|
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Federal Criminal Justice: Cost of Providing Court-Appointed Attorneys Is
Rising, but Causes Are Unclear
(Letter Report, 07/19/95, GAO/GGD-95-182).
Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO examined the Defender Services
program, focusing on: (1) the causes of the program's increased workload
and costs; and (2) whether death penalty resource centers (DPRC) have
reduced the federal costs of representing indigent defendants in death
penalty cases.
GAO found that: (1) the Defender Services program represents individual
defendants rather than cases and during fiscal years (FY) 1990 through
1993 there was an average of 1.4 defendants per criminal case filed; (2)
the Defender Services program workload has grown and costs have
increased because the number of defendants have increased and the cases
have become more complex, resulting in more work for attorneys in each
case; (3) there was insufficient data to determine why overall program
costs doubled and DPRC costs tripled between FY 1990 and FY 1993; (4)
federal public defender and community defender organization
representations cost less than panel attorney representations, although
the cost advantage has gradually declined; and (5) death penalty
representations accounted for 0.6 percent of all panel attorney
representations closed in FY 1993, but accounted for 8.7 percent of all
panel attorney payments.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: GGD-95-182
TITLE: Federal Criminal Justice: Cost of Providing Court-Appointed
Attorneys Is Rising, but Causes Are Unclear
DATE: 07/19/95
SUBJECT: Federal courts
Court costs
Public defenders
Defendants
Lawyers
Crimes or offenses
Criminal procedure
Trials
IDENTIFIER: Federal Defender Services Program
**************************************************************************
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Report to the Ranking Minority Member, Subcommittee on Commerce,
Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies, Senate
Committee on Appropriations
July 1995
FEDERAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE - COST OF
PROVIDING COURT-APPOINTED
ATTORNEYS IS RISING, BUT CAUSES
ARE UNCLEAR
GAO/GGD-95-182
Defender Services Program
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
AOUSC - Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts
CDO - Community Defender Organization
DPRC - Death Penalty Resource Center
FDO - Federal Defender Organization
FPD - Federal Public Defender (Organization)
Letter
=============================================================== LETTER
B-259805
July 19, 1995
The Honorable Ernest F. Hollings
Ranking Minority Member
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and
State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies
Committee on Appropriations
United States Senate
Dear Senator Hollings:
The Federal Defender Services program provides legal counsel for
eligible federal criminal defendants who are unable to pay for these
services themselves. Between fiscal years 1990 and 1993, the
program's costs more than doubled from about $122 million to almost
$252 million.\1 During this same period, the number of Defender
Services representations closed rose 23 percent. In federal district
courts the number of criminal cases filed rose less than 1 percent,
and the number of defendants grew about 3 percent. At the same time,
the costs to operate Death Penalty Resource Centers (DPRCs)--whose
representations in federal courts are funded by grants from the
Defender Services program--almost tripled from about $6 million to
$18 million, and the number of DPRC representations more than doubled
from 491 to 1,014.\2 These centers were created in part to provide a
source of expertise and help to reduce or contain the costs of death
penalty representations. You asked us to examine a number of aspects
of the Defender Services program, including the causes of the
program's increased workload\3 and costs (as measured by program
budget obligations) and whether the DPRCs have reduced the federal
costs of representing indigent defendants in death penalty cases.
As we informed your office early in our evaluation, the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC) did not have
adequate data for us to evaluate the direct impact on program
workload and costs of factors that AOUSC had suggested as possible
causes of increases. Moreover, the lack of comparable data for both
before and after the establishment of the DPRCs, including data on
the impact of changes in the complexity of death penalty litigation,
precluded meaningful assessment of whether the centers have reduced
or contained the costs of representing indigent defendants in death
penalty cases. Therefore, as agreed, our objectives were to provide
information on (1) the reasons that Defender Services workload has
grown faster than district court criminal cases; (2) the data
available to assess the causes of increased Defender Services
workload and costs; (3) the comparative costs of representations
provided by federal defender organizations and by private attorneys
directly assigned by federal judges; (4) the additional costs of
paying higher standard hourly rates to private, court-appointed
attorneys in all or parts of 16 districts; (5) the comparative costs
of federally funded private attorney and DPRC death penalty
representations; and (6) the potential causes of increased DPRC
workload and costs.
