG, Florida \1\ NITA M. LOWEY, New York
FRANK R. WOLF, Virginia MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
JACK KINGSTON, Georgia PETER J. VISCLOSKY, Indiana
RODNEY P. FRELINGHUYSEN, New JerseyJOSE E. SERRANO, New York
TOM LATHAM, Iowa ROSA L. DeLAURO, Connecticut
ROBERT B. ADERHOLT, Alabama JAMES P. MORAN, Virginia
KAY GRANGER, Texas ED PASTOR, Arizona
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho DAVID E. PRICE, North Carolina
JOHN ABNEY CULBERSON, Texas LUCILLE ROYBAL-ALLARD, California
ANDER CRENSHAW, Florida SAM FARR, California
JOHN R. CARTER, Texas CHAKA FATTAH, Pennsylvania
RODNEY ALEXANDER, Louisiana SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
KEN CALVERT, California BARBARA LEE, California
JO BONNER, Alabama ADAM B. SCHIFF, California
TOM COLE, Oklahoma MICHAEL M. HONDA, California
MARIO DIAZ-BALART, Florida BETTY McCOLLUM, Minnesota
CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania TIM RYAN, Ohio
TOM GRAVES, Georgia DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida
KEVIN YODER, Kansas HENRY CUELLAR, Texas
STEVE WOMACK, Arkansas CHELLIE PINGREE, Maine
ALAN NUNNELEE, Mississippi MIKE QUIGLEY, Illinois
JEFF FORTENBERRY, Nebraska WILLIAM L. OWENS, New York
THOMAS J. ROONEY, Florida
CHARLES J. FLEISCHMANN, Tennessee
JAIME HERRERA BEUTLER, Washington
DAVID P. JOYCE, Ohio
DAVID G. VALADAO, California
ANDY HARRIS, Maryland
----------
1}}Chairman Emeritus
William E. Smith, Clerk and Staff Director
(ii)
FINANCIAL SERVICES AND GENERAL GOVERNMENT APPROPRIATIONS FOR 2014
----------
Thursday, March 14, 2013.
SUPREME COURT
WITNESSES
HON. ANTHONY KENNEDY, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES
HON. STEPHEN BREYER, ASSOCIATE JUSTICE, SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED
STATES
JEFFREY MINEAR, COUNSELOR TO THE CHIEF JUSTICE
PAMELA TALKIN, MARSHAL OF THE COURT
KATHY ARBERG, PUBLIC INFORMATION OFFICER
GARY KEMP, DEPUTY CLERK
KEVIN CLINE, BUDGET MANAGER
Mr. Crenshaw. The meeting will come to order. Good morning
to Justice Kennedy and Justice Breyer. We thank you for being
here today. You have both testified before this committee
before, and you are back. I always wonder how you decide who
comes before the subcommittee, whether you volunteer, whether
someone volunteers for you.
Justice Kennedy. It is based on merit.
Mr. Crenshaw. Based on merit. That sounds great. But
whatever the reason is, we are glad you are here. We appreciate
your willingness, and we always look forward to hearing from
the Court. This is one of those rare occasions where we have
two branches of government get together in the same room and
talk. I think we all know that an independent judiciary that
has the respect of the citizens is something that is very
important to our country. The fact that you decide these
controversial questions is something that our Founding Fathers
thought was really important. And while your budget is not as
big as some of the other Federal agencies, you have one of the
most important roles to play, and we appreciate that. Outside
of the confirmation process, this is probably one of the few
times that the two branches of government get together and
interact. In my opinion, it is one of the most important things
we can do, and recognize and respect each other.
I think you all know that the Federal Government is
continuing to operate in an environment of scarce resources. I
want to thank you all for the efforts that you have made to be
more efficient, to contain costs as best you can. The overall
budget request this year I understand is $86.5 million. That is
$3 million over the current CR level, but I notice that you
have implemented almost $2.2 million of savings. And that is
important. Most of the increases that I see in your budget is
going to fund restoration activities in the building's north
and south facade.
So we look forward to hearing your testimony this morning.
We look forward to hearing you talk about the resources that
you need to carry out your constitutional responsibilities. We
would welcome any thoughts you have about the court system in
general. And we want to work to make sure that the Court has
the resources it needs. So we appreciate your efforts, again,
to contain costs in these difficult times.
And so now before I ask for your testimony, I would like to
ask my ranking member, Mr. Serrano, for any comments that he
might have.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you so much. And good morning. I have
had the privilege of having you before the subcommittee both as
chairman of the committee, now as ranking member. And we didn't
get to have you before us last year, so I didn't get to ask you
the question that is always on my mind, which is whether
someone born in Puerto Rico can serve as President of the
United States. And I realize, not being a lawyer, that I
probably first have to get elected so it can become an issue,
and I was trying to avoid that issue. So the question is out
there, if you wish during your testimony to render an opinion.
I think it will be historic. And I think I got one last time,
but I am not going to ask again.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to warmly
welcome you both back. As I have said in past years, this is
one of the rare opportunities for our two branches to interact.
Because of this, our questions sometimes range beyond strict
appropriations issues affecting only the Supreme Court. As our
Nation's highest court, many of us look to you for important
insights into issues affecting the Federal Judiciary as a
whole. That is certainly the case today. As a result of
sequestration, the Federal Judiciary must implement significant
budget cuts that will affect all aspects of our system of
justice.
Chairman Crenshaw and I recently received letters from the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts that detail the impact
of sequestration on the Federal Judiciary. To say the least,
the impact is severe. Many Federal courts will be unable to
operate at the same level of efficiency, and many employees may
be furloughed or laid off. There will be less supervision and
programming for criminal offenders, the very things that help
us prevent people coming back into prison. And our court
security will be lessened, even as our Federal courts continue
to deal with trials that pose significant security issues.
I am particularly worried about our Federal Defender
program, where layoffs have occurred prior to sequestration,
and show no signs of abating at this point. Additional funding
reductions caused by the sequester will undoubtedly force
further difficult choices, and undermine the ability of our
Federal public defenders to do their utmost to help their
clients.
There are many concerns that we have, and these are some of
the questions that we will be asking today. So we welcome you
back. And it is, Chairman Crenshaw, a unique situation. This is
one of those hearings that I always look forward to. And as you
can see by that camera, the whole world is watching us. So we
will have what I know will be a good hearing.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Serrano. I would now like to
recognize Justice Kennedy for your opening statement. And if
you could keep that within the 5-minute so we will have some
time for questions, and certainly submit your written copy for
the record.
Justice Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Congressman
Serrano, members of the committee. Thank you very much for
your--is this on?
Mr. Womack. Probably not.
Justice Kennedy. It is green. Is it on? Thank you. Justice
Breyer joins me in bringing greetings from the Chief Justice
and our colleagues. We have with us the principal statutory
officers of our court. Seated in order, Jeff Minear, Counselor
to the Chief Justice; Pamela Talkin, Marshal of the Court;
Kevin Cline of our Budget and Personnel Office, who has worked
very closely with your committee. And the communication between
your committee and our budget people is extremely valuable. And
Kathy Arberg, our Public Information Officer. And Gary Kemp,
our Deputy Clerk.
As you both indicated, Mr. Chairman and Congressman
Serrano, this is an interesting constitutional dynamic here
this morning. We talk often of separation of powers and checks
and balances, and we use those words interchangeably. Actually,
they have a different thrust. Separation of powers means that
each branch of the government has powers of its own that it can
exercise without--and must exercise without interference from
the other branches. Checks and balances means that you can not
have completely separated departments. They have to work
together. And this is an example of checks and balances.
We come here to indicate that as a separate branch of the
government, we do think our budget request is of a high
priority. Judges by nature and by tradition are very, very
careful in the expenditure of the public moneys. We are good
stewards of the public treasury. That does not mean that there
are not instances where the Congress can point out that an
expenditure might be too large or unnecessary. But over the
last years, especially over the last few years, Congressman
Serrano, we have been extremely careful to present you with a
minimum budget.
As you indicated, Mr. Chairman, the budget for the entire
third branch of the government is .2 percent of the Federal
budget, .2 percent. And our budget is .002 percent. Our budget,
as you indicated, is $74-plus million for the operations of the
Court, which we will talk about. There is an additional $11
million for buildings and grounds. And we are very proud of our
budget for the operations of the Court is a 3 percent reduction
over last year. In looking at the reason for that 3 percent
reduction, it looks to me like that might not be one time. I am
not sure we can do it for you the next time. But we are
committed to try. Because we think that the courts must always
set an example for prudent and proper respect for the people of
the United States and for the way in which we spend their
money.
As you indicated, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Serrano, the
Administrative Office of the Courts' budget, which is $7
billion, is of tremendous importance to the functioning of the
entire judiciary. The Supreme Court has cases that the public
is very interested in, but on a routine basis we are charged
with ensuring that the justice system as a whole is efficient,
fair, accessible. And most of our time is spent in reviewing
cases that are decided in the routine course of the
administration of the criminal and civil laws of this country.
When the budget of $7 billion for the courts comes before
you, I believe next week, it is important to bear a few things
in mind. Number one, Congressman Serrano, one-seventh of that
budget is for Defender Services, one-seventh of the Federal
Judiciary budget is for the country. This is for the Defender
Services, one-seventh of our budget. Then we have a huge amount
of our budget, as you have indicated--I am talking about the
entire Federal courts now, not the Supreme Court--a very
substantial part of that budget is for supervised release of
those who are in the criminal system and for pretrial
sentencing reports. And this is absolutely urgent for the
safety of society. Look, the Federal courts routinely, day in
and day out, supervise more people than are in the Federal
prison population. We supervise more than 200,000 criminal
offenders, some of whom are very dangerous.
And if the Congress thinks that because of some automatic
cuts this has to be cut back, you are doing a few things.
Number one, in my view, you are putting the public safety at
risk. Number two, you are undercutting the ability of a
separate branch of the government to perform its functions. I
am sure that every agency, Mr. Chairman, that comes before you
will give a special reason why you should leave their budget
alone. You all have to go through this. But please consider
that .2 percent of the Federal budget for an entire third
branch of the constitutional government is more than
reasonable. What is at stake here is the efficiency of the
courts. And the courts are part of the capital infrastructure
of the country. They are not only part of the constitutional
structure to make the government work, they are part of the
economic infrastructure and the social infrastructure. The rest
of the world looks to the United States to see a judicial
system that is fair, that is efficient, that is accessible. And
it must have the necessary support and resources from the
Congress of the United States.
It is the same thing with respect to judicial compensation.
The Congress has always been excellent in giving the resources
that are necessary for the proper discharge of our duties. And
we hope that that will continue when you hear and consider the
request of the Administrative Office of the Courts next week.
And with that, perhaps my colleague, Justice Breyer, has some
opening remarks. Incidentally, Mr. Chairman, we are waiting for
your case on the Puerto Rican Presidency to come to us----
Mr. Serrano. You mean the United States Presidency.
Justice Kennedy. But you also have to be 35 years old. Have
you met that requirement? It is Article II, Section 1.
Mr. Serrano. I may double that soon. It may come up
someday. You may get someone born over there running. But thank
you for your semi-opinion.
[The statement of Justice Kennedy follows:]
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Mr. Crenshaw. Justice Breyer, do you have some comments you
would like to make?
Justice Breyer. Mr. Chairman, I agree with my colleague,
Justice Kennedy.
Mr. Serrano. Well done.
Justice Breyer. I can't resist adding. I mean any lawyer
always asks two questions, Mr. Serrano, Ranking Member. I would
like to--and your question is could someone from Puerto Rico
become President of the United States. I know many possible
people from Puerto Rico who could perhaps be elected, and I
modestly in this room will not say exactly who, but I would
point out that lawyers always ask two questions. First, why?
And the answer to that legal question, isn't Puerto Rico an
important part of this country? Answer, yes. Second question--I
won't answer it for you--second question, why not? And when I
say why not, I don't hear any answer. There we are, I have
answered with two questions.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, sir. I think you just made the
front page of all the papers on the island, and in New York,
too. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, maybe, Mr. Serrano, maybe you could
just run for President, and if nobody challenges that, that
will be fine. And if they do, then these good gentlemen will be
happy----
Mr. Serrano. What is interesting, and I don't want to take
much more time on this, because it becomes an issue when you
have territories. But if you recall, the Senate, just to be
sure, passed a resolution saying that John McCain could in fact
serve as President, because he was born in the Panama Canal
Zone, which technically is not part of a State, but it is a
territory. And the Senate actually passed a resolution saying,
yes, he can. I said, gee, I thought that would have to be the
Court someday that would have to rule on that. But I am pretty
sure, confident, and surely from this opinion, I mean----
Justice Breyer. No, I have not given an opinion.
Mr. Serrano. I understand. I understand. You have not given
an opinion, and no one here would write that. But let me just
say that my exploratory committee is coming together in the
next half hour.
Justice Kennedy. You know, the likely explanation for the
provision in Article II, Section 1, of a natural born citizen
and 35 years of age, was so that we would not invite European
royalty to come and be the occupant of the White House. Number
one, the President had to be 35 years old so it would not be an
infant with a governor. And number two, born in the United
States so it would not be European royalty. That is probably
the reason. I was not there at the time.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, we will get back to that issue. Let me
start out questions. We talked a little bit about the financial
side. And obviously, that is what our committee does is
appropriate money for the various agencies that we oversee. And
the one thing that you talked about, Justice Kennedy, and one
thing that I would applaud that you all have done as a Supreme
Court, is try to be very judicious, very efficient with the use
of the taxpayers' dollars. And it is on everybody's mind now
because of the issue of sequestration, which as everyone knows,
is kind of a Washington word for an across the board draconian-
type cuts that nobody probably thought was going to happen. It
was set up to be a kind of a deterrent to make sure that
Congress did its work to find additional savings. And the
special committee that was set up to do that didn't find those
savings. On the good side, over the past couple of years
Congress has actually reduced spending. From 2010 to 2012,
overall spending went down by $95 billion. And that is the
first time that had happened I think since World War II. But I
think one thing we all agree on, that is that if we are going
to reduce spending, if we are going to make cuts to the budget,
then a better way to do that is do that specifically.
That is why we sit here as an Appropriations Committee. We
hold hearings, we listen to testimony, we make tough choices,
we set priorities, and sometimes we add money and sometimes we
take away money. And regardless of how we feel about increasing
or decreasing spending, we all agree I think there is a better
way to do it than the so-called sequester.
So we find ourselves in that situation. You are part of
that. I think the reductions in the nondefense side are about 5
percent; on the defense side it is about 8 percent over the
remaining 7 months. And so my question is, and I think you have
answered it to a certain extent, you already, it seems to me,
are working as hard as you can to make sure that you are
spending money efficiently. But I have to ask you, since we
have this sequester and it kicked in on March 1, can you say
just from the Supreme Court side, not from the broader, we will
talk to some of the other administrative courts and their
issues, but just from your standpoint in the Supreme Court,
what kind of impact will that sequester have on you all? Does
that mean you hear less cases, or you wear your robes for an
additional year or two? I mean you got to save money somewhere.
Tell us, number one, how that is going to impact your
operations of the Supreme Court, and number two, do you think
that the sequester will, maybe as you anticipated it--it seems
like you do a good job--but do you think the fact that there is
a sequester and you have to live under it, maybe it is a month,
maybe it is a year, maybe it is 10 years, what will that do in
terms of your overall planning to try to be more efficient and
more effective? Could you touch on those two things?
Justice Kennedy. If it is for any long term it will be
inconsistent with the constitutional obligation of the Congress
to fund the courts. We do not control our workload. Cases come
to us. We don't go looking for cases. In the typical year, we
have close to 9,000 petitions for certiorari, many of them from
those who are convicted in the Federal criminal system, and
also habeas corpus from the State criminal system. We can not
control that. And we can not arbitrarily say, oh, we are going
to only consider 6,000 and let the other ones just go by the
board. We have no choice in that. Just like a district court
has no choice in deciding how many criminal prosecutions it is
going to allow, or how many civil cases it is going to allow.
And if you force that choice, you are saying that the courts
are not open, that the legal system is not accessible. And this
is inconsistent with the rule of law.
Now, the Judiciary can, our staff tells us, I think for a
few months get by with some temporary furloughs or shorter work
days for our staff. If you can find a way to give us a shorter
workday, I would most appreciate it. But over the long term,
particularly for the courts as a whole, it is simply
unsustainable.
Mr. Crenshaw. Justice Breyer.
Justice Breyer. Well, I would add this. As you saw in
Justice Kennedy's figures here in his prepared statement, in
fiscal year two-twelve--2012, you know, our twenty-first
century is confusing for me--in 2012 we asked for a reduction
of 2.8 percent in the budget. Then we went up, but not by that
much, in 2013. And now we are requesting a 3.0 percent
reduction. So we have been through it pretty carefully, and we
have reduced. And the way we really reduced, the heart of it I
think, is we hired a few people who understood those computers.
And they are smart. And they worked out a way to share all this
computer stuff with other agencies. And the result is we have
cut our costs a lot there. So if we were going to save money by
say getting rid of them, our costs would go up. They wouldn't
go down.
Then you say, well, what do I do? I tell my children--I
used to tell my children this, now I tell the school groups. I
say how do I spend my day? I spend my day, I read. I read
briefs. I read them and I read them. And then my law clerks
help, but I have to sit at that word processor--and it is
behind my desk--and I write. Now, I am there, I read and I
write. I say to my son, if you do your homework really well you
will get a job where you can do homework the whole rest of your
life. So that is what is going on in that building. And we have
some policemen who are there for security purposes who don't
just protect us, but they protect the public. And then we have
to keep the courtroom reasonably clean. And if you didn't keep
it clean, it is not just us again who would suffer, even the
litigants. If somebody comes into a courtroom and they see a
column, and that column sort of has a hole in it, and the sort
of inside is falling out over the floor, what do they think
about justice in the United States? Those things are symbols.
They don't have to be grand--ours is--but they do have to be
kept up. And so when you look around and say what are we
doing--and now we have a press office. And what the press
office does is it tells people to try to communicate with the
public what is going on. And they answer questions that
reporters have so that people can know about us.
What is there to cut? We go through, we cut some travel, we
saved the money, as I say, with the computers, and we have
managed to cut 3 percent. I think that is pretty good,
actually. And there we are. Eighty-nine hundred petitions. You
know, even if you said, no, we will only hear half, which would
be wrong, in my opinion, you know, you wouldn't save any money.
Because we are going to read them anyway.
Mr. Crenshaw. I got you.
Justice Kennedy. I might just say insofar as Justice Breyer
indicated public awareness of what we are doing, when we accept
a case, then briefs are filed. The briefs and the transcripts
of the oral argument are put on our Web site at no charge. The
American Bar Association does this for us. I was looking at the
statistics yesterday, and I asked my clerks to guess how many
downloads, not just hits, how many downloads were there last
year of Supreme Court opinions and transcripts of oral
arguments? And the answer, I was astounded myself, it is just
under 70 million total downloads from the Supreme Court
website. That is the education function that we are performing.
We have to have technical staff that can perform this function.
And again, as Justice Breyer indicated, the technology is
working so fast that we are hoping there are cost savings, but
it seems that the price of the equipment goes up all the time
really over a 4-year cycle.
Justice Breyer. Justice Kennedy was just in Sacramento,
they dedicated a library to him. It is fabulous. Part of the
work that we do is talking to school groups, as you do. You
know, you talk to the public and you try to explain to them,
you know, we are trying to do our job, and you try to explain
to them what the job is. And people don't know. They don't
understand. And you can give the same speech over and over and
over. And everybody does that who is in government, who is in
public life. And you try to communicate over and over and over.
And if say a third of a million, or a million, or whatever it
is if that many people a day visit that Web site, I say thank
you. That can do so much more than I can do in a thousand
speeches. So I wouldn't like to change that.
Mr. Crenshaw. I got you. Well, thank you for that. And I
guess the second part of my question, would a sequester really
increase your intensity to find savings? It sounds to me like
you are already on that wavelength regardless of the sequester.
I mean it is strange, unusual for a Federal agency to come in
and actually ask for less money one year than they did the last
year. And I think you should be applauded for that. And while
we recognize that a sequester, an additional 5 percent cut is
going to have a negative impact, we appreciate the fact that it
sounds to me like you are working every day to make sure,
whether it is in technology or whether it is in your Web sites,
making an effort to be as efficient as you can. So we applaud
that and we thank you for that.
Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Once again, thank you
for being here before us. I want to ask you two questions at
once. I know you can't comment on specifics, but have you heard
about the effects of sequestration on the Federal Judiciary as
a whole? Do you have particular concerns about the
administration of our justice system under sequestration? And
secondly, we are particularly concerned about the budget cuts
to our Federal Defenders. At what point are we seriously
impacting the provisions of effective counsel to indigent
criminal defendants by cutting our budget so much? So in
general can you tell us what you think the effect will be on
the courts and in particular on this particular program?
