During a House Judiciary Committee hearing last week, Rep. Hank Johnson (D-GA) asked former Judge and Judicial Conference Budget Chair Amy St. Eve about the budget for federal public defenders.
00:00Johnson. Thank you. It's notable that our third equally important branch of government,
00:09the judicial branch, has submitted a budget request totaling $9.4 billion for fiscal year
00:182026. And I will note that this committee, in its big ugly bill that passed out a couple of
00:27months ago, allocated $45 billion for the construction of new detention facility beds
00:37in private for-profit detention facilities under contract to the U.S. government to detain
00:45immigrants. $45 billion to $9.7 billion. And we would question that very much.
00:57A modest request. It's astounding. Judge St. Eve, as you know, this is not the Appropriations
01:04Committee. We on the House Judiciary Committee have no control over funding. But how the
01:11judiciary functions, from whether Americans get a speedy trial to whether a judge is afraid
01:18for his or her safety, is predicated on sufficient resources for the judicial branch.
01:24Could you explain for us what having the courts adequately funded means for the constitutional
01:32functions of the judicial branch? And conversely, how frozen funding can snowball into bigger problems
01:40for the rule of law?
01:42Having sufficient funding is essential for us to carry out our constitutional duties. The courts have
01:51to be funded for the judges to do their work and carry out their duties. I'm going to focus on what you touched
01:58on earlier, Ranking Member Johnson, the defender services. They are part of the judiciary's budget.
02:05And under the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution, all defendants charged with a crime are entitled to
02:13representation. And over 90% of criminal defendants have appointed counsel. It's less than 10% of criminal
02:21defendants who can pay for their own counsel. Those appointments and lawyers come from the defender services, as well as
02:31from court appointed attorneys under the criminal justice act, or CJA attorneys. Because of the CR in 25, the defender services has been under a hiring freeze for 23 of the last 27 months, they are working at approximately 93% of their work measurement formula.
02:53The CJA attorneys, we are very concerned about because we rely on them for appointments when the federal defenders can't cover it for one reason or another.
03:04And we anticipate that as of now, it's July 7th or July 11th. Previously, we thought we'd have enough money until July 23rd, but that has moved up. But our fund is going to run out of money to reimburse the CJA appointed attorneys in just a couple of months.
03:22Yeah, this is an imminent threat to the ability to for the courts to operate in a constitutional way. And I know that this chief executive doesn't care about the Constitution.
03:36Let me ask Judge Scudder. During Judge St. Eve's testimony before the House Appropriations Subcommittee, she spoke of technology as a cost-saving measure, specifically encouraging more use of electronic research and sharing of library materials and facilitating virtual meetings.
03:57Could you briefly explain for us how investing in functional IT systems will help the judiciary with its resources in the long term? And I apologize for interrupting Judge Eve.
04:10Yes, we invest a lot of resources in IT to help make our work more efficient. Some of what may be embedded in your questions are efficiency upticks that we realize through enhancements in different applications, like legal research.
04:37I think in response to Representative Klein's question, this is where AI on the horizon presents efficiency opportunities for our courts. The broader point that your question gets at is we just like Congress, just like the executive branch and just like the private sector, we need to regularly invest in our systems to keep them modernized.
05:03When a system becomes outdated or is operating against a very antique infrastructure to it, the catch-up cost is enormous. And the cyber risk that is often injected by allowing IT to become outdated creates real risks to us.
05:24We're organized around a very sound strategy that we received a lot of input on. Our plan is good. We need the resources and we need to stay organized and focused within our own branch in achieving our objectives.
05:40Thank you, Judge. And I yield back.
05:42Thank you, gentlemen. We now recognize the gentlelady from California, Ms. Lofgren.