--------------------
\1 All dollar figures in this report are expressed in current
dollars, unadjusted for inflation. See app. I.
\2 The Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services has
recently changed the name of the DPRCs to Post-Conviction Defender
Organizations. Throughout this report, we refer to them by their
former designation, DPRCs.
\3 Throughout this report, we measure program workload in terms of
representations closed (see page 6 for more details).
BACKGROUND
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :1
The Criminal Justice Act of 1964\4 required the federal judiciary to
provide for the legal representation of eligible federal criminal
defendants who were financially unable to afford their own
attorneys.\5 In response, the federal judiciary created the Federal
Defender Services program. In August 1993, AOUSC reported that about
85 percent of all criminal cases prosecuted in federal courts
required court- appointed legal counsel. The Defender Services
Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States\6 provides
overall policy direction and guidance of the program, and the
Defender Services Division of AOUSC provides administrative and
program support.
Legal services for eligible defendants in the nation's 94 federal
district courts and 12 circuit courts of appeals are provided through
a mixed system, which at the end of fiscal year 1994 included 45
Federal Public Defender Organizations (FPDs) serving 54 districts; 10
Community Defender Organizations (CDOs) serving 11 districts; and
private "panel" attorneys chosen from a list, or panel, maintained by
the district courts. Together, FPDs and CDOs are generally referred
to as Federal Defender Organizations (FDOs). As shown in table 1,
the number of FPDs and CDOs has gradually increased since 1990. FPD
attorneys are federal employees; CDO attorneys are not. CDOs are
private organizations funded by federal defender services grants.
FPD and CDO attorneys are salaried; panel attorneys receive an hourly
rate for their services that varies by district. Higher panel
attorney hourly rates are generally paid for death penalty cases in
all districts. Panel attorneys generally provided all court-
appointed representations in the 29 districts that had neither a FPD
or CDO, and by statute panel attorneys must receive a "substantial"
number of representation appointments in districts with such
organizations.
Table 1
Number of Federal Public and Community
Defender Organizations and Number of
Districts Served, Fiscal Years 1990 to
1994
District District District
Fiscal s s s
year Number served\a Number served\a Number served\a
------ ------ -------- ------ -------- ------ --------
1990 37 39 6 7 43 46
1991 38 40 6 7 44 47
1992 41 47 9 10 49 57
1993 42 47 9 10 51 57
1994 45 54 10 11 55 65
------------------------------------------------------------
\a Some FPDs and CDOs serve more than one district.
Source: AOUSC.
To date, death penalty representations have generally been handled by
panel attorneys (including some pro bono representations)\7 or the
DPRCs. Occasionally, FDOs have also been appointed in such cases.\8
At the end of fiscal year 1994 there were 20 DPRCs serving 50 federal
judicial districts. The DPRCs are specialized CDOs that provide
legal services--through direct representation and/or consultation and
support services to panel attorneys--for persons appealing state
death penalty convictions and/or sentences. The DPRCs are also
authorized to represent defendants in federal capital prosecutions
and in appeals of federal death penalty convictions. Under the grant
agreement between each center and the Judicial Conference, use of
each DPRC's federal funds is to be limited to federal death penalty
habeas corpus\9 cases and the defense of those charged with capital
crimes in federal district courts. A DPRC's nonfederal funds must be
used to support representations in state court proceedings.
--------------------
\4 Public Law 88-455 (1964), codified at 18 U.S.C. 3006A.
\5 In addition to financial requirements, eligibility for court-
appointed counsel is also dependent upon the offense with which the
defendant is charged. For example, defendants charged with certain
misdemeanors are not provided court-appointed attorneys unless the
U.S. Magistrate or the court determines that the interests of
justice require it.
\6 The Judicial Conference is a group of federal judges, chaired by
the Chief Justice of the United States, who serve as the central
policymaking body for the federal court system.
\7 In pro bono cases, attorneys represent defendants without cost as
a public service.