Justice Kennedy. Congressman Serrano, as indicated in my
remarks, the Administrative Office of the Courts and Judge
Julia Gibbons, who is the chairman of the Budget Committee for
the United States Courts, will be before you next week, and
they will have some detailed answers on this for you. But
historically, the first things that are cut when there is an
across the board cut in expenditures for the courts, are
pretrial sentence officers and probation officers. And this is
very dangerous. Then public defenders are also on the list. I
am not sure, it could be that if you cut public defender, and
the indigent does not have an attorney, then the court has to
appoint one and pay out of court funds for a private attorney,
and it will be more. That would be a guess. I am not sure of
that dynamic, but I will ask the AO. But this is serious
business. We have, oh, my guess is 100,000 criminal
prosecutions a year in the United States courts. And we have to
have a capital structure, an infrastructure, a functioning
system to handle this. You know, when I first became a judge I
thought, well, at lunch we will sit down and I will ask does
natural law still affect our statutory concepts? Is lex juris
still a part of the concept of law? Look, the judges say, no,
our workload, I have got so much workload,--Justice Breyer
mentioned I was in Sacramento, the United States District Court
for the Eastern District, which would be the 12th biggest State
in the Nation by population, they have asked for years for
extra judges. They have a weighted caseload of over 1,500 cases
per judge per year. We have four senior judges who are entitled
to have only a one-third workload. They take a full workload
because of their sense of duty and commitment and obligation.
And we simply can't take away the resources from these
dedicated senior judges who work in order to show their
dedication to the idea of the rule of law. The Congress must
reinforce that by giving them the resources they need.
Mr. Serrano. And my further question would be we know that
whenever there are budget cuts--and for as long as I have been
in Congress there has always been the discussion. As you well
said, you know, every agency feels that their budget should not
be touched. So one could argue throughout the time that the
courts needed more funding. But we are living through a very
difficult time, and there is a desire to cut, cut, cut. So at
what point does it jeopardize the ability of our system to
provide fair representation, to provide the constitutional
mandate and protection? And furthermore, will that be just
somebody's opinion, or at what point does the judiciary itself
make some strong statements to Congress perhaps to say, look,
we can't continue to do it this way. You are constitutionally
here on thin ice. Can that ever happen, or will we just
continue to just continue to negotiate over budgets?
Justice Kennedy. Well, at some point--the courts do not
have the habit of creating crises in order to obtain public
attention. But at some point, if we start dismissing criminal
prosecutions, this is dangerous to the rule of law. And it used
to be--there is sometimes a concurrent jurisdiction, there is a
crime that could be prosecuted either in the State court or the
Federal court. And the old rule when you were in practice was
that if it is an easy case the Feds take it, if it is a hard
case we will give it to the States. But States are undergoing
even more draconian cuts than are being contemplated by the
Federal Government. In the State of California, I heard there
was some problem in Los Angeles County--Los Angeles County is
bigger than the entire Federal judiciary. And I asked my clerk,
I said find out, they are going to terminate some judges. They
are saying they are closing 10 Superior courts. I thought oh,
well, 10 judges, that is not that many. No, 10 courthouses in
order to pay for other things. And that means there are going
to be more cases that will have to be tried in Federal courts.
Mr. Serrano. Go ahead.
Justice Breyer. Well, I was just going to add that I
understand the difficulties that you are in. I think it is
difficult, because everyone always says, well, what I am doing
is important, and it is. But I think one question you could ask
is would a cut in this particular budget, say the Federal
Defenders, actually mean greater public expense? So the way
that I think about it is I say of course crime exacts enormous
costs. And it does not help when a serious crime is committed
to punish a person who did not do it. I think everybody agrees
with that. And so it is absolutely crucial to find out the
person who did do it. And that is the person who should be
punished. And that means a part of that is you have a judge and
part of it is you have a lawyer.
So if in fact that person can't get a lawyer, or a lawyer
who is capable of representing him, one, you will get the wrong
people convicted, and the right people will run around
committing more crimes. Two, the person, if he is lucky, and
gets into prison, will start realizing he can complain about
inaffective assistance of counsel. And then he will start
writing petitions about that. And eventually, the courts will
spend more time and effort concerning his claim about
inaffective assistance of counsel than it would have cost to
give him a decent lawyer in the first place. And so at this
moment I would say the public defenders are below the level
that would be minimal. And it does really seem to me that there
is a serious problem in terms of crime, in terms of justice, in
terms of adding costs to the system if you can't protect the
defenders. Every society has had judges. And I know we like to
make fun of them. They are not popular, the judges, and we like
to make fun of the lawyers, but every society has needed, since
the beginning of history, people who would present a case
fairly, honestly, so that the right people and not the wrong
people are punished. And that is the job, in part, of the
public defenders.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you.
Justice Kennedy. I mentioned in the opening statement the
phrase ``capital infrastructure.'' Around the world,
parliaments, legislators, and legislatures are somewhat
reluctant to give funding to courts. They think judges have an
easy job, some of them wish they had the job, and it looks like
it is not that important. And when we go to other countries we
say look, a functioning legal system is part of your capital
infrastructure. You cannot have a dynamic economy, you cannot
have prompt and fair enforcement of contracts, you cannot have
a safe society unless you have a functioning legal system. It
is part of the capital infrastructure.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Womack.
Mr. Womack. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And my thanks to the
Justices. And I want to acknowledge their long-standing service
on the bench. And having a wife that has spent 32 years in the
State court as a trial court assistant, and is still there
today, I truly appreciate the work that they do up and down the
entire spectrum of our judicial system. And I appreciated the
two questions that the lawyers always ask. They were why and
why not. Well, we are appropriators, and we ask three. What?
Why? And how much? Occasionally, and we are finding this to be
the case these days, occasionally we add a fourth question. And
that is ``what if?'' And so we are in kind of that what if
scenario now. I truly appreciate the fact that there are not a
lot of things that you can do without that you currently have
that you desperately need in order to have an effective
judicial system. And I want to drill down on one finer detail,
and that is that last year there was a modest increase request
for some additional officers. And I am curious if those
additional resources have been put to use, what effect they are
having, and indeed are they part of the what if scenario in
sequestration? And what effect that would have on your Court?
Justice Kennedy. We asked for half of the new officers we
thought we needed, and it has worked out. One of the problems
is if you hire too few people, then you have overtime, and it
is not that cost-effective. But we have been able to curtail
that. We will begin opening additional entrances to the
courthouse, which we must, soon. And our security people will
be strained. We can manage with what we have now.
Under the what if scenario, as I have indicated, I think
our court staff has said that, you know, for 2 or 3 months we
could probably get by, but after that we have a serious
problem.
Justice Breyer. You are touching on another difficult
question, which is where your judgment is extremely helpful,
that is called security. If in fact you take, whether it is the
White House, whether it is Congress, whether it is the Supreme
Court, and if you have fewer marshals, policemen, you have less
security. Now, less security is something that costs nothing as
long as the risks don't come about. But if, in fact because you
have fewer policemen and someone wandering into the building
gets shot, or someone is seriously hurt, or there is some kind
of incident, then you see the cost. So the question there is
what risk are you prepared to run? And the people who are paid
to think about that recommended that we get 24 new officers.
And we got 12. So you say could you survive with no police? I
guess you could survive. All you would have done is you have
dramatically increased the risk, as in any public institution,
of someone being hurt.
Mr. Womack. Is there any difference between the level of
training and the cost associated with employing security at the
Supreme Court than there would be, say, in a House office or a
Senate office building or the Capitol? Or are they considered
to be under one sort of qualification umbrella?
Justice Kennedy. I am not sure. We send our officers for
initial training to Georgia for standard police training. But
we also have some officers who are experts in a fairly
sophisticated business of threat assessment. And that is
institution-specific. Different institutions draw different
threats and attract different types of security breaches. And
so it is rather sophisticated. In fact, our office works with
the Capitol Police very carefully on prediction and threat
assessment. And they have done marvelous work for us in that
regard. So there is some sophisticated assessment that is
institution-specific.
Mr. Womack. Justice Breyer.
Justice Breyer. Our staff here says it is basically the
same.
Mr. Womack. Basically the same. And then finally, some
cases, although they are all important, are somewhat out of
sight, out of mind to the general public. Other cases are very,
very high profile cases, like the Affordable Care Act decision.
On occasion you have to ramp up, I am assuming, additional
resources to accommodate these high profile cases. Is that a
major impact on the Court? And again in the what if scenario,
do we risk, in your words, do we risk creating vulnerability
for some of our more high profile things?
Justice Kennedy. I think insofar as standard crowd control
for seating in the courtroom, we have I think over 100,000
people a year see an argument, some for just a few minutes
because we have a line where you can just come in and watch for
a few minutes. And we almost always have a full courtroom.
Sometimes the line for the high profile cases starts early in
the morning or early in the evening, and there have to be one
or two extra officers there.
The real risk is in the threat assessment area when the
high profile cases come. That is something you don't see.
Justice Breyer. That is true. And judging from the staff
reaction here, there is some extra cost in those cases. But I
would not start there. After all, those are the cases where
emotions run high. And people are unlikely to get upset when we
hear a case of whether the comma before the word ``for'' in the
Internal Revenue Code section--imaginary--403(c)(6) means the
next word, which was a ``for,'' should be read as a ``which''
or a ``that.'' I mean we did have a case sort of like that
once. But people don't care that much, or they don't get
emotionally involved. They do in some of the others. And the
fact that there are large numbers of people trying to get in
and so forth I think is a sign that it is important to have the
crowd control in those kinds of cases.
Mr. Womack. Once again let me reiterate my thanks to you
for your service on the bench. I have a whole list of a lot of
really tough legal questions, but my colleague here from Kansas
is going to ask most of those questions, I am confident, and I
am going to allow him that opportunity. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. Mr. Quigley.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, want to thank
the Justices for their service. There is sort of a built in
reflex when you practice as long as I did of ``may it please
the Court'' and wait to get asked questions that are making me
sweat. But it is 10 years, 26 in California and Chicago as a
criminal defense attorney, highest conviction rate in the
county. But that is usually funnier in Chicago. One of the
things you talked about, both Justices did, was communicating
with the public. And it is an issue we struggle with at the
State level, and that is televising the proceedings. Now, there
is a video--I mean there is an audio of the Supreme Court, but
it gets to your point. One of you mentioned the public doesn't
necessarily know how things work. Clearly, the public's trust
in almost all government institutions is at an all time low.
The perhaps way overused expression from I think 1916 from
Justice Brandeis about Sunshine being the best disinfectant, is
that issue still possible to televise the proceedings of the
Court?
Justice Kennedy. We take the position--my position is, and
I think a number of the other Justices--that we are a teaching
institution, and we teach by not having the television there,
because we teach that we are judged by what we write, the
reasons that we give. Now, you could have an Oxford-style
debate if you were in college, and if you drew the side that
said you want cameras in the courtroom you could make a number
of very important points. Number one, as you indicated,
Congressman, we are in the business of teaching. Not everybody
can see an oral argument. It is a great civics lesson. For the
attorney who is going to appear for the first time, it would be
invaluable to have some tapes to see how the oral arguments
work. You can't get exactly the dynamic from the oral
transcripts. So if you were making debate points you could
score a tremendous number of points by taking the affirmative
position that we should have cameras in the courtroom. It is
not an unreasonable position.
We feel, number one, that our institution works. And in my
own view, there would be considerable reluctance to introduce a
dynamic where I would have the instinct that one of my
colleagues asked a question because we are on television. I
just don't want that insidious dynamic to intervene between me
and my colleagues when we have only half an hour for each case.
So we think that in our courtroom that cameras would be
inconsistent with the tradition of oral argument of the Court
that we have. I say we, I think I speak for a majority of the
Justices and myself. Sometimes in trial courts the cameras are
good so the public can see when the system is broken, when it
is not functioning. That is important. That is important. And
one of the things we are facing is with newspapers facing
critical financial problems, they are laying off court
reporters, that is to say press reporters who go into the
courtrooms, police court reporters. And this is very--this is a
real check, because you need an experienced reporter to know if
that judge is being irascible and unfair or just necessarily
stern with an attorney. You have to have an experienced
reporter to understand that. And the blogs won't take care of
it. Blogs can fill in for what a lot of newspapers do, they
can't fill in for this. So it may be that cameras in courtrooms
are more important, and not less, when experienced police
reporters are not paid by the press to do the job they
historically did.
Mr. Quigley. Justice, I have seen a lot of theatrics in
courtrooms, and some of it begat, I suppose, from TV cameras or
an attorney advertising. And in all my life I can't imagine the
Supreme Court acting in a way other than that which they
normally would whether there is cameras there or not. But I
respect your point.
Justice Breyer.
Justice Breyer. It is quite a difficult question, and I get
asked a lot. When I think of a case, remember the Arkansas
case, which was whether you could have term limits in the
House. It was could you limit term limits. And my goodness,
that was a difficult case. You see Jefferson, you read he said
one thing. And Hamilton and Madison said another thing. And
Story said another thing. And you go back into history and it
is really evenly balanced. And if a million people could have
seen that oral argument, I thought that was one of the best
oral arguments you had. You would have seen nine people really
struggling with a very, very hard issue, and trying to reach
the correct result. So that would be so educational, that would
be wonderful. So that is the plus side. So you say, well, why
are you hesitant? And I absolutely begin where Justice Kennedy
does: we are a very conservative institution with a small C. We
are there as trustees. It was going before we came, it will be
there after we go. And the last thing any one of us wants to do
is to do something that will make it worse as an institution.
So what is the relevance of that? Well, I sometimes worry
on a subject you will know better than I do, we are a symbol.
If we bring the cameras into the courtroom it will be in every
criminal court in the country. You want it in every criminal
court in every case? What about juries? What about witnesses?
What about intimidation? I worry about that, but there I say
you are the expert, I am not. Then I think, well, you know, the
oral argument is only about 2 percent. It is not oral argument
that matters in a case. It matters in a few cases, yes, and it
helps always. But that is not what this is turning on. That is
an appellate court argument. You have been in appellate courts,
you understand it. And I am trying to decide a matter of law
which will affect 200 million people who are not in that room.
But when you look at something on television, as opposed to
reading about it in the newspaper, you identify. Human beings
identify with other people. There is the good one, there is the
bad one. And then they get the quotes, and believe me there is
the good one and there is the bad one. And, and so I think that
is not what I am here to do. And so will people get a wrong
impression? But if you want to know, I have come to the
conclusion, and I might be wrong, what I think is the really
driving force on the negative side is this. The people who you
would find surprising, I won't say who they are, they come to
me and they say be careful. You think it won't affect you, your
questioning. You think it won't. I mean we have the press there
every day, but believe me, if I am onto something with a lawyer
I don't care. I might produce the most ridiculous example that
I have ever thought of because I think it is going to advance
me with that lawyer, that is I am going to get a question out
of him, I am going to get an answer, and I don't care if I look
a little bit stupid in the newspaper. I would rather get the
answer. Okay. So that is my method. And what they say to me is
you think you won't change. The first time you see on prime
time television somebody taking a picture of you and really
using it in a way that you think is completely unfair and
misses your point in order to caricature what you are trying to
do because they don't believe in the side they think you are
coming from, the first time you see that, the next day you will
watch a lot more carefully what you say. Now, that is what is
worrying me. So you say, well, so what, what is your action?
And I say I am not ready yet. I mean I want to see a little bit
more of how all this works in practice. I would give people the
power to experiment. I would try to get studies not paid for by
the press of how this is working in California, of how it
affects public attitudes about the law. I would write some real
objective studies. I know that is a bore. But that is where I
am at the moment.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I am going to yield
back. But I would like the Justices to contemplate something I
thought about last night when I was thinking of asking you this
question. When the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington was
released, Members of the U.S. Senate didn't want it to happen
because they thought it made them look bad. At the same time,
the representatives in the Soviet Union didn't want the movie
shown there because they thought it made us look so good. I
think there is a beauty in the history of the Supreme Court and
what takes place there. And I think about what it would mean if
generations to come could watch the arguments that took place
in Brown v. Board of Education, or Gideon, extraordinary
moments that changed history and made our country a better
place. Watching at least 2 percent of part of that I think is
very, very important. And I think what you do is absolutely
critical. I think there is a beauty to our system that is
unparalleled in the world. And I would like my kids to watch
it.
Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. I can remember as a young lawyer watching the
oral arguments in the Charlotte-Mecklenburg, the famous bussing
case. And that is still vivid in my mind. That would be great
to have the video, to play that from time to time. That was
probably 30, 45 years ago. Anyway, thank you.
Mr. Yoder.
Mr. Yoder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Justices, it is my
honor to have you all here today. Certainly I appreciate your
noting the conversations you have around the world about the
rule of law and how important it is to have an independent
judiciary. And part of our role is to make sure that the
resources are there so that you can do your job effectively to
sustain the rule of law in this country. So thank you for the
work that you do in that regard, and you are not just another
Federal agency that is here to ask for some programming
dollars. You are a third branch of government, or maybe the
first branch of government in your eyes, whichever it maybe be.
I don't know that they are ranked or not. But you are a co
equal branch of government, and we have a responsibility to
make sure that the resources are there necessary to ensure that
the laws that we create here are upheld in a fair and judicious
manner. So thank you for that.
As a young attorney and University of Kansas law grad, I
always want to put in a good plug. And to the extent I know,
Justice Kennedy, you had KU grads on your staff there, I am not
sure, Justice Breyer, if you had, but if not it is a good time
to think about it. Always good to have a good Jayhawk on your
team. I wanted to talk a little bit about the allocation of
resources beyond just the Supreme Court, and if you might help
us in that regard. I did note in your testimony that only 1
percent of the entire Judiciary's budget is the Supreme Court.
So the other 99 percent, and the large bulk of the expenses and
the challenges that we have and the things we have in our own
Federal courts, making sure that they are fully properly
funded, and that they don't have backlogs is an important
component of what we are all trying to do here.
I note some courts have heavier caseloads than others. We
have particular courts that are continually having too heavy a
caseload, and they are having a struggle to be able to resolve
that. We discussed this a little bit a couple of years ago when
you were here, and I wanted to return to this topic again. As
we are looking at the sequester and as we are looking at
certain things that are going to affect how the judiciary
handles their resources, are there fundamental changes we could
make--or maybe fundamental is not the word--are there
structural changes that could be made either in the amount of
jurisdictions or the amount of different courts that we have in
a way that maybe we have some courts that have less resources
than more? How do those decisions get made in terms of how we
would go forward on that? And are there structural changes, not
just looking at technology, not just looking at, you know,
finding ways to reduce staffing where we have to. But are there
things that we could look at structurally that might make the
judicial system more efficient and could work better on less
dollars?
Justice Kennedy. That is such a difficult question I am
tempted to give it to Justice Breyer first. To begin with, as
you have indicated, the courts, depending on their location,
have different caseloads. Our courts along the southern border
are simply swamped with immigration cases for the obvious
reason. Our judges are very good. One of the benefits of the
Federal judicial system is that we can take Article III judges
from all over the country and assign them. And our judges are
very good about doing that. But inter-circuit assignments does
not quite solve the problem. I think sometimes that you can
take a look to see if laws are producing litigation that is not
necessary, that is very expensive. The whole question of tort
reform is something that the States ought to look at.
California has done it rather successfully in the medical area.
So you can look at the substance of the laws that you pass and
look at the litigation impact that those laws would have.
Justice Breyer. Well, I have a couple of ideas, but I will
suggest one that I have thought about a little bit, and the
other I won't suggest because I haven't really thought it
through. But the first one that used to be of interest to me
when I was chief judge of the 1st Circuit, which was more
administrative, is there has always been tension and a problem
between GSA and the courts, because the courts have to pay GSA
rent. You see? And the executive branch doesn't pay for court
services. I mean the judiciary provides all the services to the
executive branch they want for free. But why then do the courts
pay for the services the executive branch gives to them? Now, I
am certain some work can be done there. And I am certain that
if you could separate those two things out--I am not certain,
but I think it might help in respect to having a more rational
allocation of what tends to be a large share of the court
budget. And I have a few other ideas, but probably sometimes I
have a good idea and it is surrounded by 10 rather bad ones. So
I think I will stop.
Mr. Yoder. I was hoping you could give an example of some
sort of--maybe an absurd example like you were discussing
earlier that we could capture on camera here and they could
play later on the evening news. This would be your one chance
to do that.
Justice Kennedy, I might follow up on your point which I
hadn't really raised but is a good point, are there particular
items that are generating a large amount of litigation that we
could discern through some sort of analysis or report that the
judiciary could provide? How would we go about finding out
where those pressure points are?
Justice Kennedy. I think we have good statistics in the
district courts and the circuit courts on the numbers of cases
that a specific law has introduced. One reason our civil case
log, our civil case docket is down in the United States Supreme
Court is new statutes that Congress passes produces litigation.
And there haven't been many major statutes--last year the
health care statute is one, but that takes a long time to come
up to us. The Bankruptcy Reform Act was, oh, more than 10 years
ago, has produced cases. New statutes passed by the Congress
generate cases. Dodd-Frank and the other securities act, the
financial cases have not seemed to produce much. But those
cases are beginning to work their way through the system.
Justice Breyer. I will add one thing which might be useful:
you are triggering some memories, and the problem doesn't
change very much over 30 or 40 years. It is more pressing now,
but it has been around a long time. And there were two things,
one I went to and the other I read, years ago, that I thought
were very useful in this respect.
One, Chief Justice Burger used to have Williamsburg
conferences where he would invite Members of Congress, their
staffs, as well as judges to discuss all kinds of issues of
interest to the judiciary, of less interest to Congress, but
some were interested. And one year it was this subject, exactly
this subject of how could you make the judiciary more
efficient. And people had a range of papers, very interesting.
