How Eric Holder Can Help Public Defenders and Their Clients

America's most powerful prosecutor is urging Congress to give funding back to defense lawyers. But actions speak louder than words.

August 26, 2013

By Andrew Cohen

The Atlantic

For the past few months The Atlantic has been covering the sequester's growing impact on the ability of the federal judiciary to administer justice in a timely, fair and efficient manner without the money it needs. Judges and court administrators have been warning all along that litigants -- the American people -- would begin to feel more of the effects of the budget cuts as 2013 proceeded without a resolution of the sequester fight between Congress and the White House. It's now happening. Fewer courtroom hours. Longer waits for trials and rulings. Layoffs to courthouse personnel and public defenders. And it's going to get worse in 2014.

All of which is why Attorney General Eric Holder was right to write an op-ed Thursday in The Washington Post about the need for Congress to restore funding for federal public defenders who have been hammered by the sequester.It is comforting to see the nation's top prosecutor asking lawmakers to restore funding to the nation's court-appointed defense lawyers. And I think the attorney general genuinely cares about the faltering right to counsel and about the legacy of Gideon v. Wainwright 50 years after the Supreme Court issued that landmark ruling. Here is part of what Holder wrote in The Post:

I join with those judges, public defenders, legal scholars and countless other criminal justice professionals who have urged Congress to restore these resources, to provide needed funding for the federal public defender program and to fulfill the fundamental promise of our criminal justice system.

The Justice Department is strongly committed to supporting indigent defense efforts through an office known as the Access to Justice Initiative, which I launched in 2010, and a range of grant programs. The department took this commitment to a new level on Aug. 14 by filing a statement of interest in the case of Wilbur v. City of Mt. Vernon -- asserting that the federal government has a strong interest in ensuring that all jurisdictions are fulfilling their obligations under Gideon and endorsing limits on the caseloads of public defenders so they can provide quality representation to each client.