\8 In late 1994, the Ninth Circuit Judicial Council approved a pilot
plan to establish a death penalty unit in the FPD for the Central
District of California to handle death penalty habeas corpus cases.
The Council has sought Judicial Conference approval for this pilot
project.
\9 Federal habeas corpus proceedings are civil proceedings in which
convicted persons raise a challenge in federal court to their
conviction and/or sentence on the grounds that they are in custody in
violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.
RESULTS IN BRIEF
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :2
Defender Services representations cannot be compared directly to
criminal case filings in district courts because Defender Services'
workload also includes representations, such as appeals (reported in
appellate court statistics) and habeas corpus proceedings (reported
in district court civil case statistics), that are not included in
district court criminal caseload statistics. Moreover, Defender
Services represents individual defendants, not cases, and during
fiscal years 1990 through 1993 there was an average of 1.4 defendants
per criminal case filed.
AOUSC has maintained that overall program workload has grown and
costs have increased because (1) criminal cases, especially drug
cases, now involve more defendants; (2) more defendants apply for and
receive court-appointed attorneys; (3) more defendants are being
tried in federal courts; and (4) the cases are more complex,
principally because of changes in federal sentencing guidelines and
mandatory minimum sentencing statutes,\10 resulting in more work for
attorneys on each case.
While each of these factors may have had some effect, we were not
able to determine to what extent they individually or collectively
accounted for the doubling of the overall program costs or the
tripling of DPRC costs from fiscal years 1990 through 1993. This is
because AOUSC collected little consistent, national empirical data
that could be used to make such determinations.
The data available on the costs of representations by federal
defender organizations and panel attorneys were not precisely
comparable. For example, FPD and CDO data included the costs of
training provided to panel attorneys. Also, FPD and CDO cost data
were not available by type of case (such as appeals) or major
criminal offense category (such as drugs), but such data were
available for panel attorneys. Nevertheless, prior studies by the
Judicial Conference and AOUSC and our analysis of available data
suggested that, overall, FPD and CDO attorney representations cost
less than panel attorney representations, although the cost advantage
has gradually declined.
However, the average cost per representation closed can vary among
districts, among FPDs and CDOs, and from year to year depending upon
changes in the proportion of expensive cases in the total workload.
In fiscal year 1993, for example, each panel attorney drug or fraud
representation (at an average cost of more than $3,000) had as much
impact on program costs as three immigration representations.
The additional costs of paying higher standard hourly rates to panel
attorneys in the 16 districts authorized to pay such rates has been a
relatively small part of total panel attorney costs. In 78 of the 94
districts, panel attorneys are paid a standard hourly rate of $40 for
each out-of-court hour and $60 for each in-court hour.\11 In 1986,
Congress authorized higher rates of up to $75 per hour for both
in-court and out-of-court hours in specific circuits or districts, if
the Judicial Conference determined it was justified. As of March
1995, the Judicial Conference had approved higher standard rates for
89 districts. However, the Judicial Conference, at congressional
direction, has limited actual payment of the higher rates--$60, $70,
or $75 for both in-court and out-of-court hours--to all or parts of
only 16 districts. We estimated (on the basis of available data)
that the additional cost of paying these higher standard hourly rates
from fiscal years 1991 through 1993 was at least $33.5 million, about
10.2 percent of total panel attorney obligations during the period.
Our estimate excluded most appeals representations because the AOUSC
database did not designate the district of origin for at least 85
percent of all appeals representations.
Death penalty representations have been expensive relative to other
types of Defender Services representations. In 1993, the average
DPRC cost per representation\12 was about $17,200 and the average
panel attorney cost per representation closed was about $37,000.\13
The 246 panel attorney death penalty representations closed in fiscal
year 1993 were 0.6 percent of all panel attorney representations
closed, but they accounted for 8.7 percent of the $104.3 million in
1993 panel attorney payments approved by the courts. Because of
missing data, we could not compare costs in districts with and
without DPRCs to determine if panel attorney death penalty
representations were less expensive in districts with DPRCs, or
whether the cost per representation had grown less in districts with
DPRCs.