All sorts of ideas in that. And I think that it would be
perhaps interesting for you to read, or your staffs to read.
The other was Lee Campbell, who is a judge in the 1st
Circuit, was on a commission or head of the commission called
The Judiciary of the Future or something, and that was probably
20 years ago, in the 1980s sometime. And they were considering
different ways of restructuring or other reforms if the
judiciary continued to grow in its caseload. And so I think in
that you will find a variety of rather interesting ideas of
what to do as the input increases you don't want to diminish
the output, but you want to have a more efficient way of
getting to the same output, of letting it go up
proportionately.
Justice Kennedy. The judiciary has found that if a judge--
in a civil case--gets into the litigation early and has
settlement conferences and attempts mediation and so forth,
that you can reduce the caseload and maybe come to a settlement
that the parties think is efficient. That is costly for the
judge. It takes a lot of time for the judge. And if per chance
the case is not settled, a lot of that effort has been wasted.
One of the things we are finding is that the major civil
litigation in the United States is being taken out of the
Federal judicial system and going into arbitration. And it is a
matter of great concern that this judicial system, which so
many of us have devoted our lives and careers, is not seen as
the fairest, most efficient, most effective way to resolve
disputes. And it is not. But that is in part because of the
substantive laws that make it risky for major defendants to go
into the litigation system. Many, many lawyers tell me we will
tell our clients we think you have a very good case, we think
that you should prevail, you can't take the risk. And there is
something wrong with that.
Justice Breyer. You may know, Judge Gibbons is going to
talk about this next week. The Judicial Conference is now
studying cost containment and structuring and making an effort
to achieve an objective of cost containment through
structuring. And she is going to discuss that with you.
Mr. Yoder. Maybe I will try to read those documents between
now and next week that you suggested. Hopefully they are thin
reading. Thank you for that. I appreciate all the ideas. And I
guess, Justice Kennedy, the notion that big statutory changes
create the opportunity for litigation, whether it is bankruptcy
or Dodd-Frank or health care, so certainly as there is gridlock
in Washington, D.C., that is, I guess, an aid to the courts in
that we are not getting some of those big acts right now. So
you can send us a thank you card on that.
With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield back. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. We have been joined by the ranking
member of the full Appropriations Committee, Ms. Nita Lowey.
And I would like to welcome her and ask her if she has any
questions she would like to pose.
Mrs. Lowey. I do, Mr. Chairman. And unfortunately or
fortunately, one of the responsibilities is to go to almost all
the Appropriations hearings. So I apologize that I am delayed.
And I just want to say that it is such an honor for me to have
Justices Kennedy and Breyer here before us today. My husband,
as you know, Justice Breyer, has been practicing law for over
55 years. And he has never had the honor of asking you
questions. So I don't know if he is watching C-SPAN, but
believe me I am going to tell him about this. So I thank you
very, very much. And I really appreciate your dedication to our
country and the court. We are honored.
Justice Breyer. Thank you.
Mrs. Lowey. Now, just one question and then one comment. If
the sequester were to continue, the Federal judiciary would see
a reduction, as you know, of approximately $350 million. Chief
Justice Roberts recently noted that a significant and prolonged
shortfall in judicial funding would inevitably result in the
delay or denial of justice for the people the courts serve. I
am very concerned that bankruptcy proceedings, civil cases,
will be delayed, that U.S. attorneys will not have the
resources to prosecute important cases, and that when some
criminal cases go to trial delays could infringe on a
defendant's right to a speedy trial, potentially allowing the
wrong people to walk free.
A simple question. Are you concerned that the sequester
could ultimately infringe on a party's right to a speedy trial
or other elements of due process?
Justice Kennedy. I could adopt your really carefully
thought out question as my answer.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you.
Justice Kennedy. All of the risks, all of the potentials,
all of the concerns that we have about long-term sequestration
are encapsulated in your question. Yes, trials would be
delayed. Yes, bankruptcies would be delayed. Remember,
bankruptcies are a way for businesses to start over. This is
cost efficient. One of the signers of the Constitution went
bankrupt. This is an old problem. And bankruptcy judges, some
of the hardest working judges in our system, and they have to
know a tremendous amount of law. They have to know bankruptcy
law, they have to know State law, they have to know community
property law, they have to know tort law, they have to know all
of our law. They have tremendous workloads. But they keep this
economy going. And if you slow that down, if you slow down
civil dispositions where contracts are waiting to be enforced,
whether a plant is going to be built and so forth, whether
damages are going to be paid to someone who was the victim of a
breach of contract, if you are going to potentially cause
dismissal of suits because--of criminal suits, criminal
prosecutions because of delay, then you are threatening the
efficiency of the legal structure. And if you have an
inefficient legal structure then the economy does not recover
properly.
Justice Breyer. Yes. I agree. It is a question of how long,
how much.
Mrs. Lowey. Thank you very much. And then I just have one
other comment that I want to share with you. This month you
will hear cases that are of the utmost importance to many
American families, that is whether gay Americans have the same
constitutional rights to marry as straight couples, and whether
Congress can deprive legally married gay couples of Federal
recognition and benefits. I mention this not because I expect
either of you to speak to this issue. In fact, I know you will
not. President Bill Clinton, who signed DOMA into law and now
requests its demise, recently wrote, the question of these
cases rests on, quote, ``Whether it is consistent with the
principles of a Nation that honors freedom, equality, and
justice above all, and is therefore unconstitutional,'' end
quote.
In the time that has passed since 1996, my views, along
with President Clinton and Obama's and many of my colleagues,
the country's, the face and makeup of our families have all
changed for what I think is for the better. Those of us in
Congress, regardless of religion or party, represent human
beings in loving relationships who wish to have the rights
granted to those of us sitting on this podium today. I cannot
in good conscience tell my constituents that their country does
not value their bond, their commitment, or their family. I ask
you just to consider my words, and thank you again. It is a
privilege to have you before us today. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mrs. Lowey. We have got a little
bit of time. And I wanted to ask, as a second round of
questions, a couple of appropriations questions. I mentioned
earlier, and I think in your remarks, $3 million of your
request this year of the $86.5 million was for some operations,
I guess maintenance, preservation. As I go by the Supreme
Court, I guess is that the West Front that looks like you are
working on it? And then the East Front, and I understand there
is the request for some money to fix up the I guess it would be
the north and the south. Maybe you can just tell me a little
bit about what is going on I guess I would call it the front
and the back, and what is next in terms of the facade. I guess
the Architect of the Capitol makes that decision. When I was
chairman of the Leg. Branch Subcommittee we funded his office,
and he had a long list in terms of priorities of what needed to
be done. We can't always afford to do everything. But I assume
that that moved up on his list, and that is why it is in your
request. Could you talk briefly about that?
Justice Kennedy. What is happening is, and this was not
predicted, at least we did not know about it, is the marble on
the Court, because of moisture, because of flaking, because of
exposure to the elements is beginning to come off. And it is
actually life-threatening. Some big chunks of marble have
actually dropped down. So that scaffold that you see will move
all around the building. And it will take a couple years to
finish. They have what they call a scrim, which is what they
use in ballet productions and dramatic productions in theaters,
which is a screen canvas that is porous to light but yet there
is a painting on it. So what you are looking at is not really
the Supreme Court, it is a picture of the Supreme Court. It is
absolutely fascinating. And it kind of reminds me of the
allegory of Plato's cave. I don't know if I am in the cave or
out of the cave. I see these shadows. So we are going to have
to put up with this. But this was not optional unless the
building is to be torn down.
Mr. Crenshaw. Do you have to finish the work that you are
doing now on the east and the west before you start moving
around the building to do the----
Justice Kennedy. I don't know exactly. My understanding is
it is going to be done in quadrants, and they will finish the
front before they do the sides. The front is the most dangerous
part because that is where it was actually falling.
Mr. Crenshaw. I got you. And then that $3 million was the
number given to do the next part, the east front.
Justice Kennedy. We understand that that is for the total,
that is for the total cost of going all the way around the
building.
Justice Breyer. Staff says the east and west has been
funded.
Mr. Crenshaw. Got you.
Justice Breyer. Now the additional is for the north and
south.
Mr. Crenshaw. Got you. While I am talking about that, when
you go by the Supreme Court you see a big hole that is next to
the Supreme Court. Is that something you all are working on or
is that somebody else?
Justice Kennedy. That is going to be a vegetable garden so
that we can reduce costs. Actually, it is part of the
landscaping. We had to tear it up in order to make the
subterranean addition for the improvement that was done some
years ago.
Justice Breyer. This is the Architect of the Capitol. And
he understands it and creates the budget.
Mr. Crenshaw. I got you. One other question. In 2013, it is
my understanding that there was a million dollar request made
for some police radio funding. And as I understand it, the
committee didn't provide that million dollars. Do you know
whether the police radios were upgraded or acquired? And if so,
where did the money come from? Anybody know?
Justice Kennedy. We will have to get back to you on that.
[The information follows:]
The Supreme Court has not found a source of funding for this
upgrade, which is still needed. The current Motorola VHF radio
infrastructure, which has been in place for 10 years, is about to reach
end-of-life and will no longer be supported after 2015. Upgrading to
the next generation of radio equipment would allow the SCUS Police to
fully utilize technology advancements made in portable and mobile
subscribers. Additionally, the upgraded system would leverage a hosted
Motorola Key Management Facility that the Supreme Court has access to
via Memorandum of Agreement with another federal agency. This access
eliminates the need to install a one million dollar Key Management
Facility, as well as procuring the manpower required to administer the
system.
Justice Breyer. Staff says it wasn't us.
Mr. Crenshaw. Okay. It wasn't you. Maybe it is the
Architect of the Capitol again. Thank you for that. Mr.
Serrano, do you have other questions?
Mr. Serrano. Yes, I do very briefly, Mr. Chairman. But
first I would like to sort of bend a little bit of the protocol
of the subcommittee to say from where we sit it has been
wonderful to see, and you can't see this, the number of young
people that have spent time this morning watching this hearing.
They have been in the back. They have been in and out. But
large groups have stayed for a long time. And, you know, I am
always interested, as we all are, in how they see our system,
how they see our country, and what they want to do about it in
the future in terms of their involvement and their opinions.
And so to have two of the branches here discussing the
vegetable garden and other issues, but the whole idea is
something that we can be proud of today that we were able to be
here.
Let me ask you a question. As in past years, I continue to
be interested in seeing an increase in the number of minorities
selected for Supreme Court clerkships. I know that there has
been an initiative in place at the Federal judiciary to help
recruit more minorities into clerkship positions. Do you think
these efforts are starting to bear fruit at the district and
appellate levels? And also, a joint question, as you speak at
commencements, and law school seminars, and court competitions
and other things that you do with young people, is it part of
the message to encourage some folks to apply for these
positions?
Justice Kennedy. I taught night law school for many years,
and have been teaching in Europe for 25 years. And Justice
Breyer, of course, was a regular member of the faculty. I am
sure that all of our colleagues encourage young people to apply
for clerkships. I used to tell applicants for a clerkship when
I was a Court of Appeals judge, they would come and say that
they wanted to be with me for a year. I would say I just have
to tell you, truth in advertising, you would learn a lot more
if you were with the district court. District courts have to do
everything we do, they have to write opinions, they have to
research cases, plus they try cases. You can really learn a
tremendous lot. They say, oh, no, I want to be with you. I
said, I know, I know, I understand.
If you have a clerk who has been with the district court,
they really have a respect for the record and a respect for the
evidentiary process that young people that have been just in
the appellate system sometimes need training. And so I really
encourage clerks to start with the district courts. It is
simply wonderful. One of the advantages of being a United
States Judge is you have these young people, we have them for
just 1 year, but you know the secret of youth is youth, and if
you are surrounded by young people it gives you new
perspectives, new insights, new energies.
Mr. Serrano. Great.
Justice Breyer. I have had quite a few minority clerks, a
lot, actually. And the question is has there been a change over
time in that? And it has been an improvement in the sense that
I haven't had to look as hard. And, you know, you have had to
do a lot of encouragement. You had to make a little effort 15
years ago. You know, you can apply, and please, and so forth. I
would say the extent to which it requires an effort is
improved, less in other words, but it still does require
something of an effort. Less than it did. But I think
consciousness is important. And so I think it is good to
encourage people, that is right, at these different levels. And
you will see, you know, you are not doing anybody a favor, you
will see the effort pays off. And it is worthwhile.
Mr. Serrano. I have one last question, Mr. Chairman. And
that is the issue that we have discussed before about applying
the Code of Judicial Conduct to the Supreme Court. We know
right now it applies to other judges, for the Court it applies
as an advisory situation. Different thoughts in the past. Have
the thoughts changed on that whole issue of applying the
Judicial Conduct?
Justice Kennedy. I have never had a problem with it because
in my own professional career, and I am absolutely confident in
the career and the manner in which my colleagues conduct
themselves, we consider those guidelines absolutely binding.
The problem is those guidelines can and should be made by
members of the relevant judicial committee of district judges
and circuit judges. And we think it is potentially difficult
for circuit judges to make rules that are binding on us. That
is the binding part. As a matter of following those precepts,
we follow those precepts. I think Justice Breyer, as I recall
the last time we were here, explained very well that there are
some differences. Recusals. If there is any reason at all for a
district judge or a Court of Appeals judge to recuse himself or
herself, they will do that. But on our Court, if we recuse
without absolutely finding it necessary to do so, then you
might have a 4-4 Court, and everybody's time is wasted.
Justice Breyer. That doesn't mean it is different
guidelines. I have in my office the seven volumes. And they are
all in nice leather. And if there is a recusal problem I, like
the other members of the Court, go right to those seven volumes
and look it up. And we each have a system in case we can't
figure out what the answer is. And I call some ethics
professors. There is one I call particularly. And I ask what is
your interpretation? What should I do? Okay. So I see no
difference right now between the Supreme Court and the rest of
the courts in terms of the binding nature. If you go pass a law
about it, it raises questions. So that is, you know, people
love to argue those kinds of questions. Who has the right to do
what? I tend to think don't raise unnecessary questions. And I
don't see any necessity now. And the differences that come
about are just what Justice Kennedy said. And you don't want to
be manipulated by somebody off of a case. So you are careful
about sitting, as well as not sitting.
Mr. Serrano. Well, I thank you for your answer. And I have
no further questions. I thank you for your testimony today, and
thank you for your almost opinion on my case. It will be fine.
And we continue, certainly, and I know the chairman shares this
view, or I share it with him, our role is to strengthen the
judiciary, to make sure that even during these difficult times
the whole system is able to do what it has to do on behalf of
our communities and on behalf of our democracy. You know, what
was beautiful about those young people being here today seeing
these two branches speak to each other is the fact that we have
a system that allows that and a system where we can ask
questions and get answers and continue to function. And
sometimes I think we forget that. We celebrate people in other
countries going through revolutions, but we never wonder what
it is that they want. And I suspect that in many cases what
they want is exactly what we have, or something very similar to
it. And I celebrate that today as I speak to you.
Thank you.
Justice Kennedy. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Serrano. And maybe before you
go, as an aside, the last time that I was on this committee, I
guess a couple of years ago, and we were sitting around
chatting, and Justice Breyer, you won't remember, but as a
young law student I can remember there was a case--I can't
remember the name of the case--and I always thought it was
Marbury v. Madison, but the statement in the case was that I
have always remembered, basically it said versatility of
circumstance often mocks a natural desire for definitiveness.
And I always thought that was interesting, well said. I am not
sure exactly what it means. It is kind of Supreme Court-ese. I
think it means maybe you got to be flexible. But when I asked
Justice Breyer if he remembered maybe what case, his response
was, well, just go Google it, which I did, and it didn't come
up. So Justice Kennedy, you weren't here that day. Does that
ring a bell? Can you cite a case that that sounds like it may
have come from?
Justice Kennedy. It does not sound like John Marshall. John
Marshall used to see how many lines or couplets of Pope he
could remember, he could memorize. And he had over 600. And
that affected his writing style, because Pope has a balance and
so forth. Lincoln and Churchill shared something in common,
they both read very few books, but they read them again and
again. Lincoln because he didn't have any, so he read the Bible
and Shakespeare again and again. And Robert Burns. And
Churchill by choice. He thought that you should read good books
again and again. But not too many books. So he read Gibbons,
the Decline and Fall. And if you read Churchillian prose, it is
Gibbons. And the quote you gave is sufficiently baffling that I
think it might come from Cardozo, but it doesn't----
Mr. Crenshaw. I am going to keep looking.
Justice Breyer. I tell you who it reminds me of, I think it
is a good point both for legislators and judges I think. 1584,
Montaigne. Fabulous essay on human experience. Now he talks
about law. And he says, Justinian got really angry at his
judges, or some Roman emperor, I don't know. And he said, I am
going to fix those judges. What I am going to do is I am going
to pass a code that is so complicated and so detailed that they
will then have to follow what the code says, and they won't be
able to substitute their own judgment. And Montaigne says, you
know what, he was really stupid, he says, because what he
doesn't understand is every word in a statute is just meat for
the lawyers. The more words you have, the more arguments you
have. The more arguments you have, the more the judges can do
anything they want. And he said that is the worst possible
thing. And he says I would rather live in a country with no
laws than a country with too many laws like France. That is
what he says. 1584. And he says, by the way, the reason is just
what you said. The reason is because human experience is such
that when you try to draw lines, experience overflows the
boundaries. And what we discover is circumstances come up that
we never thought of. So you have to keep a little flexibility.
I think that is the point. And I love remembering that as a
judge. And when I used to work in the Senate, I don't know if I
knew it then; I must have read it sometime. I worked on the
staff there, and I thought it is pretty good for legislators or
staff members.
Mr. Crenshaw. Great. We have been joined by Mario Diaz-
Balart, a member of the subcommittee. Do you have any questions
you would like to pose?
Mr. Diaz-Balart. No. Mr. Chairman, I want to apologize. I
was in another hearing right now. I apologize I got here so
late. Good to see you gentlemen.
Mr. Crenshaw. These are busy times for all the members.
Mr. Serrano. Mr. Chairman, I just want to state that I feel
a little left out not being a lawyer in some of these
conversations. But I did play a judge on Law and Order once. So
I don't know, maybe I just skipped that part of, went right to
the judgeship.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, it is not all that bad. But again, we
do thank you for being here today, for your willingness to come
and testify. And it is one of the I think most interesting
hearings that we have, to see the exchange between what is a
very, very important branch of our government, and that we can
have this kind of dialogue. So thank you very much again. We
appreciate it. This meeting is adjourned.
Monday, March 18, 2013.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURTS AND COURT SERVICES AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION
AGENCY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
WITNESSES
HON. ERIC T. WASHINGTON, CHIEF JUDGE, DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA COURT OF
APPEALS
HON. LEE F. SATTERFIELD, CHIEF JUDGE, SUPERIOR COURT OF THE DISTRICT OF
COLUMBIA
NANCY M. WARE, DIRECTOR, COURT SERVICES AND OFFENDER SUPERVISION AGENCY
CLIFFORD KEENAN, DIRECTOR, PRETRIAL SERVICES AGENCY, COURT SERVICES AND
OFFENDER SUPERVISION AGENCY
Mr. Crenshaw. It is 3 o'clock so we will start the hearing.
I got off an airplane 9 minutes ago. Mr. Serrano is still on a
train. So he will be here very shortly. But we will start the
hearing. So I want to welcome everybody.
Today the hearing is on the District of Columbia Courts and
the Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency, better
known as CSOSA. Similar to how a state government funds a state
court system, the National Capital Revitalization and Self-
Government Improvement Act of 1997 made these agencies the
responsibility of the Federal Government. So the budgets of
these agencies are not considered by the Mayor or the D.C.
Council, but instead are proposed and transmitted with the
President's budget request. Three-quarters of the Federal
funding this subcommittee provides for D.C. is for these
important agencies that serve and protect the citizens of the
District of Columbia.
Today I would like to welcome Chief Judge Washington of the
Court of Appeals, Chief Judge Satterfield of the Superior Court
and Director Nancy Ware of the Court Services and Offender
Supervision Agency, CSOSA. Thank you all for being here today
and testifying.
We all know that an independent judiciary is something that
all the citizens can trust and respect, and that is essential
to our Nation, to our democracy and to the rule of law. And
equally important is each citizen's right to a fair trial in
any legal dispute. The D.C. court system does an incredible job
of ensuring this for their citizens. The Moultrie Courthouse
sees about 10,000 visitors a day. In addition, CSOSA has a huge
caseload of its own, supervising over 25,000 offenders
annually.
We are all interested in hearing from you and the impact
sequestration is having on your operations. As I said before,
operating the government under continuing resolutions and
sequestration is not the right way to do it, and I think
Congress should be funding quality programs well and reducing
or eliminating wasteful programs, and I know Mr. Serrano and
Mr. Quigley and all the members of this subcommittee agree with
me that we want to get back to regular order in fiscal year
2014.
Although the crime rates in D.C. have dropped within the
past few years, we are still faced with dangers that all big
cities are challenged with. These agencies are absolutely
critical in protecting those who work, live and visit our
Nation's capital. We appreciate your hard work and look forward
to hearing your testimony.
So I would now like to recognize Mr. Serrano, but he is on
a train, so in his good stead I would like to recognize Mr.
Quigley for any opening comments he might have.
Mr. Quigley. Mr. Chairman, thank you. I thank you for
holding this hearing and I want to thank our distinguished
panel for being here. I feel at this point since I am so new to
this committee and the subcommittee, that anything I could add
at this moment would pale in comparison to the ranking member's
thoughts, so we will wait for his arrival for that. I look
forward to listening to this panel and asking them questions.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Quigley. We all know Mr.
Serrano is apt to make an opening statement anywhere any time,
so we look forward to his arrival.
I would like to now recognize Chief Judge Washington of the
D.C. Court of Appeals for an opening statement. If you could
limit your remarks to about 5 minutes, that would give us more
time for questions. Your full statement will be included in the
record.
Judge Washington. Thank you. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman,
Congressman Quigley and, of course, to the ranking member Mr.
Serrano who I am sure will be here, and Congressman Womack and
the rest of the subcommittee. My name is Eric Washington. I am
the Chair of the Joint Committee on Judicial Administration in
the District of Columbia and the Chief Judge of the District of
Columbia Court of Appeals. I have the pleasure of serving in
those roles along with my colleague who is accompanying me here
today, Lee F. Satterfield, the Chief Judge of the Superior
Court of the District of Columbia. We thank you for having us
here this afternoon and appreciate this opportunity in the
absence of a budget submission to update you on key aspects of
the work of the D.C. Courts.
Earlier this month the court introduced to our employees
our third 5-year strategic plan entitled ``Open to All, Trusted
by All, Justice for All.'' The title is also our vision for
serving the public in the District of Columbia.
The Courts' strategic plan provides the framework for our
budget submission, our Court's operations through division
level management action plans, what we call MAPs, and our
employee performance plans. All court initiatives must support
the goals and objectives of our strategic plan in order to get
the support of the Joint Committee.
In support of the plan's first goal, the one that is
critical to what we do for the citizens of the District of
Columbia, fair and timely case resolution. The Court of Appeals
has been working over the past several years to enhance the
timely resolution of its cases.
According to statistics compiled by the National Center for
State Courts, the D.C. Court of Appeals has the highest
caseload per capita of any jurisdiction in the country and,
despite our relatively small population, the second highest
number of case filings of any jurisdiction without an
intermediate court of appeals.
We appreciate the support of Congress and the President for
a new case management system and additional law clerks to help
us in this effort to expedite case processing. The new
technology helps the court manage its large caseload and
connect to the Superior Court case management system from which
we are now able to obtain the trial records electronically.
This has increased efficiency and the court has revised its
internal operating procedures to better take advantage of this
increased efficiency by designating the trial court record as
the record on appeal.
We are pleased to report that these efforts have begun to
show results. The Court of Appeals has steadily reduced its
median time on appeal from a high of 505 days in 2007 to less
than a year, 352 days, in 2012. But more work remains to be
done and we are committed to using the resources you provide to
us to increase even more the efficiency of our case processing.
In the Superior Court, our trial court we resolved more
than 102,000 cases last year and have the Nation's second-
highest per capita incoming civil caseload. Courtwide
performance measures have been adopted to address case
processing activities, court operations and performance. As
part of our efforts in this regard, a multi-year business
intelligence initiative was established to enhance performance
analysis, reporting and public accountability. That is
important because through that business initiative we are able
to get snapshots through an integrated view of our processes
and of our performance, and then make decisions in a more
timely fashion about how to better use our resources to address
the needs which are being reflected in any particular year.
We have done a lot in the access to justice area, primarily
we have established a number of self-help centers. Those self-
help centers are in areas where we have seen a large increase
in litigants without lawyers, unrepresented individuals who
need help. You can imagine where those areas are. They are in
small claims. They are in consumer areas, they are in areas of
landlord-tenant and foreclosure.
We have established calendars and specialized courts in
order to address them. We have established self-help centers
connected to those calendars where we have volunteer lawyers
from the bar, Legal Aid, and other volunteer organizations who
come in and help to provide free access to legal services to
assist litigants in getting through the process and getting
into court. Once they are in court, we have taken steps to
amend our judicial Code of Conduct to make clear and further
clarify how judges can interact with unrepresented litigants in
a way that will allow the court to effectively hear the issues
that they wish to bring forward while at the same time making
sure that judicial actions are not seen as anything but as
being fair and impartial, thus not promoting one side over the
other. So we have taken those steps in comments and in
amendments to our rules.
Our workforce, of course, is incredibly important to us and
we have undertaken an initiative called Building a Great Place
to Work. A lot of that is based on Federal Viewpoint Survey
results that we have received after administering that survey
which, of course, is administered in all the Federal agencies.
That survey showed that we had some real strengths, but it also
showed that we could improve in a number of areas.
The areas where we wanted to improve were wellness, work-
life balance and internal communications, and we have taken
steps in all of those areas to try to improve the quality of
the life of our employees, because we understand that only by
having motivated, well-positioned and also well-educated staff
are we going to be able to meet the needs of the community we
serve. So, we have taken the effort not only to address the
needs of our employees through these programs, but through your
auspices and your help we have been able to re-energize and
actually automate and develop our Human Resources Division. We
now can track applicant flow, so that we can hire the best
people that are available and willing to work for us.
We also have managed to implement a web-based electronic
personnel file that employees can access from their desktop, so
they are more aware of what is in their personnel files.
Employees know what is required of them through their MAPs,
which I mentioned, and through their performance evaluations
which are tied to our strategic plan, so there is a lot of
continuity throughout the organization and a recognition of
what we need to do to become an even better court system.
Infrastructure-wise we have renovated and retrofitted three
buildings that were built in the 1930s to be effective
courthouses in this century and hopefully for the next 20 to 30
years. I am not including the Historic Courthouse, the Court of
Appeals, which, of course, was renovated a few years ago and is
a model court building, I think, and one we are quite proud of.
In addition to renovating those buildings, we have taken steps
to move and consolidate Family Court operations within the
Moultrie Courthouse, which is now our big priority.
We have a master facilities plan which we developed 10
years ago to project what our space needs would be. We have
been faithful to that plan in terms of developing our space and
our infrastructure. Now as we have received funding for both
design and beginning of construction of new space, we are about
to begin construction of an addition increasing the space of
our main trial courthouse, the Moultrie Courthouse, which sits
on C Street right across from the Newseum, in case that is
helpful to you.
In addition, court security is a big issue for us because,
as you know, there have been courthouse shootings across the
country, Delaware most recently. We have U.S. Marshals that
provide judicial security and criminal courtroom security, and
they move prisoners. We have contractual employees, security
personnel who are at our front doors. We have enhanced our
access through an automatic card system that limits the places
some of our employees can go and enhances their opportunity to
make it to the areas where they are needed.
Through that process we have increased security and
enhanced it, but we have had a recent study done by the
Marshals Service and they have indicated that we have to do
more. We need more contract court personnel because we have
gone from the Moultrie Courthouse as our primary courthouse
back on to our campus with five buildings in Judiciary Square.
One of the key aspects of our strategic plan, the one we
have just released, deals with the public's trust and
confidence, very, very important to us. We have transparency as
one our values. We have a number of values. But the public
trust and confidence is also the ability to provide services
for the citizens of District of Columbia while maintaining the
public safety. We do that in a number of ways, most notably I
think for your purposes because you have seen this as we have
developed it, we have opened new community-based probation
drop-in centers, we call them BARJ's. They are restorative
justice centers to serve young men in three of four quadrants
of the District of Columbia. Thanks to the support of Congress
we are about to open our fourth, and this one is focusing on
young girls and we think it is critical.
With respect to the impact of sequestration, I can tell you
that it will have a tremendous negative impact on our
operations. In the long term when we are looking at our
strategic objectives, this sequestration, if it lasts too long
and if our budgets stay flat or are cut more dramatically, in
the long term it will affect our service to the public because
we are such a personal services organization. We have 10,000
people a day who come through our doors. They come to our
courthouses and make their case filings, to seek protective
orders and receive services that are fundamental to our
mission. For that reason, we need to make sure that our
workforce stays robust. And as I said, we are doing what we can
internally, but we will need some help. We have absorbed those
reductions by hiring freezes, not filling positions, keeping
vacancies, cutting contractual services in non-case processing
ways.
With respect to our capital budget we are delaying
contracts.
With respect to our CJA budget, our Criminal Justice Act
budget, we have implemented staggered calendars, reduced
attorney waiting time, and we have taken other measures such
as, for appropriate cases, instituting sort of flat fee
payments which don't necessarily capture all the time that the
lawyers are putting in, but they are accepting of those
payments for different stages of the litigation.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, the Courts remain dedicated to
the fair administration of justice for the people who live,
work, do business and visit the Nation's capital, and we are
equally committed to being responsible stewards of the public's
money.
Chief Judge Satterfield and I appreciate this opportunity
to appear before you and look forward to answering any
questions that you or the members of the subcommittee have for
us. Thank you.
[The statement of Judge Washington follows:]
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Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you very much, Judge. I now turn to
Director Ware.
Ms. Ware. Good afternoon, Chairman Crenshaw, Congressman
Womack, Ranking Member Serrano, Congressman Quigley and other
members of the subcommittee. I am pleased to appear before you
today to discuss the Court Services and Offender's Supervision
Agency, better known as CSOSA, which includes the Community
Supervision Program, and you will hear me refer to it as CSP,
and Pretrial Services Agency, PSA, for the District of
Columbia.
Since fiscal year 2010, CSOSA's overall budget has remained
essentially flat while costs to operate our supervision and
public safety programs have continued to rise, effectively
reducing our budget every year for the past 3 years. In fiscal
year 2010, CSOSA, including both CSP and Pretrial, received an
aggregate appropriation of $212.9 million. Of that amount,
$153.5 million was designated for the Community Supervision
Program and $59.4 million for Pretrial Services. Currently,
CSOSA is operating under a continuing resolution that sets our
funding at the fiscal year 2012 enacted level.
The recent sequestration order that went into effect on
March 1st, 2013, resulted in nearly $11 million being cut from
CSOSA's budget which, as I mentioned, had already been frozen
at the fiscal year 2012 level. As of September 30, 2012, CSP
supervised a total of 15,599 offenders on any given day, and
over the course of the fiscal year, as you mentioned, we are
responsible for the supervision of 24,000 different offenders,
many of whom face significant challenges.
Those with special needs, which comprise approximately 32
percent of our total offender population, are supervised by
specialized supervision units, including mental health, sex
offender and domestic violence supervision teams. These
characteristics guide us in determining the appropriate
intervention and supervision strategies needed to improve their
chances of successfully completing supervision and becoming
productive members of the community. However, I must underscore
that recent funding cuts and continual budget uncertainty pose
significant risk to the success that our agency has previously
achieved.
The Community Supervision Program's updated fiscal year
2013 sequester funding basis is $145 million, which is
approximately $7.7 million less than our 2012 enacted funding
level of $153 million. CSP intends to continue targeting these
reduced resources towards the highest risk and highest need
offenders under our supervision through evidence-based programs
and through any supports that we can provide them. However,
CSOSA is a small agency and therefore does not have the funds
available in general areas such as training, travel, employee
awards, administration and information technology with which to
absorb this level of reduction.
CSP will now have to cancel and/or reduce contracts for
offender treatment, housing and other reentry services by an
additional $3 million and implement a hiring freeze and
furlough all of our employees for a total of 6 workdays. Such
reductions are certain to have a significant and possibly
immediate ripple effect on area public safety and our D.C. law
enforcement partners.
In conducting our public safety oriented mission, CSP
employs four operational strategies: Effective offender risk
and needs assessment, close supervision, treatment and support
services, and partnerships. Even in light of our budgetary
challenges, CSP recognizes the importance of implementing
several program initiatives in response to emerging criminal
justice trends such as the changes in offender population
demographics and the proliferation of synthetic drugs, which
you may have heard of. These new programming initiatives are
being accomplished through reallocation and consolidation of
existing resources and in accordance with our updated fiscal
year 2011 through 2016 strategic plan.
It is also important to note that CSP is proud of the
various mission-related accomplishments and advancements we
were able to achieve in recent years through collaboration with
our area criminal justice and law enforcement partners,
nonprofits, faith-based institutions, social service providers
and employers.
I will now turn to the Pretrial Services Agency for the
District of Columbia. Similarly, the Pretrial Services Agency
has initiated several steps in fiscal year 2013 to absorb the
impact of the continuing resolution and sequestration. These
include reducing its contracted drug treatment services,
imposing a limited hiring freeze and making reductions in
information technology, training and forensic laboratory
expenses. PSA also plans to furlough employees a total of 6
workdays beginning in April.
The Pretrial Services Agency provides effective assessment
and placement into clinically appropriate sanctioned based
treatment programs for substance abusing and addicted
defendants to enhance community safety and achieve cost savings
through community-based supervision in lieu of incarceration.
In fiscal year 2012, the Pretrial Services Agency placed nearly
900 defendants in sanction-based residential and outpatient
services. Pretrial also successfully implemented several
research based improvements to the Drug Court and the agencies'
in-house treatment program. These improvements are designed to
enhance the quality of clinical services and to align them more
fully with evidence-based treatment practices.
Many criminal defendants have mental health issues severe
enough to affect their ability to appear in court and to remain
arrest-free. In 2012, the Pretrial Services Agency managed
2,600 such defendants in its specialized supervision unit,
better known as SSU. SSU provides close supervision of
defendants and makes referrals to community-based mental health
services. Most of these defendants also need substance abuse
treatment. Our specialized supervision unit arranges for these
services once the mental health condition is stabilized.
Drug testing services are integral to the judicial process
and to public safety in the District of Columbia. The Pretrial
Services Agency Office of Forensic Toxicology Services
processes urine specimens for CSOSA and Pretrial and tracks
drug abuse trends within the local defendant and offender
populations. In fiscal year 2012, the Office of Forensic
Toxicology conducted 3 million drug tests on 478,000 samples
from persons on pretrial release, probation, parole and
supervised release as well as for juveniles and adults with
matters pending in the D.C. Family Court.
In closing, while CSP and Pretrial have made great strides
in providing comprehensive supervision services and treatment
for offenders and defendants in Washington, D.C., recent
reductions in resources and ongoing budget uncertainty present
a host of challenges for the agency and it also threatens our
ability to continue realizing these successes.
Thank you for the opportunity to share my testimony, and I
would be pleased to answer any questions that you may have.
[The statement of Ms. Ware follows:]
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Mr. Crenshaw. Well, thank you all both very much. We will
start some questions. I see Mr. Serrano has arrived and I am
sure he will have a question and maybe have a statement. Mr.
Serrano, would you like to----
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to make
a brief opening statement. First of all, I apologize for being
late. The Acela is on time 99.9999 percent of the time, and
that is true, but not today. It must be something done in
Boston by those Red Sox fans or something.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like you want to
welcome Judge Eric Washington, Judge Lee Satterfield and
Director Nancy Ware. To the judges I thank you for once again
appearing before this subcommittee. For Director Ware, welcome
and congratulations on taking over this challenging job which
has such a large impact on our community.
I once again look forward to hearing your views on the
current challenges facing the D.C. Courts and CSOSA. In my
view, the largest issue facing your agencies, and indeed the
Federal Government today, is the impact of the sequester. Your
written testimony details a number of steps that the D.C.
Courts and CSOSA will be taking to minimize their impact, but
undoubtedly they will have an impact that will not be positive.
I hope you will be able to share your thoughts about the effect
of the sequester on your ability to ensure justice in an
efficient manner as well as vital supervision and
rehabilitation services.
I would also like to hear if you have any belief that there
will be an impact on public safety from these damaging cuts. I
had hoped not to ask these sorts of questions today, but
unfortunately we have not been able to work out a compromise
that will help maintain the levels of services that Americans
expect of their government.
In any event, I thank you for your service, I look forward
to your testimony, and thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Serrano.
Let's start by talking a little bit more about
sequestration, because I think that is on everybody's mind and
you all touched in your opening statements on the impact that
it is going to have on you all, and I think everybody on this
committee agrees that that is not the best way to reduce
spending. You ought to prioritize issues and some need more
money, and things that aren't working, then you can reduce
spending.
But it sounds to me like you all have thought this through.
Some agencies we talk to seem to have planned for the
sequestration and they will have different impacts on different
people. Some agencies seem to have not really planned on it.
When I read that the Secret Service, their plan to deal with
sequestration was to close the White House to visitors, I am
not sure. It makes me wonder how early they started thinking
about their plan. But I appreciate the fact that it appears
that you have thought about that.
Talk a little bit more about the impact it is going to
have, but also talk about what is meant in terms of going
through this exercise, are there things that you have learned
that you may not have learned otherwise unless this had
happened to find some good in these difficult situations, that
maybe there are some things that you can do that are more
efficient, more effective.
Can you touch on that? As well as maybe elaborate some,
because Mr. Serrano wasn't here, but you talked a little bit
about the impact it is going to have, and also any positives
that you have found ways to actually be more sufficient. I will
start with you, Judge.
Judge Washington. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that,
and I hope I didn't rush through it too quickly, the impact
that the sequester is having on us is that we have had to cut
significant contractual services. We have tried to keep them in
areas that are non-case processing. They range from contractual
services that involve rodent control and other issues of
maintenance for our facilities to, of course, a hiring freeze
that we have implemented more recently. But before that we were
holding vacancies open.
It wasn't an official freeze, but we weren't filling them
all because we anticipated, having been on this continuing
resolution for a number of years and seeing the cliff
potential, we anticipated what might be happening. So we were
able to absorb some of the reductions, in addition to the
cutting of contractual services and the hiring freeze, through
vacancies. What we did to try to address that issue is we
engaged in a very aggressive cross-training program, which is a
stopgap measure at best because we have 10,000 people come to
our courthouse every day, 500 prisoners who come every day to
our courthouse, and you can only move people around and have
them cover for short periods of time.
In the long run, and this is what I meant when I said while
we are able to absorb some of the cuts now, in the long run
they are going to impact us more greatly because we won't be
able to provide the same level of service to the public that
the public has come to expect and certainly, we believe,
deserves.
One of the other areas that we have been fairly, I think
innovative, as you suggest, Mr. Chairman, is that over the past
few years we have tried to make changes to our Criminal Justice
Act program in order to control costs. Chief Judge Satterfield
has done a magnificent job of working with his presiding judges
to create staggered calendars and other sorts of efficiencies
that have reduced waiting time which is, of course, a big
expense to have lawyers sitting around waiting to have their
cases heard or resolved. The Superior Court has also instituted
in the Criminal Justice Act process in conjunction with lawyers
practicing under our Criminal Justice Act, standards which when
met are compensated at a certain level. So we are able to
better forecast what our expenditures are and to make
adjustments if necessary without compromising either the legal
services that are being provided by the lawyers or the amount
that you have appropriated for our fund.
So there are some actions we have taken to become more
efficient in our court operations. Some of the other advances
that we have made in our ability to, for example, get a new
case management system in the Court of Appeals that allows us
to talk and interact and integrate with the Superior Court case
management system has also eliminated the need for a lot of
paper. It is now electronic, which has reduced some of the
needs for our employees that we have now redeployed into other
areas.
So we are trying to work within the constraints that have
been imposed upon us. But, as I said, we are so heavily
operationally tied to having people meeting those individuals
who come to the courthouse, we have not yet got the kind of
population, despite our advances in electronic technology,
where we are apart from the community. We are very much
integrated within that community and people come to our
courthouse every day in droves to seek the kinds of justice and
support that they need. So to the extent that our personnel are
affected and impacted long-term, it could have a very negative
impact on our ability to provide the kinds of services that I
think you and certainly the Courts want us to provide.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. Director Ware.
Ms. Ware. Yes. I am going to invite Mr. Cliff Keenan, who
is the newly appointed Director of the Pretrial Services
Agency, to join me to speak to the impact on the Pretrial
Services under CSOSA. I will speak specifically to the
Community Supervision Program.
We are finding that the sequestration has been quite a
lesson learned for us in many ways, but not always very
constructively, unfortunately. We are finding that we have to
face hiring freezes, as other agencies have mentioned, and
reallocation of our resources towards our highest risk
offenders. Now, you might say that this is a good lesson
learned because we now realize that the few resources that we
have will have to go mostly to our riskiest offenders. So in
order for us to maintain our focus on our mission, we are
focusing more of those resources on our highest risk clients,
which means that we will be placing low risk offenders on new
innovations like kiosks. Under kiosk reporting, offenders don't
have to report to a supervision officer every single day, they
go in and they use a hand reader which is a biometric scan in
order to report. And as long as they are maintaining their
supervision conditions for employment, staying drug free and
maintaining their appointments with the kiosk, then we can
maintain them on this kind of technology.
But those who are medium risk and maximum and intensive
risk are the ones we are most concerned about. So we want to be
sure that we provide them the level of supervision that they
require, as well as the level of support that they require. For
these we are finding that we are having to cut our treatment
dollars, and mentoring programs which have been very
successful. Additionally, we are supplanting as much as we can
through partnerships with universities, potentially looking at
using students to come in and help us with some of the
treatment requirements. We don't know how successful this will
be because it requires a very high level of expertise.