According to Defender Services officials, DPRC costs have increased
because more DPRCs have been created, more death penalty cases are in
the courts, and the cases are becoming more complex. The number of
DPRCs increased from 14 in fiscal year 1989 to 20 in 1994. The
number of DPRC death penalty cases also increased from 313 to 1,086,
but data on case complexity were limited.
AOUSC has embarked on a number of initiatives to address the data
deficiencies identified in this report and to improve the information
provided to Congress for appropriations and oversight.
--------------------
\10 By statute, a minimum prison sentence must be imposed for certain
offenses when the statutorily specified criteria have been met.
\11 This basic statutory rate has not increased since 1984.
\12 DPRC costs per representation include the cost of all cases
during the year, including cases pending at the end of the year.
\13 According to AOUSC, death penalty representations are more likely
than other types of representations to extend over 2 fiscal years or
more. Thus, the total cost of death penalty representations may be
more than we report, since our cost is based on the total of all
vouchers approved for payment in a single fiscal year.
SCOPE AND METHODOLOGY
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :3
To meet our objectives, we reviewed prior studies by the Judicial
Conference, AOUSC, and consultants. We met with federal judges and
AOUSC officials, members of AOUSC's Defender Services Advisory Group,
defender services attorneys, and other officials in six judgmentally
selected judicial districts. To try to identify potential causes of
workload and cost increases and to compare FDO and panel attorney
costs per representation, we reviewed previous analyses and available
AOUSC data on FDO and panel attorney workload and costs.
For FDOs, AOUSC provided data for fiscal years 1990 through the first
6 months of 1994 on type of representation; type of disposition;
representations opened, closed, and pending; and in-court hours per
representation closed. For the same period, we analyzed the panel
attorney voucher automated database, which included data by type of
representation and criminal offense on (1) total in-court and
out-of-court compensation requested and approved, and (2) the
in-court and out-of-court hourly rates paid for representations in
which the panel attorney had requested payment. To provide
comparable workload data for FPDs, CDOs, and panel attorneys, we used
representations closed because this was the only workload measure
available for panel attorneys.
Although we did not verify the accuracy of the data we received, we
did some edit checks and a distributional analysis of the data, which
raised questions about the accuracy of some of the data in the panel
attorney database, including the hourly rates recorded in the
database. We have qualified our conclusions to take this possibility
of error into account.
We also used data from AOUSC's master criminal file database and
other sources to determine total district court criminal workload and
to try to assess the impact of such variables as the number of trials
on Defender Services workload. Our analysis of data on criminal
trials and cases with multiple defendants used data on total district
court workload because the database did not reliably identify that
subset of cases in which defendants had court-appointed attorneys.
This limitation is noted in our analysis and conclusions. Certain
information, including data on cases involving mandatory minimum
sentences and federal prosecutions of state-developed cases, was
either unavailable or too incomplete for analysis. Also, because
data reported by FDOs and panel attorneys differed, workload and cost
comparisons between the two were limited.
To determine the additional costs of paying panel attorneys the
higher standard hourly rates, we used AOUSC's database to calculate
the difference in compensation at the higher and lower standard
hourly rates. We calculated the in-court and out-of-court
compensation approved for those representations in the 16 districts
compensated at the higher standard hourly rates. We then estimated
the in-court and out-of-court compensation that would have been
requested at the lower standard hourly rates of $40 out-of-court and
$60 in-court. We subtracted the lower rate estimate from the actual
amounts approved for payment at the higher standard rates. The
difference was the estimated additional costs of paying the higher
standard rates. As explained in more detail in appendix I, this
produced a conservative estimate of the additional costs of paying
the higher standard hourly rates in the 16 districts.
We used DPRC quarterly reports for fiscal years 1990 through the
first half of 1994 to examine trends in DPRC workload and costs.
However, due to data limitations we could not fully assess whether
DPRCs had lowered the costs of death penalty representations.
The Defender Services program has been reviewed by various sources,
and where appropriate we have incorporated the results of these
studies into our work. To determine what actions the Judiciary has
underway to improve Defender Services program data and analyses and
to control costs, we obtained copies of AOUSC and Judicial Conference
reports, directives, and other documents addressing these issues, and
we talked to AOUSC officials.