We also have a lot of special initiatives that we have
conducted with our law enforcement partners like the
Metropolitan Police Department's (MPD) All Hands on Deck
Project. They help us with our accountability tours when we go
out to do offender home visits and those kinds of things. With
the sequestration, we are probably going to have to cut back on
a lot of the things that we have done traditionally in the
evenings with our staff and with other law enforcement
partners, due to our inability to pay staff overtime.
So there are positive lessons learned in terms of
reallocation of resources, but there are also very negative
lessons learned in terms of the potential impact the sequester
may have on the recidivism rate for this population, which we
have done very well with over the last 10 years. Also
diminishing the return on how well we have done with making
sure that people graduate out of supervision and do well with
their monitoring so that we are able to terminate them from
supervision. We have had very good success in this regard over
the past 10 years and we are hoping that that doesn't get
compromised by the sequestration.
I will turn it over to Mr. Keenan.
Mr. Keenan. Thank you, Director Ware, and Chairman, good
afternoon, Ranking Member Serrano, Congressman Quigley,
Congressman Womack. Again, I am Clifford Keenan. I am the
Director of the Pretrial Services Agency which is an
independent entity within the Court Services and Offender
Supervision Agency.
As everybody has already alluded to, dealing with the
sequestration from a law enforcement agency perspective is
challenging because there is a balance that needs to be struck
between making sure that we are doing what we are appropriated
to do, but also that we are paying attention to the community
safety and from our perspective to the needs of the court.
Everything that we do in pretrial is based upon an order
received by a judge to a defendant who is released pending
trial. Everybody who has been arrested pending trial is
presumed to be innocent so we don't have the same authority or
autonomy to deal with them as CSOSA does with their probation
or parolee population. We too believe that in addition to
strong effective supervision, that providing pro-social
interventions such as substance abuse treatment services as
well as mental health treatment will go a long way to keeping a
person from reentering the criminal justice system.
So we too are looking at contract treatment reductions. We
are reducing by 50 percent, which means that almost half a
million dollars of money that we would otherwise be providing
for substance abuse treatment for the defendant population will
not be spent. We will bring that population in house and our
own trained staff to be providing some of the group sessions
that they should be receiving.
We are also engaging in a limited hiring freeze. We are not
going to be able to hire all of the positions that we are
currently authorized to hire pending the sequestration. We are
also taking reductions in IT, our training, as well as our
laboratory costs.
But I think most importantly from our staff perspective,
the same as CSOSA, we are taking a 6-day furlough for all 365
of our staff. We worked very closely with our union in terms of
trying to implement this in a fair and consistent way, and what
we agreed upon was that everybody, from me down to the newest
program assistant, would be taking 4 hours per pay period over
the course of the 6 months in order to get up to that 6-day
furlough. It was not extremely palatable on the part of some of
our staff, but they understand that there are very few choices
that any of us have in this.
So under the circumstances, we do think that we are doing
the best we can in terms of balancing our obligations both for
community safety and the court needs as well as doing what we
can with the dollars that we have.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you very much.
Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Director Ware, you made a strong statement about the effect
sequestration will have on public safety. I do not disagree.
Can you tell us how the reductions in your budget, particularly
the furloughs you will have to implement for staff, will affect
safety in the Nation's capital?
Ms. Ware. Yes. Thank you very much. Well, one of the things
that CSOSA prides itself on is how well we have really done
with putting in place best practices in the area of probation
and parole supervision. As a result, we have been able to
reduce the recidivism rate over the past 10 years.
Additionally, the ability of folks to be able to complete
supervision successfully has been increased. Our partnerships
with our law enforcement partners such as the courts, the
Metropolitan Police Department, the U.S. Attorney's Office and
others, including the U.S. Parole Commission, have been very
successful in addressing the highest risk offenders in the
District of Columbia.
We have implemented a number of tools, including the use of
GPS, which is global positioning system, to monitor offenders
and serve as a sanction tool for those offenders who are under
our supervision. All of those things that we have been able to
put in place over the years have really benefited the District
of Columbia, the visitors here, as well as those people who
work here and live here. However, we are really concerned right
now because we are slowly seeing some shifts in the recidivism
rate among our offender population and we are concerned that
this shift, which is very small right now, may increase to the
extent that we will have to look at other ways to sanction
those under our supervision more. This may mean that they will
continue to go back to prison rather than us being able to
maintain them effectively in the community and help them to
become stabilized and to become productive citizens again.
Mr. Serrano. You said earlier that you reduced the number
over the last 10 years you said, but now you see a shift
recently?
Ms. Ware. We are starting to see a slow shift going upward
from 2010, yes.
Mr. Serrano. So you are concerned that these cuts will just
add to that.
Ms. Ware. Yes. 2010 was when we started seeing our budget
flattening, and so we are concerned and we are watching and
tracking it very carefully to try to use every innovation that
is at our disposal. We want to utilize all the tools that we
can come up with within the resource allocation that we have in
order to make sure that the positive trends that we have been
able to implement over the last decade, will not be reversed.
Mr. Serrano. Right. As you know, we not only deal with the
impact of the sequester, but we also have the issue of a 2013
continuing resolution for the remainder of the year. Are there
any recommendations or policy changes that you would like for
the committee members to consider that may help your agency
mitigate the impacts of both of these areas?
Ms. Ware. Absolutely. One of the things that we would like
the committee to consider is to afford CSOSA the opportunity to
retrieve 50 percent of its end of the year unspent funding,
which is often very difficult for us under a continuing
resolution. It means that we don't have a full budget year to
spend the money that we need to be able to spend in order to
meet the goals that we placed on our agency. So part of our
request would be to allow us to retrieve 50 percent of the
funds that are unspent at the end of each fiscal year. I think
we submitted that as a request.
Mr. Serrano. Before you spoke about your working
relationship with the courts and with other groups. How about
the working relationship with the community college to assist
offenders with furthering education skills? Maybe the judges
can speak to that too, if there is any relationship that we
need to know about or something that needs to be better.
Ms. Ware. Well, we definitely would like to improve it. We
had a very good working relationship with the community college
here in the District of Columbia, UDC. The issue that came
before us was the cost of tuition for our offenders, and so we
would have to look at ways to assist them in coming up with the
requisite costs even though it is not the same level of funding
required for them to enroll in the community college.
Nevertheless, they still have to come up with some level of
funding in order to participate, and at one time we were able
to supplement that, but now we are not able to do that as well.
Mr. Serrano. All right. Is there a relationship between the
court and the community college, or is that strictly something
that they deal with?
Ms. Ware. It is probably on our side.
Judge Washington. Yes, it is more on the CSOSA side than
the court side. Of course, we remain open to any discussions or
conversations about how we can assist them and they can assist
us. But we have not had any formal conversations about that.
Mr. Serrano. All right. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Womack.
Mr. Womack. A couple of questions for the judge. One of
those would be I noticed in your testimony that the median time
on appeals has been reduced from 500 days, thereabouts,
whatever the number was, down to about 352. That is still the
better part of a year. That is a long time. I am a big believer
that justice delayed is justice denied. So why is there still a
lengthy process there?
Judge Washington. That is a very complicated question, but
I appreciate it, Congressman. We have in the District of
Columbia, as you know, no intermediate court of appeals, which
means that all of the cases that are decided in the Superior
Court, and you heard the numbers, have direct appeal rights to
the Court of Appeals, except for small claims cases where they
have to file an application for an allowance of appeal. We
still have to decide that. But still, it is not as cumbersome a
process.
We are unlike all of the other court systems in the country
that have only two levels, no intermediate court of appeals.
Their jurisdiction is almost 95 percent discretionary, so even
though they don't have an intermediate court of appeals, they
can decide how many cases to hear and they dismiss the others
by denying the appeal.
We, as a matter of right, have jurisdiction over all of
these cases and we have prided ourselves on giving reasons for
every decision that we reach. So even in those cases that are
ultimately dismissed or remanded with an order, we tend to
include information advising the litigants as to why their case
has been denied or dismissed, not a one word ``dismissed'' or
``denied'' or ``affirmed'' depending on the perspective as it
comes to us or after we are finished with it.
So what happens is our cases go through a process which is
necessary for us to get the information, the record--which has
now been sped up through our case management system--and
briefing from the lawyers, and it is the sheer numbers. Last
year we had over 2,000 appeals filed in our court, and whenever
you have that number, it is just going to take time. It is just
part of the process.
It reminds me that in 1980 the Congress actually passed a
bill creating an intermediate court of appeals, recognizing
that handling that many appeals as a matter of right and giving
reasoned decisions, reasoned opinions for each of our
decisions, was a burden that was unlike many courts in the
country. It didn't pass the Senate. But the bottom line is we
are trying to implement efficiencies to make up for the lack of
that opportunity to have error correcting done by a mid-level
court, and then for us just to look at the larger
constitutional and other issues which face the citizens of the
District of Columbia.
So that is the larger overriding picture. It doesn't mean
we can't do better at case processing. We are making every
effort to do that. We have implemented any number of reforms.
We have screened cases differently and are aggressively using
senior judges more than we have in the past. We asked a couple
of years ago for an appropriation for appellate mediators. We
don't have an appellate mediation program that is ongoing. We
have piloted two different ones trying to do it without
resources, ultimately figuring that we could not continue to
model a haphazard kind of ad hoc program and actually make it
effective, to try to take some cases that may be amenable to
mediation out of the calendar, thus giving us the opportunity
to get to more cases.
So we are making efforts to reduce the time. I don't
disagree with you. We would all love for the time on appeal to
drop even lower, and we will continue to make changes.
Mr. Womack. Percentage breakdown on criminal versus civil
on the docket, what are you looking at?
Judge Washington. Criminal cases make up probably 60
percent of our caseload. Civil cases, family cases, make up the
other 40. It may even be 55-45.
Mr. Womack. And you mentioned the small claims. What is
your threshold amount for filing small claims?
Judge Washington. Threshold amount for small claims. $5,000
dollars, I believe.
Mr. Womack. Is that adequate? It sounds a little low for
this area.
Judge Washington. You know, the----
Mr. Womack. Lawyers would probably disagree with me.
Judge Washington. I have to admit, Congressman, I haven't
given it much thought. I don't know if it has been part of any
discussion that Chief Judge Satterfield may have had, but I
will defer to him on that question.
Judge Satterfield. Thank you. It is a low amount and we are
getting inquiries from lawyers who want us to raise that amount
to be more consistent with some of the other jurisdictions in
the metropolitan area. That is something that we look at over
time and it is something that helps us move things along
faster. It is a consideration.
Mr. Womack. And I know I am going to run out of time here
in just a minute, I am curious on both sides, both on CSOSA and
on the court side, nowhere in the testimony did I hear what we
are doing in this multi-cultural setting that we find our
ourselves, and from Arkansas it is pretty profound there, on
translation services, and that is costing a substantially large
amount more money every year for the individuals that are
coming through our court system that English is not a primary
language. So speak to me on what we are doing as far as
translation goes and the pending costs of it.
Judge Satterfield. Well, I don't have the exact cost
figure, but I know that we are doing a tremendous amount of
activity in that area because we provide that resource to
anyone that needs it so that we don't have any due process
violation.
Mr. Womack. How many linguist services do you have to have
available?
Judge Satterfield. I am sorry?
Mr. Womack. How many different linguist services do you
have to have? How many different languages?
Judge Satterfield. Well, there are five that are
predominant in our demographics, but there are many, many more.
We are fortunate here in the District to be able to provide
interpretation to just about anyone because the State
Department is here.
We are able to find certified, trained interpreters who
want to do it. And we are starting to access things like
interpreter services electronically in order to provide that
service. Because we are federally funded, we are required by
executive order to make sure that we provide it to anybody in
need. Even for the Donald Trumps of the world, we have to
provide it. If he came in here and said I want you to pay for
my interpreter, we would have to make sure that that is done if
it is going to impact that case because----
Mr. Womack. Well, sometimes he speaks in a language I don't
understand too.
Judge Satterfield. But he's just an example. Some folks
have the ability to afford it and some folks do not. I am
sorry, I have just been handed a number. The total number in
2012 is 8,719 times we had to send interpreters to a courtroom
to interpret in a particular case.
Mr. Womack. Ms. Ware.
Ms. Ware. On CSOSA's side we pride ourselves with being a
very diverse workforce. We have done that intentionally so that
we can attract folks from various backgrounds into the
workforce so that they can serve not only as our community
supervision officers and in other capacities, but also so that
they can provide a well-rounded approach to supervision to
folks from different backgrounds. That being said, of course,
we don't have every single cultural and ethnic group on our
workforce, but we do have a Diversity Council that has been put
in place that both Cliff and I are the co-chairs of so that we
can promote diversity across the workforce.
We also have an online service that provides interpretation
for folks who come before us or come before our agency who need
special interpretation services, but I don't have the cost for
that right now. I will have to get back to you on the cost of
that. But that is pretty much how we approach it.
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Mr. Womack. A couple of final questions and then I will
yield back. You mentioned GPS. I am assuming ankle monitors,
you do some type of ankle monitoring?
Ms. Ware. Yes, we do.
Mr. Womack. Okay. Drug courts?
Ms. Ware. Yes.
Mr. Womack. Effectively?
Mr. Keenan. We believe it to be effective, yes. We did a
study last year and we made some changes to the program. We
have reinstituted or I guess reinvigorated the staffing which
is common throughout drug courts where the defense attorney,
the judge, the defendant and the pretrial service officer get
together in order to identify problems. The court itself I
believe is going to be doing an assessment this year of the
Drug Court Program as well. But ours is one of the longest
standing drug courts.
Mr. Womack. My experience has been that those are very
effective alternatives to the type of jurisprudence that we see
in our traditional court system.
Mr. Chairman, I would just say that given the effects of
sequester on top of the effects of the economy and a lot of
other things that drive our crime rate higher, that the
manifestation of mental illness and the manifestation of drug
dependency causes so many other problems across the spectrum,
and I would just hope that these folks and others like them can
do whatever it takes to address some of those underlying issues
so that they don't manifest themselves in a lot of other
extraordinary ways that do rise to some very violent type
outcomes.
With that, I appreciate the panel today. I don't envy your
work, and thank you so much for your time and your testimony
today, and I yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you, Mr. Womack.
I now turn to Mr. Quigley.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel as
well.
Judge Washington, my experience at 26th and California is
that a downturn in the economy at the same time as cuts in
budgeting for courts is a potent and dangerous combination. In
Cook County we had more people get in trouble paying their
bills, credit card bills, their rent, their mortgages, and at
the same time that combination is fewer of them could afford an
attorney to help them deal with those issues. Obviously on the
criminal side we tended to see an up-tick in criminal activity
and again more people in need of the public defender's office.
Is this a similar issue here?
Judge Washington. Congressman Quigley, it is. We see such
an increase, and I spoke about it very quickly when I was
talking about self-represented litigants, pro se litigants on
the civil side. We have so many more people. We have had a 30
percent increase in the last couple of years in those
individuals who are using our Family Court resource center, for
example. The landlord-tenant resource center numbers are huge.
Thousands and thousands of people are going through our self-
help centers. Now, of course, with foreclosures, we have a
calendar that has been established in the Superior Court. I
probably should let Chief Judge Satterfield talk more about it,
but a calendar in the Superior Court that is focused on those
kinds of cases. We have a consumer law self-help center.
What we have done is we have decided that the best thing we
can do in this era of diminishing budgets and resources is
increase our collaboration with legal service providers,
voluntary pro bono lawyers from the bar and others who have
stepped up and have helped us by manning those centers that we
are establishing close to or within court facilities. We can
provide the infrastructure, the space, the tables, maybe some
telephones, things like that, but, of course, we can't provide
the legal services. We look to our bar to do that. And we have
increased the number of opportunities for pro se litigants to
come in and at least get some assistance from lawyers who can
get them started.
One of the other things that we did in this area is that
we, as I said, recently amended our Code of Judicial Conduct
because judges were reluctant to take on the role because they
were concerned about how it could be viewed. What we did was
thought it through and came up with ways, suggestions, of how
judges can better hear self-represented litigants, give them an
opportunity to be heard.
Mr. Quigley. If I could ask how that is working, because I
can see the other side complaining that the judges are
interjecting themselves into the process and perhaps advocating
or strategizing.
Judge Washington. No, we are very careful about that. We
gave very specific examples of the types of things that can be
done. A lot of it is referring litigants to other places, but
also it is just explaining court processes, demystifying how
the court system works. Not the substantive areas, not offering
them suggestions on defenses, for example, but saying this is
what is required when you come to court. This is the kind of
thing that we need to hear in order to resolve the case fairly.
We are very concerned and remain concerned about the
judges, and we have had a lot of training. But I will let Chief
Judge Satterfield also answer that.
Judge Satterfield. I just wanted to add something because I
think you hit it that the attorneys would be concerned. Our bar
in D.C. has asked us to do more in that area, because the
amount of time it took to get through some of those cases with
self-represented people were backing up their ability to
represent their clients and costing their clients more money
because of the waiting that they had to do as we took our time
obviously to make sure there was adequate process and access.
So they have worked with us on things that could be said and
done and how to work with self-represented litigants to be
efficient and fair and move forward. So they have not been
critical of us. They have actually worked with us in trying to
improve that area.
Mr. Quigley. On the criminal side, who can speak to the
increase in perhaps cases, but also the need for public
defender activity?
Judge Satterfield. Well, we are very pleased with the
public defender service that we have. We think they are very
top notch and they do a good job and they take most of the
serious cases. We are fortunate to have funding through
Congress, obviously, for the remainder of the defender services
that are necessary. Crime has sort of remained steady for a
while. The thing about that is you never know when something is
going to be the next thing. It was crack cocaine here in the
nineties and so forth. Now, as the country is starting to look
at synthetic drugs and things of that nature, we don't know how
that will impact our communities until it really gets to our
communities.
Mr. Quigley. What is the percentage of cases with public
defenders? Is that funded in the same manner? Is sequestration
affecting that?
Judge Satterfield. Yes. They were absorbed in CSOSA's
budget. It was an odd kind of arrangement. But they are
affected by the sequestration. What I have been told by the
Director of the Public Defender Service is that she is going to
do what she can to make sure that all of her clients are
represented in court fairly and competently. So I don't know
quite the impact that is going to have. I know she is reworking
things, like we have done, contracts and other things, to try
to reduce any furloughing that she would have to do, but I
don't know the specifics of her plan.
Ms. Ware. The Public Defender Service has a separate line
item budget and so they are responsible for handling the
sequestration just as we all are. It is my understanding that
all of us are affected similarly in terms of trying to manage
the sequestration. But as Chief Judge Satterfield said, that is
something that you would probably need to sit down with the
Public Defender Service to discuss, because they have a
separate budget that they handle and we don't have any control
over their budget.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. Mr. Diaz-Balart, do you have any
questions?
Mr. Diaz-Balart. No, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. A couple more questions. We have a
little more time. I wanted to ask you, Judge, you mentioned in
your opening statement about some of the capital improvements
you are making, and I know we provide about $40 million a year
for capital improvements, and as I understand it you have a
master plan. So I would like to hear a little bit about that,
about how you decide what the priorities are in terms of
capital improvements. Do you do that internally, or does
somebody come in and help you assess all your capital needs?
Explain how you make those priority decisions. How is that
working out? Is there a timeline or a total cost line? Just
kind of share with us that master plan for capital
improvements.
Judge Washington. Okay. We developed a master space plan
looking forward, trying to determine what our needs are
currently and were going to be, and we did this almost 10 years
ago now. We then created, after the master space plan was done,
a master plan for the space around Judiciary Square, all of the
buildings that were part of Courts' inventory but had been
shuttered because we did not have the resources to keep them up
over the years.
That had caused us to retreat into our newest building,
which was the Moultrie Building, which is, of course, now a
building that is nearly 40 years old. But still we had put a
lot of services in there. So we knew we had to get back out of
that building because the building was becoming overcrowded.
We did the master space plan and determined what our needs
were. That is a work in progress. Right now, for example, we
are looking at how our probate and tax operation is going to
address the increasing needs of a demographic that is getting
older and older. At the time we were looking at increasing the
number of opportunities to have cell blocks attached to
courtrooms because we had so many criminal cases. What we have
done is tried to make courtrooms that could be used for both
purposes. So we equipped courtrooms with cell blocks even
though they are being used for civil trials now, because there
has been a decrease in criminal cases, and we are looking
forward.
We have also increased the opportunity for there to be
self-help centers, looking at the demographics of self-
represented litigants. So we tried to plan those things into
our futuristic view of what we wanted Judiciary Square to look
like. Then we looked at technology, IT, multi-door mediation,
things like that, and tried to figure out how we could place
them. So those priorities have driven to some degree how we
have gone out on the Square and renovated buildings.
The big driver, however, was our creation of Family Court,
and that was a major and significant reorganization of our
court building. Moultrie was housing criminal, family, civil at
the time, as I said, and there was a lot of concern about our
Family Court and the young kids and everyone having to move
through the courthouse, all over it, in order to get services,
and coming into contact with individuals who were part of the
criminal justice system.
So one of the things that was driving us was the
consolidation of that Family Court, ultimately getting it all
in one place with a separate entrance and having the support
systems from the District Government co-located to make that
worthwhile. And that is what we have been working towards.
But we had to get Moultrie decluttered so that we could go
back in and reformat the space in a way that made that
possible. We have done it in a way that has limited the contact
that any family coming in there for typical Family Court
matters would have with other parts of the court system, but we
haven't completely consolidated it by bringing in the juvenile
probation, in-court services and others to that space. And that
is what this new addition that I talked about is going to do,
it is going to create the additional space.
So there have been a number of drivers. It is something
that we look at when we look at demographic changes. In fact,
we are about to have a joint managers/judges meeting in which
we are going to be presented with updated statistics about the
community demographics so that we can make even better
strategic decisions about where to put our resources.
So there was a master space plan. We knew what our needs
were going to be based on the projected case filings and we
knew what kind of services were going to be impacted at the
time. As we have gone along through our strategic planning
process, we have relooked at the demographics and we are making
other decisions. But the space hasn't changed because the
increase in filings hasn't changed. Ultimately we will need the
space, and they are already telling us that we will have
greater need for more space as they have updated the space
plan. But we are just trying to make sure that at least we get
to the point where we believe we can effectively administer
justice with what we have.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, in that regard, we also provide
millions of dollars in terms of IT every year. I know that is
kind of a whole new area, particularly in the judicial circles.
I wonder how that is working? Some agencies come before us and
ask for a lot of money for IT and it doesn't always work out
saving money. Sometimes it actually costs more money because
they are not really utilizing the IT.
So can you comment, because I would think that as you have
more technology, then I don't know if that reduces a certain
amount of need for space, things like that. Do you have any
facts or figures? Can you tell us how it is impacting you all?
Is that being managed well? Does that help coordinate cases?
How does that all work out in terms of saving money in the long
run?
Judge Washington. Well, I don't have facts and figures for
you on the impact of the IT developments. I can tell you about
efficiency. One of the key advantages which is helping, as I
was remarking to Congressman Womack, to drive our time is this
new technology that allows our case management systems to talk
and allows us to get not only electronic digital transcripts
but the case record. That has been important. We have also
increased our efficiency by utilizing remote access technology
like iPads. Our judges have iPads now. They are able to sign
orders and work on cases even when they are not at the court. I
don't know whether it is good or bad, we work 24 hours a day
now it seems, but that is one of the things that has increased
our efficiency and allowed us to work cases more quickly.
Of course, cybersecurity, especially in the courthouse, is
critical. So we have increased our technology which has helped
with efficiency. It has also created challenges with
cybersecurity issues that we have to continually monitor. So in
terms of its impact on the court, I think it has been a boom to
us in terms of that.
The cost in terms of how much it has saved us I could not
tell you, but I can say this: We really see long-term, assuming
we can continue to utilize the technology in the way we are
starting to do it, through our access to our web portals,
opportunities for people to get information and access to the
court without having to come perhaps to the court as frequently
as they had before. There is more and more that we can do
online.
For example, we established a remote location out in one of
the quadrants of the city in a hospital where domestic violence
victims would go to have their injuries treated. We were able
to remotely issue protective orders in order to try to allow
those people to get the service they need, get the protection
they need, and at the same time be able to address not only
their physical but their emotional well-being. Victims can set
themselves up through other services the District offers to
protect them more beyond the paper, beyond the order that the
court issues. So I think that is one way. I am sure there are
others.
I don't know if Chief Judge Satterfield----
Judge Satterfield. Just to add briefly, a lot of
jurisdictions are doing E-filing, which we are doing, in most
of our divisions in Superior Court, and expect to have it in
all. You expect to see some cost savings there because people
don't have to come down, they don't have to engage the Clerk's
office, they don't have to go through security to get into the
building. But you also have to be mindful that a portion of the
population, does not have the kind of access to be able to do
E-filing even. So as you go forward in those areas, you have to
be mindful that you are not cutting off folks from access to
the court. But we are moving more in that direction and have
been for some time.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you very much.
Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple
more questions.
Judge Washington, your budget has been relatively flat for
3 years now. Can you describe some of the measures you have
undertaken in these tight fiscal times? I know you already cut
drug treatment and mental health programs, which is not a good
thing, but we understand that is what had to be done. What
other costs have been cut from the budget in recent months?
Judge Washington. Wow, where to start. What we have done in
terms of those costs, as I said, we tried to keep them out of
the case processing area to the extent we can. There are
contractual services, like you suggested. There are services
that impact on the safety of the public who are going into our
buildings and our employment staff. I mean everything from
rodent control to maintenance. Anything we can cut that doesn't
impact on our litigants who have or are seeking our service. So
that is a wide range of contracts that we have eliminated.
We have done a lot of, as I said, holding vacancies open in
order to achieve savings, and then what we have done is we have
cross-trained employees. So now we have employees who are able
to go over and fill in to provide services. Is it the same
quality as having somebody there full-time? No. But we are
saving money in that respect.
We have slowed down our contracts for our capital projects.
We have ceased moving forward as quickly with our projects as
we can, as we were planning to and hoping to, and we can do
that for the convenience, of course, of the government, to keep
that project going, but at a much slower rate. We don't want to
lose the contractors and we don't want to lose the opportunity
to hopefully long-term enact some savings.
So I think those are the major things that we are doing
right now to address the reduction in our budget. And again, we
are trying to use technology to increase the access people have
right now. The Court of Appeals is in the process of developing
its electronic filing in order to limit the number of
individuals we are going to have to put back on our payroll at
the time if we are able to increase back or put our staff back
into some viable size. So I think we are looking ahead trying
to plan, but at the same time the cuts have been, as I said, in
the contractual services and in the vacancies.
Mr. Serrano. And moving towards the more use of
electronics, is that by training, retraining folks you have on
board now, or finding new folks, or both?
Judge Washington. I think it is both. On the one hand as we
do move towards increased use of technology, the job
requirements change, and through attrition we are looking at
reforming those positions. Through, the monies we did receive
that were targeted toward helping us with HR and trying to
increase the robustness of our HR department, we have put in
place ways of tracking applicants for jobs that has made it
much easier for us to get really high quality individuals into
those positions, people who have some of these backgrounds that
we need.
So we are looking at people, we are looking at retooling,
reformatting, I am not sure what the right word is, but our HR
department is looking at these positions as they come open,
looking at how technology can be used to enhance them, and also
looking at how other efficiencies might increase with the
hiring of different types of personnel. So, yes is the short
answer.
Mr. Serrano. Sure. And that was part of my question I guess
before about relationships you say with law enforcement and so
on, but also relationships with educational institutions that
may be able to provide both advice, guidance and future
personnel. We all know there are a lot of folks graduating who
can't seem to find work. So that is related.
One last question, Mr. Chairman. Director Ware, with
passage of the Second Chance Act, there now seems to be a
heightened importance of the importance and social value of
supporting offender reentry efforts and programs. Despite this
renewed national focus, many of the men and women returning
from prison continue to face some very serious barriers in
terms of unemployment, access to housing and substance abuse.
Are there unique challenges that your parolee and
supervised population confront when reintegrating back into
communities here in the District of Columbia?
Ms. Ware. Yes.
Mr. Serrano. I know that is a question you could talk about
for 3 hours.
Ms. Ware. I will try not to do that to you. But the short
answer is yes, and I am glad you brought that up again because
one of the things that we found is that if we are able to
stabilize them in those three areas, housing, treatment and
employment, then we have a much, much greater success rate with
keeping them from reoffending.
Mr. Quigley mentioned some of the things that really help
to stabilize this population. One of the best practices that we
have been observing is a practice from out of Chicago called
the Safer Foundation. I don't know if you are familiar with
them, but they do a yeoman's job of getting this population
employed. It is one of the practices that we were hoping to be
able to bring to the District of Columbia as a model, because
we feel that if we could increase the employment for our
offender population, we would decrease the recidivism rate
substantially. As you already mentioned, even those folks who
are graduating from college are having a difficult time finding
jobs, so our population definitely has a very difficult job. So
we would have to have a unique approach to getting them
employed, and the Safer Foundation has very unique approaches
and a great success rate. Again, we would like to bring to the
District of Columbia.
That being said, 32 percent of our employable population is
unemployed. So we have people who actually have graduate
degrees, who actually have a GED or high school diploma, but we
can't get them jobs. We also have an increasing percent of our
population who have behavioral health needs, as I mentioned
earlier, substance abuse, co-occurring disabilities, substance
abuse and mental health, which is a very, very prevalent in
this population, as well as physical health challenges.
So there are a number of things that, as Mr. Womack
mentioned earlier, our ability to address them, we have found
that that has really been the hallmark of our success with this
population, and I am sure Cliff would say the same.
So we are desperately trying to make sure that we manage
our mission in a responsible manner by using every resource
available to us to continue to stabilize this population and to
give them the services that they need, but also to hold them
accountable, and I don't want to diminish that part of our
responsibility as well.
With that, we use things that are sanctioning tools like
GPS that somebody mentioned and Halfway Back, which is a step
back to short-term jail stay. But some of those options that we
once had available even in our sanctions, will now have to be
looked at again in terms of how well we can resource those
opportunities.
Mr. Serrano. As a follow-up, Director Ware, we know all the
strides we have made in dealing with females in our society,
making society more responsive and fairer in so many ways,
certainly during my lifetime. But as it has to do with female
offenders, are there still special challenges they face and
what are we doing about that?
Ms. Ware. Thank you for that question. Yes, there are very
unique challenges that females in the criminal justice arena
has to face. Much of it has to do with long-term trauma that
have never been addressed, abuse, of course parenting issues.
So as a result we have over the last few years put in place
several special initiatives focused on our female population.
We have a unit within our residential sanctions program for
females, specifically focusing on their unique needs and
addressing some of the behavioral health issues that they have
which are very, very prevalent within the female population. We
also have three supervision units that are specifically trained
to work with women.
We have done that because we find that historically, as you
know, the probation and parole approach has been focused on men
and has really rarely taken into account some of the of the
unique needs of women. But that is now changing and more and
more nationally we are having conversations about the unique
needs of women. So CSOSA has been in the forefront of those
changes, and we have done what I believe to be a really good
job of addressing some of those unique needs, and we have been
sharing some of our lessons learned with others around the
country.
Mr. Serrano. Well, that is my last question. I want to
thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I want to thank you for your
service. We know just how difficult it must be, the work you
do. In this society there are some people who believe in one
strike and you are out, not three. So what you do every day to
kind of give these folks a second chance is something that we
really appreciate. Thank you.
Ms. Ware. And thank you for your support over this last
decade for CSOSA. I appreciate that.
Mr. Crenshaw. Mr. Diaz-Balart.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. No questions.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for
what you do every day to protect the lives of the people that
live here, that work here, that visit here. I know these are
tough times for everybody, and I really appreciate the work
that you do under these difficult situations in trying to do
things more efficiently and more effectively than ever before.
With that, this hearing is adjourned.
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Wednesday, March 20, 2013.
THE JUDICIARY
WITNESSES
HON. JULIA S. GIBBONS, CHAIR, COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET, JUDICIAL
CONFERENCE OF THE UNITED STATES
HON. THOMAS F. HOGAN, DIRECTOR, ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICE, UNITED STATES
COURTS
Chairman Crenshaw's Opening Statement
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, it is 10 o'clock, so I will call the
hearing to order. Good morning everyone. Judge Gibbons, Judge
Hogan, thank you for appearing before the subcommittee today.
Judge Gibbons, this is your ninth time that you have come
before our subcommittee, and so we appreciate the fact that you
are here. Welcome back to Judge Hogan. It is only his second
time. But we are glad you are both here.
Having a fair and independent Judiciary is a cornerstone of
our democratic system of government. The job of the third
branch is one of great importance, responsible for resolving
criminal, civil and bankruptcy disputes. The courts must have
the trust and respect of all our citizens. In addition, the
Judiciary's probation and pretrial service officers perform a
critical public safety mission by supervising more than 200,000
offenders and defendants living in our communities.
I want to applaud the Judiciary for submitting its fiscal
year 2014 budget request in a timely and sensible manner. It is
disappointing and a little bit frustrating that the Executive
Branch has yet to submit its budget, but I think it is time
that they take seriously their obligation to the budget
process. Congress must do its work, and we on the
Appropriations Committee are committed to writing thoughtful
spending bills in regular order. We appreciate that fact that
you at the Judiciary are also committed to your role in this
process.
As you know, the Federal Government continues to operate in
an environment of limited resources; however, we are going to
try to ensure that you have the resources needed to accomplish
your important mission.
Over the past few years, you and your staff have worked
closely with us to ensure that the Judiciary receives increases
to address only your most critical needs, and I thank you for
your efforts to reduce costs during these difficult times.
The Judiciary's budget request this year proposes an
increase of $180 million, or about 2.6 percent above last
year's. And I know that this is one of the smallest requests
that you have ever made in the past few decades, and it is
still going to be tough because of the fiscal situation we find
ourselves in. So I want to work with you and our ranking
member, Mr. Serrano, to identify the savings that you are able
to make and yet still provide--we want to make sure the courts
have the resources necessary to fulfill your constitutional
duties.
So with that, I would like to recognize my good friend and
colleague, the ranking member, Mr. Serrano.
Mr. Serrano's Opening Statement
Mr. Serrano. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And we thank you for being before us, Judge Hogan you for
the second time. And next year Judge Hogan you get a 10-year
pin. It is something the Chairman is going to start doing
pretty soon.
Judge Gibbons and Judge Hogan, you come here at a difficult
time for the Federal judiciary, in large part due to
sequestration. Most people do not realize that when we discuss
the Federal Judiciary, we are not just talking about funding
for judges and trials, we are also discussing funding for
Federal public defenders, for court security, for free trial
services, and for probation services for those released from
Federal prison.
The programs run by our Federal Judiciary really extend
outside of the courtroom, which means that cuts to the
judiciary's budget do not just affect litigants, but many of
our communities as well. Unfortunately, as a result of
sequestration, the Federal Judiciary will have to absorb an
almost $350 million cut to your fiscal year 2013 budget.
In a letter sent to Chairman Crenshaw and to myself, Judge
Hogan detailed the negative impact that these cuts will have on
the Federal judiciary's operations. Among other things, there
will be a 20 percent cut to drug treatment and mental health
programs, there will be a 30 percent cut in court security
funding, there will be fewer probation officers, and there will
be longer delays in cases going to trial.
I know a lot of members like to think of sequestration as
an abstract math problem, but it is one that has real world
impacts. As I told Justices Kennedy and Breyer when they
appeared before the subcommittee last week, I am particularly
worried about our Federal public defender program, where
layoffs have occurred prior to sequestration and show no signs
of abating.
Additional funding reductions caused by the sequester will
undoubtedly force further difficult choices and undermine the
ability of our Federal public defenders to do their utmost to
help their clients. I am concerned that we are moving towards a
troubling scenario in which our constitutionally mandated duty
to provide eligible criminal defendants with legal counsel is
substantially obstructed by a lack of funding.
Our judicial system is the envy of countries around the
world because of its fairness, its efficiency, and the access
we all have to it. I hope that those notable features of our
system are not undermined by the sequester. Unfortunately, I am
fearful that they will be.
Judge Hogan and Judge Gibbons, thank you for being here
today. I look forward to discussing the sequester and other
issues with you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. So now we will recognize Judge Gibbons. If
you could make an opening statement, keep it in the
neighborhood of 5 minutes. Your written statement will be
included in the record.
Judge Gibbons' Opening Statement
Judge Gibbons. Thank you. Chairman Crenshaw, Representative
Serrano and members of the committee, I am Julia Gibbons, a
judge on the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals and Chair of the
Judicial Conference Committee on the Budget. As has been
mentioned, with me is Judge Tom Hogan, who is the Director of
the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts.
Mr. Chairman, we appreciate your taking the time to meet
with us last week in advance of the hearing. As the chair
alluded, I have been here several times, and I come before you
today more concerned than ever about the financial situation
facing the third branch of government and how that will impact
our ability to properly administer justice. The 5 percent
across-the-board sequestration cuts that took effect March 1 do
reduce judiciary funding by nearly $350 million below current
levels. These cuts will have a devastating impact on Federal
court operations nationwide.
We believe we have done all we can do to minimize the
impact of sequestration, but a cut of this magnitude,
particularly so late in the fiscal year, will affect every
aspect of court operations and impact the general public, as
well as individuals and businesses looking for relief in the
courts.
In February, the Executive Committee of the Judicial
Conference finalized a number of emergency measures to deal
with sequestration, and we are now implementing those measures.
These emergency measures are unsustainable, difficult and
painful to implement. The Federal court system in this country
cannot continue to operate at sequestration funding levels
without seriously compromising the constitutional mission of
the Federal courts. The judiciary will phase in the cuts, but
the impacts will be real and harmful to the citizens served by
the courts.
The courts operate under a decentralized management system,
so each court will decide exactly how to implement the funding
cuts, but we estimate that on a national basis, as many as
2,000 employees in the courts could be laid off this fiscal
year or face furloughs for 1 day a pay period, resulting in a
10 percent pay cut. These staffing reductions would be in
addition to the loss of over 1,800 court staff over the last 18
months.
Sequestration will impact public safety, because there will
be fewer probation officers to supervise criminal offenders
released in our communities. There will be a 30 percent cut in
funding for court security systems and equipment, and court
security officers will be required to work reduced hours. This
creates security vulnerabilities throughout the Federal court
system.
Our Defender Services program is particularly hard hit, and
we currently project significant staff furloughs in that
program, as well as lengthy delays in processing payments to
private attorneys appointed under the Criminal Justice Act.
These cuts will affect the judiciary's ability to provide
qualified defense counsel to indigent defendants. As many
recent news articles have noted in highlighting recent cuts in
both Federal and State defender offices, these cuts occur on
the 50th anniversary of the Supreme Court's landmark decision
in Gideon v. Wainwright, which provided the constitutional
right to defense counsel for indigent defendants. The cuts to
the Defender Services program highlight the harm that
sequestration, if left in place, poses for individual
constitutional guarantees.
Under sequestration, the judiciary finds itself in dire
circumstances. I do not overstate when I say that we cannot
continue to operate at such drastically reduced funding levels
without seriously compromising our constitutional mission. We
are hopeful that Congress and the Administration will
ultimately reach agreement on alternative deficit reduction
measures that give priority funding to the functions critical
to our democracy and reject the indiscriminate approach of
sequestration.
Turning to the 2014 budget request, today, of course,
sequestration is in place, but our 2013 full year appropriation
is still unresolved. For purposes, therefore, of constructing
the 2014 request, we assumed the fiscal year 2013 funding level
available under the current continuing resolution of a 0.6
percent increase above the fiscal year 2012 enacted
appropriations level. After the full year 2013 appropriations
are known, we will update our 2014 request and advise you all
of any changes.
We do in the 2014 request seek $7.2 billion in
appropriations, a 2.6 percent overall increase above the
assumed 2013 level, our lowest requested increase on record. We
believe the funding level we have requested represents the
minimum amount required to meet our constitutional and
statutory responsibilities. The request reflects essentially a
current services budget and includes $175 million for
adjustments to base, for standard pay and nonpay changes,
including the 1 percent cost-of-living adjustment for judiciary
employees, consistent with the President's recommendation for
civil service workers, and a total of $5 million for two small
program increases.
Before I conclude my remarks, I would like to acknowledge
the extremely difficult tasks that you all face in deciding how
to allocate extremely limited resources among the Federal
entities under the jurisdiction of this subcommittee, and we
know that each of those entities attempts to make a strong case
for its resource needs. But we would ask, as you consider the
judiciary's funding for 2014, that you take into account the
nature and importance of our work. If sufficient funding is not
provided to the courts, we cannot provide the people of the
United States the type of justice system that has been a
hallmark of our liberty throughout our Nation's history.
I would ask that my statement be placed in the record,
along with the statements of the Administrative Office, the
Federal Judicial Center, the Sentencing Commission, the Court
of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, and the Court of
International Trade.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
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Mr. Crenshaw. Judge Hogan, would you like to make an
opening statement?
Judge Hogan's Opening Statement
Judge Hogan. Thank you, Chairman Crenshaw, Representative
Serrano, members of the committee. I am pleased to appear
before you today and present the fiscal 2014 budget request for
the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. I will refer to
it as the AO for shorthand from now on. And I obviously support
the entire judicial needs of the judicial branch for the moneys
necessary to operate.
About 18 months ago, the Chief Justice appointed me
Director of the Administrative Office. I had been a trial judge
in the Federal court for 30 years and was pleased that he asked
me to take on this position. I have served as Chief Judge of
the United States District Court in D.C. here from 2001 until I
took senior status in 2008. I then was asked by the court to
take over the Guantanamo Bay cases, which I handled on an
overall basis managing those cases for the court until the
Chief asked me to serve as Director. And my other job is I
serve also as a member of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court at this time.
As to the Administrative Office, it was created back in
1939 to assist the Federal courts in fulfilling their mission
to provide equal justice under the law. It is not a
headquarters of the courts; it has management oversight
responsibilities for the various judicial programs and supports
the Judicial Conference of the United States, which is our
governing body. The Judicial Conference determines judicial
policies, we help develop new methods and systems and programs
for conducting the business of the Federal courts; we develop
and support the application of technology; collect and analyze
statistics on the business of the Federal courts for accurate
planning and decisions about resource needs and for reporting
to Congress, as we are required to do; and we provide financial
management service, personnel and payroll support for the
judiciary.