We did our work primarily in Washington, D.C.; New York; and Detroit,
between April 1993 and February 1995 in accordance with generally
accepted government auditing standards. Our objectives, scope, and
methodology are discussed in greater detail in appendix I. AOUSC
provided written comments on a draft of this report, which are
discussed on pages 28-29 and printed in full in appendix III.
DEFENDER SERVICES
REPRESENTATIONS ARE NOT
SYNONYMOUS WITH DISTRICT COURT
CRIMINAL FILINGS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :4
Data on Defender Services representations are not fully comparable to
district court criminal filings or terminations (case closings). In
fiscal year 1993, 46,786 criminal cases involving 65,653 defendants
were filed in federal district courts.\14 In the same year, district
courts closed (disposed) 44,800 cases involving 64,048 defendants.
Since Defender Services represents defendants, not cases, the
district court defendant data are more appropriate than case data in
comparing district court and Defender Services workloads.
Defender Services attorneys closed 78,016 representations in fiscal
year 1993, which was 13,968 more than the number of defendants
reported as disposed in district courts. Of this additional Defender
Services workload, at least 9,478 representations (about 68 percent)
were not reported in district court criminal workload statistics.
The Defender Services 1993 workload, for example, included 6,126
appeals, reported in appellate court statistics; 1,028 habeas corpus
proceedings, reported in district court civil statistics; and 2,324
bail proceedings, which Defender Services reported as a separate
workload category, but district courts did not.
Criminal representations appeared to be the category of Defender
Services representations most comparable to district court criminal
workload. In fiscal year 1993, Defender Services closed 54,907
criminal representations, or 9,141 less than the 64,048 criminal
defendants disposed in federal district courts in 1993. The 9,141
additional defendants reported in district court statistics may have
paid for their own attorneys rather than having court-appointed
attorneys. However, we found no consistent data on the number of
defendants in federal courts who received court-appointed attorneys.
--------------------
\14 Totals include traffic cases and defendants as well as transfers
between districts. Traffic cases in federal courts arise from
traffic violations on federal property.
TOTAL DEFENDER SERVICES
REPRESENTATIONS CLOSED, TOTAL
BUDGET OBLIGATIONS, AND COSTS
PER REPRESENTATION CLOSED HAVE
GROWN
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :5
Defender Services appropriations, obligations, representations
closed, and costs per representation closed have generally grown in
recent years. As shown in table 2, from fiscal years 1990 through
1994, total budget obligations grew about 118 percent from $122.5
million to $266.7 million.\15 According to AOUSC, the growth in
representations closed and obligations was less in fiscal year 1994
than in recent years, but it was not clear at the time whether this
was the beginning of a long-term trend or a short-term phenomenon.
The Judiciary initially requested $387 million for fiscal year 1994,
which included $14 million to extend the standard higher panel
attorney rates beyond the 16 districts in which they were being paid.
Congress rejected this expansion and appropriated $280 million for
fiscal year 1994. Defender Services requested $290.3 million for
fiscal year 1995, an increase of 3.7 percent. Congress appropriated
$250 million for fiscal year 1995.\16 The Judiciary has requested
$295.8 million for fiscal year 1996--an increase of 18 percent over
the 1995 appropriation and 1.9 percent more than the 1995 budget
request.
Table 2
Federal Defender Services Budget
Obligations by Major Activity, Fiscal
Years 1990-1994 (in Thousands of Current
Dollars)
Percen
t
change
,
Program 1990-
activity 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1994
------------ ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------
Federal $38,243 $47,912 $64,992 $78,798 $90,224 135.9%
public
defenders
Community 10,617 12,733\a 17,861 21,865 24,360 129.4
defenders
Death 6,000 9,183 11,524 17,758 18,730 212.2
Penalty
Resource
Centers\b
Panel 62,901 85,463 119,204 123,500 122,858 95.3
attorneys
Other 4,700 5,800 8,290 9,700 10,552 124.5
program
costs
================================================================================
Total $122,461 $161,091 $221,871 $251,621 $266,724 117.8%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Reflects recoveries of $1,200,000 from fiscal year 1991
obligations that are not shown in the fiscal year 1993 Budget
Appendix.