The work of the AO has evolved over the years to meet the
needs of the judicial branch. Service to the courts has been
our core function and remains so, and we provide administrative
support to the 25 Judicial Conference committees, over 2,300
judicial officers, and just under 30,000 court employees.
As to sequestration, like the rest of the Federal
Government, it reduces the Administrative Office of the U.S.
Courts by 5 percent from the fiscal year 2013 CR level. And for
the AO, this means a cut of $4.2 million with 7 months
remaining in our fiscal year. We are going to meet that
shortfall by applying a $1.8 million reduction to nonsalary
accounts, which means a 25 percent reduction in our travel, a
50 percent reduction in training, and a 25 percent reduction in
office and automation supplies. Additionally, we are forced to
reduce funding for salaries and expenses and benefits by $2.4
million. That equates to 15 positions not being filled.
The Administrative Office, really starting back in 2011,
has been operating at a reduced staffing level, and we have
continued that and aggressively pursued that. We expect to be
able to achieve the savings through continued hiring freezes
and our employee buyouts and early outs. At this time, because
of the cost containment efforts we have worked on, I do not
believe it will be necessary to furlough AO staff under the
sequestration for this fiscal year. In the future, it remains
to be seen whether furloughs will be required.
But the impact of our support for the courts is
considerable under sequestration. One of the things the AO does
that is very essential to the court operations is the
development and implementation of key information technology
systems and programs. We have to slow down or stop our research
and development in those areas now. That includes enhancement
of critical financial management applications; processing
payroll, personnel actions; reviewing court financial
operations; supporting probation and pretrial services; and the
deployment, finally, of our national Internet-based telephone
system, which is a great cost-saver, but will have to be paused
this spring.
In addition, the Administrative Office has been very
instrumental in helping the courts' overall cost containment
efforts. We are committed to continuing that work with our
various committees in the Judicial Conference and developing
even further cost containment issues along with the Budget
Committee that has led the effort to limit the growth in
judiciary programs.
As to the Administrative Office itself, our own cost
containment, we have been working on an initiative that we
started, as I said, back in 2011 that would control costs, help
prepare us for future budget constraints. An internal AO Cost
Containment Task Force identified measures that could be
quickly implemented that have immediate financial impact, and
they have included reductions, I mentioned, in travel,
printing, publications, descriptions, reducing mobile device
costs. And all those cutbacks will continue this year.
But 93 percent of our funding goes to support employee pay
and benefits, so by necessity, the longer-term cost containment
initiatives are in those areas. Early retirement opportunities
that have been made available in 2012 fiscal year will continue
to be offered this fiscal year. Policies were established to
permit the buyouts as a workforce restructuring tool, and we
had 31 buyouts accepted this past fiscal year. During fiscal
year 2012, early outs and buyouts resulted in close to $2
million in savings. Hiring was restricted to entry level, or
lower end of the pay band, with some limited exceptions. In
2012 fiscal year adherence to this policy, we reduced our costs
by $700,000.
We are continuing to review our contractor positions to
determine the cost-effectiveness of converting certain
positions to temporary government or permanent government
positions. We have discovered that contractor positions are
very expensive, so 100 of the highest cost contractor positions
were identified for conversion to lower cost government
positions, for the most part temporary positions. To date we
have converted nine contractor positions to government
employees with a fiscal 2013 savings of $540,000. This
initiative eventually could contribute over $6 million in
savings to ongoing projects.
Finally, our budget request for 2014 was built upon the
level of available funding under the current continuing
resolution, but the sequestration has been applied to the hard
freeze of the 2012 level funding now in consideration by
Congress, and as Judge Gibbons said earlier, after the 2013
appropriations are known, we will update our 2014 request
accordingly.
As Judge Gibbons recognized, I know this is a very
difficult year for you and your colleagues as you struggle to
meet the funding needs of the various agencies and programs
under your jurisdiction, and we appreciate the challenges that
you all face. We hope that Congress and the Administration can
agree upon legislation and provide some long-term relief and
stability to our budget. Again, I thank you for the opportunity
to appear today, and I would be pleased to answer any questions
that you have.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you very much, both of you all, for
those comments.
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SEQUESTRATION AND COST CONTAINMENT
Mr. Crenshaw. One of the things, when I hear, Judge
Gibbons, you paint a fairly bleak picture in terms of funding,
and on the other side, it is good to hear Judge Hogan talk
about some of the things that you all have done, and I think
you are to be applauded for that, because most of us on this
committee, we think that the continuing resolution is not a
very good way to run the railroad, because our job is to have
these kind of hearings, to listen to you all, to make priority
decisions. And programs that are working well, then we ought to
fund them, and if programs are not working as well or wasting
money, then we ought to reduce or limit them. But when you do a
CR, continuing resolution, you just say, we will just give you
the same amount of money you had last year whether you were
doing a good job or not. And so we all are disappointed that
that is where we find ourselves.
And then you throw in the fact that we have this concept of
sequestration, which once again most appropriators would say is
a terrible way to try to find reductions in spending, because
most things that the Federal Government does are important, but
just like in life, some things are more important than others.
And it would be a whole lot better if we want to try to reduce
spending, that we would look and find the areas that are doing
a good job and fund them at an appropriate level, and again,
find other areas where there is waste, and we would reduce
that, but we do not get that opportunity. It is just across-
the-board, pretty draconian, not a very good way to do it, but
we find ourselves in that situation.
And I appreciate the fact that you have taken that, because
in one sense it is obviously a curse in the sense that you do
not have all the money you need, but in one sense it might even
be a blessing. As Judge Hogan kind of pointed out, there are
things that you have done that are very impressive to say,
look, we know we are going to have less money and we are going
to have to live with that.
Maybe you might comment on two things. One, specifically
some of the things that, as you say, just impact your ability
to do your constitutional duty. Does that mean less cases? Some
of the specifics about that, I would love to hear. And then,
two, some of the things that you are doing to reduce your
spending.
One of the things that comes to my mind, I know that there
is about a billion dollars in your request that goes for office
space. And there is some new office space, I think there were
76,000 square feet of new space, and on the other hand I think
over the last year and a half, the number of staff has gone
down by, like, 1,900, and I am sure that is part of your
process in terms of how to control costs, because that is a lot
of money in terms of money that you pay to the GSA all across
the country.
So talk about how you are working on that more specifically
in terms of just dealing with the space. I imagine it takes
time to catch up. You got plenty of space, you got less people,
so you got to match up that. That is one area that I am sure
you are working on. But could you do that? Could you touch on a
couple of the areas specifically so we can understand, you
know, how difficult it is, and, two, highlight some of the
things that I think Judge Hogan has already talked about that
you have really been able to define areas to save money?
Judge Gibbons. Okay. I will try to take on both of those
assignments, Mr. Chairman.
First, specific impacts of sequestration. All of these are
important, but I am going to take a little picture, moving to
big picture approach to answering this question. Within the
court, the impact on judiciary employees for whom we, of
course, feel a great deal of responsibility, we are talking
about their loss of income and increased risk because of
reduced security, increased risk of working in a court
environment.
Moving to the people whom the courts serve, we will try our
very best to avoid this, but I think it is almost inevitable
that we will see some delays in the handling of cases. And, of
course, we have individuals who seek relief in our courts. We
also have businesses who seek relief in our courts. Both will
be affected by potential delays in civil litigation. In
bankruptcy cases, we of course have both individuals and
businesses who come before us as debtors, but we also have all
the many businesses who are creditors in bankruptcy proceedings
who may well be affected by delays in the process.
Obviously, given the amount of our docket that deals with
business and commercial activity, there is some economic impact
from this, as I believe Justice Kennedy mentioned to you all
last week.
Turning to other public policy goals, I have already
mentioned the economic situation, but the public policy goal of
maintaining the public safety is compromised if we have fewer
probation officers to supervise dangerous offenders who are
released from prison. Congress has expressed the public policy
goal of disposing of criminal cases quickly through the Speedy
Trial Act. We would certainly hope that we would be able to
dispose of cases in the manner that the Act requires, but that
is in jeopardy if delay is occasioned. The remedy, of course,
if the Speedy Trial Act is violated, is dismissal of the
indictment. That will come about not only because of internal-
to-the-courts issues, but also because of the situation that
has been mentioned with respect to the Federal defenders and
their resource needs. They may simply not be able to step up to
the representation of criminal defendants in as timely a manner
because of their own personnel resource scarcity.
The public policy goal of providing representation for
indigent defendants, a public policy goal that is incorporated
in our Constitution, not merely in statute, will be compromised
by these cuts.
And, finally, the biggest picture issue of all is that the
place that the courts have held in our democracy is
jeopardized. The Constitution envisions a strong and
independent judiciary that can handle the cases and
controversies that come before it. I am not a fan of hyperbole
and I avoid it, so it is no hyperbole when I say that we have
deep concern about our ability to fulfill our constitutional
mission.
Now, those are the sequestration impacts, big to small--
small to big.
Turning to cost containment and more specifically the space
situation, we have actually, lest it seem as though cost
containment is something we began to do in response to
sequestration or the threat of it or began to do recently, we
have had a very aggressive cost containment effort since 2004.
And I will not go over all of our past accomplishments, and I
will refrain from patting ourselves on the back, as we have
done in past committee hearings, but it has been there, it has
been in place. But we, of course, have a lot of new things
ongoing, too.
While we have done a lot of things in space over the years
to control the growth in that account, of course the issue of
the day is downsizing our space as our personnel have
decreased. And also there is room for downsizing as a result of
our use of technology. And we intend to do that. The problem
is, it is hard to do it as quickly as the budget cuts have
come, because much of the space that has been freed up by
downsizing and technology is interior space, and we cannot just
say to GSA, we have a little office here, please come take it.
Steps have to be made to make it marketable, funding is
required to move folks around, and in a constrained budget,
that is hard to do. And GSA may be reluctant to fund space
reduction efforts, given its own constraints and given the
expense of doing it. So the whole process is simply slowed by
that, but nevertheless we are working on it.
Everything has to have a name within government, and I fear
the judiciary has not avoided that trend. We have something
called the Integrated Workplace Initiative that is designed to
downsize our workspace and make it a different kind of
workspace, really because of the flexibility that technology
has given us with respect to when and where work can be done.
Again, money is required, though, to outfit the workplaces to
meet this new sort of model.
Other areas we have been trying to address, the closing of
nonresident courthouses--a very difficult thing to do. We have
gotten some of them closed. We need to continue to do that. We
are looking hard at our libraries and whether we have excess
space in the libraries and whether we might downsize there as
more and more legal research is computerized as opposed to
being done in the books that line the shelves. We have provided
a little bit of a financial incentive to courts that release
space through our circuit rent budget, providing them a little
bit of a credit, hoping that we can get more courts to step up
and say, hey, I have got this space, let's figure out how you
can take it, GSA.
That is what we are doing in the space area. We have many
other cost containment initiatives, and I am happy to address
them now or later, but if your particular interest at this
point is space, I will stop.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, thank you very much. And I think we all
applaud the efforts you are making on a farsighted basis, and I
just hope some of the other agencies have had the foresight
that you have had that in these difficult times make it a
little more bearable. So, again, thank you for that.
Mr. Serrano.
SEQUESTRATION CUTS IN THE DEFENDER SERVICES PROGRAM
Mr. Serrano. Thank you. And once again, thank you for being
here. I am going to once again discuss with you the whole issue
of the public defenders and my concern that the program may be
hurt to a point where it cannot meet its constitutional
responsibility.
You know, we spend a lot of time in this Congress, and it
is fine, I think it is proper, discussing, you know, our
country versus other countries and our great democracy and our
form of government. Notwithstanding how many people on TV may
knock it on a daily basis, I still think that a lot of the
world would like to have this system in place, and we could
discuss so many things about it. But one of the ones that
always stands out to me, and I am not a lawyer, but one thing
that stands out to me is the fact that a person of no resources
or very low resources can still get counsel and be protected,
and we can try to give that person the fairest trial possible.
And that is something that is different about us from a lot of
other countries. So I am concerned about ensuring the rights to
counsel for indigent defendants even in these difficult budget
times.
Are you, Judge Gibbons, concerned about the effects funding
cuts will have on the Federal public defender program? And
what, if any, flexibility does the judiciary have to shift
funds around to help this important program?
Judge Gibbons. We are certainly very concerned. Part of the
impact in that program comes from the fact that even more than
the salaries and expenses account, that particular account is
so heavily personnel and rent. It is about 90 percent, making
the cuts in that account very difficult. We estimate that
employees in the Federal defenders offices will be furloughed 1
day a week under sequestration. Because all the accounts are so
hard hit, it is very difficult, as you might imagine, to say we
would shift funds. Certainly once our 2013 appropriations are
finalized, we will look to see if there is a way we can help
the defender services account.
Last week a number of judges were in town for the meetings
of the Judicial Conference and for related meetings, and in
those various meetings it was heartening to me to see the
concern that judges and the court managers who were here
expressed and their willingness to look at ways that the courts
could help the defender offices, not necessarily by shifting
funds, but other mechanisms which we really have not even begun
to discuss yet.
These might be problematic to the extent, you know, it is
important to the defenders not to be seen as controlled by the
courts. We appoint counsel in these cases, but then they have
an independent duty to represent the client. I mean, the
lawyers are not doing what the judges tell them in the cases,
obviously. And so we have got to explore, find alternatives
with that in mind, but I think that we will be discussing that
some more.
Mr. Serrano. Now, at the end of one of your statements, you
said you are concerned that the courts--the courts, I believe
you were speaking to--cannot meet their constitutional mandate.
Is that a more difficult situation when it comes to the
defenders, or is it across the board that you have this
feeling?
Judge Gibbons. Certainly the defender program is not the
only area in which we think our constitutional mission is in
jeopardy. As you know, we do not have extra programs that can
be lopped off. Everything the courts do is something that we
are required by the Constitution or statute to do. But
certainly the defender program is perhaps the most immediately
affected program in a very grave way.
Mr. Serrano. Right. Well, when his turn comes up, Mr.
Quigley will be asking a much more----
Mr. Quigley. Similar.
Mr. Serrano. Smart?
Mr. Quigley. Similar.
Mr. Serrano. Similar, but more pointed questions, because I
am going to do something he will hate me for, and that is mess
up his presentation by telling you that he was a public
defender.
Mr. Quigley. Private attorney.
IMPACT OF SEQUESTRATION ON THE JUDICIARY'S IT PROGRAM
Mr. Serrano. And so we commend him for that.
Judge Hogan, a similar question to you. The impact of
sequestration on the Administrative Office of the Courts will
be considerable, as noted in your testimony. In particular, you
note cuts will have a long-term cost in regard to missed
opportunities; for example, reduced IT expenditures. In your
letter, you say that the Federal Judiciary cannot continue to
operate at such drastically reduced funding levels without
seriously compromising the constitutional mission of the
Federal courts. How long can the courts continue to operate
under this extreme budget pressure, one of the most troubling
aspects of sequestration for the Federal Judiciary, in your
opinion?
Judge Hogan. Thank you, Congressman Serrano. We are
concerned as to the information technology development. It may
be somewhat surprising, but I believe the courts have become
one of the most tech savvy workplaces of all the government
structures. We have developed, particularly in probation and
pretrial, automation services that allows them to reduce their
office space greatly, utilize mobile technology with all their
records and files when they visit their clients, et cetera, to
be available, and very good reporting systems.
The same is true throughout the courts, not only in the
legal research systems, but on our financial systems, our
statistical recordkeeping systems. And what we are concerned
about, our director of IT, Joseph Peters, has developed a very
good strategic plan for the next 5 years on how to integrate
some of our systems together to save money and reduce our
expenses greatly. Some of that is going to have to come to a
halt.
I had referenced our telephone system. We had been putting
in a new Internet-based telephone system in the courts. We had
a goal of putting in 30,000 pieces of equipment for the courts
in 5 years. In the first 2 years this operated, it was so
popular with the courts, we put 22,000-plus in, almost reached
our goal in 2 years rather than 5 years. We are going to have
to bring that to a halt later this Spring because the money is
not going to be there because of sequestration to complete the
system that we wished. And it saves the courts a lot of money
by having this integrated phone system. That is one example.
I think we can still meet our constitutional duties in the
courts by providing services that are required. It will just be
slower and more time consuming, and we will eventually pay the
price in years to come when we have not developed our new
automated systems we are working on now because of the delays
in getting them done. The immediate impact is somewhat severe,
but the future impact we are not sure yet, but I think it will
be limiting us in the future to do the work the way we feel we
can do it. That is just one example as to the problems with the
sequestration on the IT structure that we have.
Mr. Serrano. Right. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
Mr. Diaz-Balart.
CYBERSECURITY AND THE USSC WEBSITE HACKING
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Good to see you all. Thanks for being here.
Actually a question on a different vein, the issue about
cybersecurity and cyber threats, and it is something that
obviously the private sector and, frankly, all the Federal
Government has been highly subjected to recently. And recently
the U.S. Sentencing Commission's Web site was hacked on two
occasions by the group Anonymous. And could you just give us
your understanding as to how bad that was, what was
compromised, and also what measures have been taken or can be
taken to try to stop that from happening again, if at all
possible?
Judge Hogan. I will be pleased to talk about that. Thank
you for that question. Cybersecurity is a considerable problem
for the courts with the type of information that we contain in
our records, and we are very sensitive to that.
I will address first the Sentencing Commission issue. I got
rather involved in that and I can talk to that, and then our
national program of security I can address as well. And with my
background in the FISA Court, I must tell you that I am very
sensitive to cybersecurity, that is one of the most serious
problems that the FISA Court works on.
On the Sentencing Commission, there was a Friday night
attack, which had been identified, by this loosely organized
group called Anonymous. Frankly, I think they were trying to
attack the Justice Department. I think they thought the U.S.
Sentencing Commission was part of the Justice Department. They
found a failure in their security that they had, and they were
able to intrude and bring it down.
Their security contractors (they had a private security
contract) felt they had cured the problem and put it back up
again on Saturday. Anonymous had managed to arrange it such
that they could get right back in again, and they did again on
Saturday, and this time they took it down and embarrassingly
made the page, when you went onto it, refer you to some
computer satellite game or something, and the Sentencing
Commission site was destroyed.
That caused considerable concern. There was nothing taken
from their public Web site that had personal, confidential
information or any links. They could not go into their
operating systems. So they did not compromise the entire
system, but they destroyed the Web site.
The AO then was sought by Judge Patti Saris, the Chair of
the Sentencing Commission, to help, and we provided technical
assistance. We made a number of security improvements. We are
now temporarily hosting the Commission's Web site. We put it
back up. It took quite a while, almost 2 weeks to get it
restructured. And we are now exploring with the Commission an
appropriate and secure long-term hosting arrangement. We can
take it over, but it is going to have to be done with some
understanding and how we are going to do this. I will not go
into the security that was enhanced, but they have enhanced it,
and it has withstood their attacks at this point.
As to overall national security policies of the court
system, we have developed, and continuously monitor 24/7
programs to advise us of any malicious activity, attacks. We
have programs that go out to the courts constantly advising
them of security patches to install. In fact, the attack on the
Sentencing Commission was successful because their contractor
had not made a patch that they had been told to make,
unfortunately.
At the local level, we have licensed security software for
end point protection, we have annual security awareness
programs. And I, particularly with my background, have been
very concerned. I have a weekly report from my IT people as to
security attacks against the judiciary as a whole. And we have
been constantly attacked, particularly by Anonymous for almost
every Sunday evening in the last several months, and it has
continued. They have not been successful against the courts.
There was one cyberattack in the Eastern District of Michigan,
which caused a problem for a few hours that we resolved, but
other than that, there has been no successful attack against
the judiciary--I am knocking on wood--that has yet to occur.
We are very sensitive to that. We do find, unfortunately,
constantly, because of people that come to the courthouse with
their laptops and plug in to use it while they are in court,
our interns come in, some other people come in, and they can
introduce malware from their own computers. We are very
sensitive to that and we have programs that pick that up, and
we constantly warn courts and advise them: We have discovered
on your system, there is some malware that has been introduced.
You must clear it up immediately. And that is constant, our
service on that.
We have also worked with Homeland Security and with the
Department of Defense and with the FBI on continuing our
security, and work with them closely together to make sure that
we remain protected. We are very cognizant of the sensitive
materials in our court system, which should not be made public,
not only in criminal matters, very sensitive criminal matters
that are ongoing, but cases that involved classified
information, that type of thing. So we are very sensitive and
we are trying to do the best we can in the cybersecurity area,
and I think so far we have been fairly successful in that. That
is one area that we are protecting as much as possible under
sequestration, not cutting the budget.
Mr. Diaz-Balart. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
Mr. Quigley.
DEFENDER SERVICES PROGRAM
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just for the record,
I was not a public defender, I was a private defense attorney.
I always tell folks, the highest conviction rate in the county.
It is funnier if you actually practice law, I guess.
Let me ask a little bit more about the public defender
program, the Federal defender program. And, Judge Gibbons, if
you could, just for the public's understanding, people in court
are defended by their own attorney that they hire, but they are
also defended by people paid for with the public's money. Could
you just briefly explain the different ways that can happen?