\b As noted in its fiscal year 1996 budget request, Defender Services
has renamed these organizations Post-Conviction Defender
Organizations.
Source: AOUSC and Budget Appendix.
--------------------
\15 The Defender Services program costs cited in this report exclude
AOUSC costs, such as the operations of the Defender Services Division
and processing panel attorney payments. Also excluded are district
and courts of appeals costs for reviewing and approving panel
attorney vouchers; such costs are included in local court budgets.
An AOUSC analysis estimated such annual administrative costs at
$10.68 million in fiscal year 1992.
\16 Defender Services funds are available until expended. In
addition to its fiscal year 1995 appropriation, Defender Services had
available $36.5 million in unobligated appropriations from prior
years to apply to its fiscal year 1995 expenses.
OVERALL CHANGE IN NUMBER OF
REPRESENTATIONS CLOSED AND
COSTS FOR PANEL ATTORNEYS
AND DEFENDER ORGANIZATIONS
VARIED
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :5.1
As shown in figure 1, from fiscal years 1990 to 1993 growth in the
number of representations closed, total obligations, and the average
cost per representation closed\17 for panel attorneys, FPDs, and CDOs
varied. To provide comparable data for defender organizations and
panel attorneys, our workload figures are based on representations
closed, because data for ongoing representations were not available
for panel attorneys (see app. I). While panel attorney workload
grew more than that of FPDs or CDOs, panel attorney costs per
representation closed grew less than FPDs or CDOs. Compensation
approved for panel attorney fees grew about 88 percent, while total
panel attorney budget obligations--a figure an AOUSC official told us
included payments for investigators and experts in addition to
attorney fees--grew about 96 percent during the period.
Figure 1: Percent Change in
Total Representations Closed,
Budget Obligations, and Average
Cost per Representation Closed
for FPDs, CDOs, and Panel
Attorneys, Fiscal Years
1990-1993
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Growth in panel attorney budget obligations excluding death
penalty representations was based on total panel attorney obligations
less attorney fees in death penalty representations. We did not have
data on nonattorney fee costs, such as transcripts and investigators,
in death penalty representations.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
--------------------
\17 Cost per representation closed for FPDs and CDOs was determined
by dividing total budget obligations for these organizations in each
fiscal year by the total number of representations closed. Cost per
representation closed for panel attorneys was determined by dividing
the total amount of attorney compensation approved for payment in
each fiscal year by the number of representations closed.
REPRESENTATIONS CLOSED FOR
FPDS, CDOS, AND PANEL ATTORNEYS
INCREASED
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :6
Defender Services representations closed annually increased by about
23 percent from 63,504 to 78,016 between fiscal years 1990 and 1993.
Of this total, panel attorney representations closed increased about
33 percent from 28,575 to 38,005, or about twice as fast as FDOs'
workload, which increased from 34,929 to 40,011, about 15 percent.
Within this FDO total, FPD representations closed grew 28 percent and
CDO representations closed declined 12 percent. Most of the CDO
decline was due to a drop in immigration representations closed at
the CDO in the Southern District of California. Excluding this
district's workload, CDO representations closed declined about 5.5
percent. Although still a very small percentage of total panel
attorney workload (less than 1 percent), panel attorney death penalty
representations closed grew from 9 to 246. (More detail is found in
the tables in app. II.)
As shown in figure 2, from fiscal years 1990 through 1993 criminal
representations closed were by far the largest proportion of total
representations closed for both FDOs and panel attorneys, followed by
"other" and appeals. The number of FDO and panel attorney criminal
representations was about even in fiscal year 1990, but FDO criminal
representations increased 8 percent during the period while panel
attorney criminal representations increased almost 23 percent.
Consequently, by 1993 panel attorney criminal representations closed
exceeded those of FDOs by 3,567. The growth in panel attorney
appeals representations closed (118 percent) was also greater than
that for FDOs (54 percent). From fiscal years 1991 through 1993,
panel attorneys closed at least 75 percent more appeals
representations each year than did FDOs. On the other hand, the
number of FDO "other" representations closed was more than twice that
of panel attorneys each year for 1990 through 1993, reflecting the
much higher number of bail and probation/parole revocation
proceedings handled by FPDs and CDOs.
Figure 2: Representations
Closed by Federal Defender
Organizations (FDOs) and Panel
Attorneys, Fiscal Years
1990-1993
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note 1: Panel attorney data exclude death penalty representations.
Numbers for this figure are shown in appendix II, table II.1.
Note 2: "Other" includes habeas corpus and bail proceedings, motions
to reduce sentence, and probation and parole revocation proceedings.
Source: AOUSC.
We disaggregated criminal representations closed into five major
offense categories--weapons, immigration, drugs, fraud, and other--to
examine changes in representations closed by type of offense and type
of Defender Services attorneys. As shown in figure 3, within each
major offense category, FPDs, CDOs, and panel attorneys had different
growth rates. For some offenses there were fewer representations
closed in 1993 than in 1990. However, we could not determine the
reasons for the variations shown in figure 3.
Figure 3: Percent Change in
Criminal Representations Closed
by Type of Defender Services
Attorney and Major Offense
Category, Fiscal Years
1990-1993
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: FPD fraud representations closed increased by less than
one-half of 1 percent.
Source: AOUSC.
DETERMINING THE CAUSES OF
DEFENDER SERVICES COST GROWTH
IS DIFFICULT
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :7
Changes in Defender Services costs are basically the result of two
factors--changes in the number of representations combined with
changes in the average cost of each representation. If the number of
representations increases, program costs will also increase even if
the average cost per representation remains unchanged. Conversely,
costs will rise if the cost per representation increases, even though
the number of representations remains unchanged.
ESTIMATED IMPACT OF
INCREASED REPRESENTATIONS
CLOSED ON PROGRAM COSTS
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.1
To determine the impact of increased workload from fiscal years 1990
through 1993--as measured by representations closed--on fiscal year
1993 FPD, CDO, and panel attorney costs,\18 we estimated what fiscal
year 1993 costs would have been if the average cost per
representation closed in 1993 were the same as the 1990 average cost
(unadjusted for inflation).\19 As shown in figure 4, about 26 percent
of the increase in FPD costs and 38 percent of the increase in panel
attorney costs between fiscal years 1990 and 1993 could be attributed
to the increase in representations closed in 1993. However, CDO
representations closed declined from 11,706 in 1990 to 10,299 in
1993; consequently, none of the increase in CDO costs could be
attributed to increased representations closed.\20
Figure 4: Estimated Percent of
the Total Increase in FPD, CDO,
and Panel Attorney Costs
Between Fiscal Years 1990 and
1993 Resulting From Increased
Representations Closed or From
Other Factors
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Workload was measured by representations closed.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
However, as the panel attorney data in figures 5 and 6 indicate,
these overall estimates can mask considerable variation by type of
representation.\21 For some types of panel attorney representations
closed--appeals, other, death penalty--from about 69 to 92 percent of
the increase in costs could be attributed to increased numbers of
representations closed (fig. 5). Within criminal representations,
increased representations closed accounted for more than half of the
increase in the costs of weapons, drugs, and fraud representations
closed, but they accounted for only about 13 percent of the increase
in the costs of immigration representations closed (see fig. 6).
Other criminal representations closed declined 7 percent between
fiscal years 1990 and 1993. Thus, all of the increase in costs for
these representations must have been the result of factors that have
increased the average cost per representation closed. As discussed
later in this report, Defender Services officials and AOUSC have
suggested a number of factors, such as the sentencing guidelines and
a higher number of defendants charged with mandatory minimum
offenses, that could have contributed to higher average costs per
representation closed.