Judge Gibbons. Well, of course, if a defendant can hire his
own attorney, then the Federal defender offices and the panel
attorneys do not become involved, no public moneys are involved
in the representation. If the defendant is determined to be
indigent, then an attorney is appointed by the court.
We have found in the Federal system that the way to provide
the best and also the most cost-effective representation is to
set up Federal defender offices in the various districts. There
are Federal defender offices in virtually all the districts.
Mr. Quigley. And are these full-time employees?
Judge Gibbons. These are full-time lawyers. They are
supported by non-lawyer staff. There is a Federal defender who
heads the office in each district.
Mr. Quigley. Judge, if I could interrupt. Why would they
appoint someone versus using that office?
Judge Gibbons. Well, because, two reasons. If there is a
multiple-defendant case or otherwise a conflict for the Federal
defender's office in representing the defendant, then somebody
else has to be appointed. And the courts maintain, each court
maintains a panel of attorneys who have agreed to accept such
appointments and in most cases have been screened by the court
to meet certain qualifications.
There has been another practice that has triggered that
private appointment, and it is one that we have been concerned
about from a cost standpoint, but there has been another
practice that when the Federal defender's office reaches a
point at which it believes it cannot accept more appointments,
in some districts the Federal defender has gone to the judges
and asked the judges to appoint, for some period of time,
private attorneys. We do not think that there is anything wrong
with that practice, except we want to make sure that the
resources of the defender's office are fully exhausted before
that happens.
Mr. Quigley. Well, let me ask you as we get closer to the
main points here, the demand currently, what I said when we
talked to some of your colleagues the other day was that a
downturn in the economy tends to have an uptick in people who
need to have someone appointed, because they do not have the
resources. I do not know if you have noticed that trend of
greater demand at the same time or just an uptick in crime,
perhaps?
Judge Gibbons. You know, I mean, we have had some increases
in representations, but truthfully it is not the usual
defendant in Federal court who has ample resources to hire his
own lawyer whether the economy is good or bad.
Mr. Quigley. What is the percentage?
Judge Gibbons. So there is probably some reaction to the
economy, but your typical defendant is not among our most
affluent citizens.
Mr. Quigley. What percentage of them are currently
incarcerated when they are in that position, when they are on
trial, and what percentage, to your knowledge, are using some
help from the defender's office or appointment?
Judge Gibbons. You know, I am not sure that I have those. I
mean, we can certainly get those figures for you.
[The information follows:]
[Clerk's note.--Subsequent to the hearing, the Judiciary
provided the following information:]
Regarding pretrial detention rates, in 2012 72 percent (71,214 of
99,066) of all defendants were detained pending trial. These figures
include defendants awaiting trial on immigration charges. Because
defendants charged with immigration offenses are considered a flight
risk they are typically detained pending trial. Excluding immigration
cases, the pretrial detention rate drops to 57 percent (36,050 of
63,795).
Regarding the percentage of defendants requiring defense counsel
under the Criminal Justice Act, approximately 90 percent of federal
criminal cases have appointed counsel. Federal defender organizations
typically are assigned in about 60 percent of appointments under the
Criminal Justice Act, and private panel attorneys are appointed in the
remaining 40 percent of cases.
Judge Gibbons. Off the top of my head, I do not know.
Somebody may pass me a note in a few minutes and tell me.
Mr. Quigley. I do not see anybody scribbling right now.
Judge Gibbons. So maybe I will be able to help you out.
Mr. Quigley. Sure.
Judge Hogan. If I can just chime in for one thing. I know
that about 90 percent of the criminal cases in the Federal
courts are represented by either Federal public defenders or
what we call Criminal Justice Act attorneys appointed under the
law.
Mr. Quigley. Sure.
Judge Hogan. So maybe about 10 percent are retained
counsel.
PANEL ATTORNEY RATES
Mr. Quigley. Right. And let me tell folks, and you can echo
this or not, those appointed are not paid lavishly. I would say
most that take those cases do so partially because it is, I
guess, additional income and it is something they think is the
right thing to do. But no one is getting rich, either,
defending these cases as they are appointed.
Judge Gibbons. They are paid substantially less than they
would charge your typical paying client. We worked really hard
for a number of years with this subcommittee to get that rate
up to its current level, but it still is nowhere near market
rates.
Mr. Quigley. And has there been any analysis of how that
has affected, as diplomatically as I could say, the quality of
representation?
Judge Gibbons. During the years when we were trying to
obtain an increase, I mean, there are several years on that,
but we did do some surveys to try to determine the extent to
which the limited pay available was affecting willingness to
serve and the quality of counsel. And obviously one of the
concerns we have about the sequestration period and the delay
of payments to private attorneys is that more and more
attorneys will become unwilling to accept these appointments if
they are not going to be paid in a timely manner. And that is
of real concern to us.
If you will bear with me just a minute, as I mentioned
earlier, the two parts of this account really interact with
each other, because to the extent the Federal defender's office
does not handle a case, there is a need for private attorneys
to handle that case.
Mr. Quigley. Sure.
Judge Gibbons. --The two accounts play against each other,
and the deferrals on the private attorney side, the CJA side,
could be very problematic for us. So that is not much of
anything other than a very short-term answer to the problem of
adequate appropriations for the defender offices.
Mr. Quigley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you.
Mr. Yoder.
TEMPORARY DISTRICT JUDGESHIP EXTENSIONS
Mr. Yoder. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome to the committee. Thanks for your testimony today.
Glad to have you here.
Judge Gibbons, in your testimony on page 4, you discuss
your request for a CR anomaly, which is a no-cost anomaly to
extend the authorizations for nine temporary district
judgeships that are at risk of being lost. If a judgeship
vacancy occurs in a district after a temporary judgeship
authorization expires, that judgeship is permanently lost.
Kansas is one of those areas.
Can you discuss with the committee the immediate impact
that would occur in jurisdictions where a no-cost anomaly in
the CR had not been included, what the potential impact to
those jurisdictions would be through a death or retirement
without proper language?
Judge Gibbons. Well, obviously, if the judgeship is lost
the cases have to be shifted to other judges. And that really
creates, obviously, resource imbalances and difficulties in
handling workload within the district.
In Kansas, for example, the evaluation is that a permanent
judgeship is needed. But in the absence of a bill creating
permanent judgeships, the extension of the temporaries is very
important in order to get the workload in that court handled
appropriately.
Mr. Yoder. And the scenario, then, without proper verbiage
going forward, would be if there would be a death or a
retirement, that judgeship would be lost, there would be no
provision to replace it, and it would have to be recreated
through either new legislation creating a permanent judgeship
or a new temporary judgeship. But in the meantime, there would
be no mechanism to fill that vacancy----
Judge Gibbons. Right.
Mr. Yoder [continuing]. Because of the statute.
Judge Gibbons. Right. I think I am correct about this, and
I know I will be corrected if I am incorrect, I think the
proposed language that tries to adjust the period of these
temporary judgeships so that we can avoid--I believe that your
judgeship lapsed in November of 2012--and avoid the situation
where you have got these lapses occurring during the period
typically covered by a continuing resolution.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0953A.100
Mr. Yoder. So that is something we want to continue to work
with you on to ensure that we have the right language to
protect those positions. And so I appreciate your----
Judge Gibbons. I believe our staff has worked hard at
trying----
Mr. Yoder. We know they have.
Judge Gibbons [continuing]. To make sure that the
appropriate language is in the resolution.
COST CONTAINMENT
Mr. Yoder. Thank you for that. Look forward to working to
ensure that that occurs going forward.
I want to talk a little bit about cost containment and what
we can do to assist the judiciary to have opportunities to save
money. And so, you know, I certainly would appreciate your
thoughts on statutes or requirements or rules that the Federal
Government has in place that we could make modifications to
that would allow the judiciary to save money and allow them to
have the flexibility to be better stewards of tax dollars,
which, of course, all of us want.
Judge Gibbons. We have begun to think about and to talk
about structural changes. And there are some that we know of
that could make a difference, but we are not certain that all
of them would be good ideas. I mentioned some of these to you
only as a way of sort of conceptualizing how we might think
about this differently if we really wanted to turn things
upside down.
Our structural issues do drive our costs. We have 94
district courts and the corresponding number of bankruptcy
courts. I do not know that any structural change in the number
of district courts we have is advisable, but if we were to
consider it, you were to consider it, I am pretty sure that you
would encounter many of the same obstacles we encounter when we
talk about closing a courthouse in a particular locality. So I
think it would be a difficult thing to do.
One thing we have talked about doing is consolidation of
district and bankruptcy clerks' offices, and there are
differing views within the judiciary about whether that is a
good idea or not. But that requires legislative change.
Mr. Yoder. If I might, do we have any idea what the savings
on that would be? Because you would essentially consolidate 94
clerk offices across the country.
Judge Gibbons. There would be some. I mean, there would be
some. I cannot quantify it for you now. We could try to give
you a ballpark figure if we did it for every court. But there
would definitely be some savings. I will talk just in a minute
about a way we are trying to address the same problem without
legislative change----
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T0953A.101
Mr. Yoder. That would be great. Thanks.
Judge Gibbons [continuing]. In terms of cost containment.
But before I leave my list of the things that might be changed,
you know, we pay our rent to the General Services
Administration. And although sequestration has affected us, we
do not receive any discount on our rent. And we have never been
certain that that whole arrangement is the one that makes the
most sense in terms of efficiency. And you will hear a lot of
dissatisfaction in the judiciary about that arrangement and the
way it operates.
We also, as you know, pay charges to the Federal Protective
Service for providing protection in our buildings. And while we
have managed with GSA to develop a good system of validating
our rent bills, we have been having trouble validating the
bills we receive from the Federal Protective Service. So that
might be another area in which to look.
We have for a long time now, though, tried to work around
our structure and to bring about cost containment, accepting
that our structure is as it is. We have had for years means of
getting judicial resources to the areas that most need them
through our Committee on Inter-Circuit Assignments, through
visiting judge programs that operate more informally within
circuits, and through just a whole lot of help from all parts
of the country to the Southwest border courts, which have had
so much difficulty with their caseload.
But in the area of, you know, court operations, one of the
biggest areas we are emphasizing right now for cost containment
is the concept of shared administrative services, meaning that
courts could share functions like human resources, information
technology, procurement, finance, budget, property management,
and that that might be a more efficient way to do things than
for each court to have its own separate folks doing that. And
we have removed internally the barriers to courts doing that so
that courts are now free to share without regard to district
lines or court lines or what type of court unit, without regard
to geography.
And so that is one of our primary areas of emphasis. We
have had each court do a plan telling how it intends to share
services. And we are beginning to look just initially at
whether there are any other ways in which we can share services
despite our construction.
I have been reminded that the GAO is looking at the
consolidation issue with respect to district and bankruptcy
courts at the request of this subcommittee, and we are
interested to see what their recommendation would be. And they
will probably attempt to quantify whatever savings might
accrue. Whether we will agree with their assessment or not, I
do not know, but we will see.
REDUCING SPACE NEEDS AND RENT COSTS
Mr. Yoder. Thank you for that. And I appreciate the
initiative you are taking in this regard to figure out ways to
reduce costs. And certainly quite often we deal with sort of a
hide-the-ball issue in Washington where it is hard to get
agencies or entities to talk about how they might save costs
because that may mean they get less money. And so we appreciate
you taking initiative. I always appreciate an approach where we
are working together to find ways to find savings for taxpayers
in a way that there is cooperation. And so it is a good
relationship.
I did want to ask, just briefly, Mr. Chairman, one final
question related to this topic.
That is in your testimony on page 5, where you say that one
of the judiciary's biggest cost containment successes has been
reducing your space needs and rent costs. You say the GSA's
cooperation is essential, though, to your ability to reduce
space. You will need them to work with you on space reduction,
including taking back excess space from you in a timely manner.
We just had the GSA in this committee yesterday. But I guess I
would ask, is that working and what can we do to help in that
regard?
Judge Gibbons. Our relationship, day-to-day relationship
with GSA, has actually been a fairly productive one over the
last several years, and that is at the national level, although
sometimes there are frictions that occur with respect to
particular projects and particular courts. So, you know, I
would describe that as the overall nature of the relationship.
They have worked with us in some ways to hold down our costs
over the years. But still just the whole structure is one that
gives us a lot of trouble, and it is a situation in which, you
know, we can control to a limited degree whether and when we
give up space, but we cannot control the selection of our
space, for the most part, we cannot control the annual
increases. And yet this is an item that we must pay. Inherent
in the relationship is some difficulty even if we are working
very, very well with the GSA officials on a day-to-day basis.
Mr. Yoder. Thank you for your testimony.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
TERRORISM TRIALS
Mr. Crenshaw. Thank you. I have one final question. I think
Mr. Serrano might have one. And this is more asking for an
observation. We have talked a lot about cost containment and
you are to be applauded for so many things that you have done.
I want to ask you about these high-profile terrorism trials you
read about from time to time. I noticed that the administration
has decided to bring Osama bin Laden's son-in-law to the United
States to have a trial.
And I know you do not decide, you know, how or when foreign
terrorists are going to be tried. And I am sure that the
judiciary will do everything they can to make sure it is a fair
trial and the Federal Marshals will provide security. But it
seems to me that that has got to impact the day-to-day
operations. And I do not know how often this happens. But when
we are talking about limited resources and how every dollar
counts, what is your observation about the impact those kind of
high-profile terrorist trials have on the normal operations of
the court? For instance, seems like you have to have more
security for the judges, for the jurors. And I guess the
Department of Justice shares in that. But there have got to be
some increases in expenses.
And then, for instance, if you have a high-profile trial
going on, do you have to suspend some of the other activities
because all that commotion that goes on around the court? Just
a brief comment on your observations about the impact that
these would have on our operations normally.
Judge Hogan. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have had some
personal experience with that in my work in the D.C. Court
here, in the Federal court, and am familiar, obviously, as
Director of some of these issues.
They do have quite an impact upon the courts. There is no
question about that. And the high-profile terrorism case does
provide additional challenges to the normal operation of the
court system. It does not paralyze the court. The other judges
still do their work. It makes it perhaps more difficult.
Some of the areas you have to look at in planning this when
you get one of these cases, and I think it reflects a little
bit on our budget issues because we do not choose our work, our
work comes to us. Other people give us work. And it can be the
executive branch that gives us work through the cases they
bring or the legislature with new laws. And so we have to meet
those demands.
I sometimes wish that we would be able to have, both from
the executive and legislative branches, a judicial impact
statement when they are going to do something to us to let us
know how much they think it is going to cost us to handle this
new work.
Mr. Crenshaw. We call those unfunded mandates.
Judge Hogan. That is a good term for it.
In the terrorism area, if a court draws a terrorism trial,
as happened in New York, and it is the judgment of the
executive branch to bring it, obviously the first thing you
look at is security issues. And what will happen normally is
you meet with the Marshals' office, who do a threat assessment.
And they have a special team that comes in and does that. They
will meet with the judge and the chief judge to determine what
additional equipment may be needed for security purposes, how
much additional staff will be needed, what they will have to do
with the neighborhood surrounding the courthouse, blocking off
roads, which has happened before, making it difficult for the
people that live there, frankly, to get in and out. And other
security methods. They have to look at transportation, frankly,
of the individual or individuals they are bringing and how are
they going to accomplish that. There was one case in my court
we brought them in by helicopter for safety reasons rather than
driving them through the streets. There are just various
problems that the Marshal has to work with, with the
prosecutor's office and the defense counsel and the court to
handle that. So the Marshals have a very large role in those
areas.
Another area that you do not think about very often, it
will probably involve classified information. And then we get
into what they call CIPA, the Classified Information Procedures
Act that you have to clear this information and how it is going
to be used. But that means we have to set up in the courthouse,
you have to create, if you do not have one--and, again, Judge
Gibbons talked about the acronyms--a SCIF, Secure
Compartmentalized Information Facility. That is a locked-down
facility where you keep the secret information and no one can
get in there without special access, and there is no
communications within that room, et cetera, so the information
is protected. And that means that to set that up has to be done
and you have to operate that, while you have a special
information officer who handles that from the Justice
Department as well.
After you go through setting that up, then you have to get
your staff security clearances to be able to look at this
information. And that costs money and time as well. And then
the final component really is, if you get towards a trial, the
jury. And you are going to have to summon a large number of
potential jurors to come down because difficulties in getting
them to serve and knowledge they may have about the case or
preconceptions. So you have to go through hundreds of jurors to
select the trial, and that is expensive and time consuming as
well.
The bottom line, I think, is that we have conducted
terrorism trials of a high-profile nature, high-visibility
nature, of a high-threat nature. They have been done
successfully. But they are very expensive and time consuming.
And with the sequestration, for instance, I am concerned if an
individual is brought in on the Federal defenders and the
monies that are available for them to be able to represent the
defendant and what they can afford to do. It will be a
challenge for high-threat trials in the future at this budget
level, frankly.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, thank you very much.
Mr. Serrano.
COURT STAFFING LOSSES
Mr. Serrano. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Before I ask
the question, I just want to comment on this whole thing of
where to hold the 9/11 terrorist trials. That became such an
emotional and a very serious issue in New York City. And at
that time--and still today--I was the only member of the New
York City delegation, perhaps the New York State delegation,
who was in favor of having the trials in New York. I said this
was the scene of the crime, if you will. We have nothing to
hide. We shouldn't fear anymore, you know. So I thought it was
part of the healing process to say we can do it here.
Interestingly enough, at the end of the day, Mr. Chairman,
the reason given by city officials in consultation with Federal
officials for not holding it was the impact it would have on
local businesses with traffic and so on, which kind of struck
me as an interesting reason not to hold a trial there.
Let me ask one last question. Judge Gibbons, your testimony
discusses the loss of 1,800 staff over the last 18 months due
to budget pressure. And this is before the sequester. Can you
please provide a breakout of how these staff losses have
impacted each program within the judiciary? Have these staffing
losses been through attrition or have you had to let staff go?
And another part of another question is, in your testimony,
you decided not to request funding to replace the 1,800
employees that were lost over the last 18 months as a result of
the budget. That was not easy, but how did you come to that
conclusion? So how did you, first, let go of the 1,800, and
then why did you decide not to ask to replace them?
Judge Gibbons. The vast majority of the losses were due to
normal attrition. We did offer buyouts, voluntary separation
incentive payments and early retirement in order to minimize
forced downsizing. Had we not taken those two steps, the losses
would not, in fact, have been mostly due to normal attrition.
The result of that, of course, is that each of the
judiciary entities and units affected by the staffing loss--
district courts, bankruptcy courts, probation, pretrial
services offices, appellate courts--they are all operating at
levels that are somewhat difficult. And, so, yes, it was hard
to make the decision about the budget request with which we
came forward. We have always tried to represent what the needs
of the judiciary are. We have also tried to draw a line between
the ebbs and flows of the appropriations process, of which the
1,800-plus was on the extreme end of down, and something like
sequestration, which is not related to what our needs are and
is simply an indiscriminate way of attempting to reduce the
deficit.
And so we tried hard to be constructive, realistic in our
work with the subcommittee but also represent the judiciary the
best we could. And that seemed to us to be, at the end of the
day, the best way to come forward with our request. We do not
tell you that the loss of staff up to this point has been easy.
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Mr. Serrano. Well, I thank you, we thank you for your
testimony today, for your service.
Are you a lawyer, Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Crenshaw. I used to be.
Mr. Serrano. Okay, I am not a lawyer, so a lot of----
Mr. Crenshaw. It is hard to stop being a lawyer.
Mr. Serrano. You are a lawmaker now.
Mr. Crenshaw. Yes, I am a lawmaker now.
Mr. Serrano. So a lot of this is fascinating to me, how the
courts work, and throughout the years I have tried to learn
more and more about it. I am not a lawyer, although I did play
a judge on ``Law and Order'' once, and I do not know if that
qualifies me. Season five, by the way, if you are interested.
The name of the episode is ``The Guardian.''
Interestingly enough, I have no idea what it is like to be
a judge. But I tell you, the hardest part of playing a judge on
TV was I tripped over the robe so many times. It was pretty
embarrassing on the set. So they just shortened it, and I was
fine after that.
Judge Gibbons. Well, I will not share with you my most
embarrassing moment as a judicial officer. I would share it
with you privately, but I am not going to put it on the record
in this hearing.
Mr. Serrano. Well, I thank you for your service. Thank you
so much.
Mr. Crenshaw. Well, the committee thanks you, too, for
being here today. And we thank you for the work that you do,
and the fact that you are trying to do it more efficiently and
more effectively is very important. So thank you very much.
Judge Gibbons. Thank you very much for the opportunity to
be here and to work with the subcommittee. We appreciate it.
Mr. Crenshaw. The hearing is adjourned.
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W I T N E S S E S
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Page
Arberg, Kathy.................................................... 1
Breyer, Stephen.................................................. 1
Cline, Kevin..................................................... 1
Gibbons, J.S..................................................... 107
Hogan, T.F....................................................... 107
Keenan, Clifford................................................. 31
Kemp, Gary....................................................... 1
Kennedy, Anthony................................................. 1
Minear, Jeffrey.................................................. 1
Satterfield, L.F................................................. 31
Talkin, Pamela................................................... 1
Ware, N.M........................................................ 31
Washington, E.T.................................................. 31