Figure 5: Estimated Percent of
the Total Increase in Panel
Attorney Costs Between Fiscal
Years 1990 and 1993 Resulting
From Increased Representations
Closed or from Other Factors
(by Type of Representation)
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Workload was measured by representations closed.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Figure 6: Estimated Percent of
the Total Increase in Costs of
Panel Attorney Criminal
Representations Closed Between
Fiscal Years 1990 and 1993
Resulting From Increased
Representations Closed or From
Other Factors (by Major Offense
Category)
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Workload was measured by representations closed.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
--------------------
\18 Costs for FPDs and CDOs are based on total obligations each
fiscal year divided by the number of representations closed. Because
we could not separately identify those costs associated with FPD and
CDO representations closed, our average cost per representation
closed included the cost of all representations during the fiscal
year--new, closed, and pending at the end of the fiscal year--as well
as the costs of training provided for panel attorneys. Panel
attorney cost data reflect only the costs of attorney fees for those
representations for which panel attorneys have requested payment.
Panel attorney costs exclude such costs as transcripts,
psychiatrists, or investigators--costs that are included in FPD and
CDO budgets, and, thus, FPD and CDO cost per representation. (See
app I.)
\19 For reasons described more fully in appendix I, our 1993
estimates are based on 1990 costs per representation, unadjusted for
inflation. The result may somewhat underestimate the impact of
increased representations closed on program costs, especially for
FPDs and CDOs.
\20 The percentage of increased costs attributed to factors other
than increased representations closed is the difference between 100
percent and the percent of increased costs attributed to increased
representations closed. For panel attorneys, for example, we assumed
about 62 percent (100 percent minus 38 percent) of total increased
costs were the result of factors other than increased representations
closed.
\21 Data limitations precluded a similar analysis for FPDs and CDOs.
COST PER REPRESENTATION
CLOSED HAS GROWN FOR ALL
TYPES OF DEFENDER SERVICES
ATTORNEYS
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.2
For each fiscal year 1990 through 1993, panel attorney costs per
representation closed were the highest and CDO costs the lowest.\22
(See fig. 7.) Costs per representation closed for all three types of
Defender Services attorneys increased each year. Although CDOs still
had the lowest cost per representation in 1993), the 134-percent
growth in CDO costs per representation had narrowed the gap between
CDOs and the other two types of attorneys. In 1990, the FPD cost per
representation closed was about $300 lower than that of panel
attorneys. By 1993, the cost advantage had narrowed to about $100
per representation closed. However, if the average panel attorney
cost per representation is calculated excluding death penalty
representations, FPD average cost per representation closed in fiscal
year 1993 was about $130 more than the panel attorney average.
Including death penalty representations in calculating the overall
panel attorney average cost per representation added about $10 per
representation closed in fiscal year 1990 and about $223 in fiscal
year 1993.
Figure 7: Average Cost per
Representation Closed for FPDs,
CDOs, and Panel Attorneys,
Fiscal Years 1990 Through 1993
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Actual costs for this figure are shown in appendix II, table
II.6.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
One possible reason for the generally higher panel attorney cost per
representation closed may be the higher average number of panel
attorney in-court hours per representation closed (see fig. 8). We
could not determine why panel attorneys apparently expended more
in-court hours per representation closed than did FPDs and CDOs.
However, these additional in-court hours can affect program costs.
In 78 of the 94 districts the hourly rate for in-court hours is $20
more than the rate for out-of-court hours.
Figure 8: Average Number of
In-Court Hours per
Representation Closed for FPDs,
CDOs, and Panel Attorneys,
Fiscal Years 1990-1993
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Panel attorney data exclude death penalty representations.
Source: AOUSC.
--------------------
\22 Based on aggregate data for all CDOs. CDO costs per
representation closed are higher when the workload and costs of the
San Diego CDO are excluded from the analysis. All CDO cost and
representation data in this section include San Diego.
LIMITED DATA WERE AVAILABLE
TO VERIFY THE POTENTIAL
CAUSES OF INCREASED COSTS
PER REPRESENTATION CLOSED
---------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.3
Overall, between fiscal years 1990 and 1993, we estimated that
factors other than increased representations closed accounted for
about 74 percent of FPD cost growth, 62 percent of panel attorney
growth, and 100 percent of CDO cost growth. Defender Services
officials and Judicial Conference and AOUSC studies offered a number
of reasons why the cost per representation closed had steadily
increased for FPDs, CDOs, and panel attorneys. These reasons
included implementation of the federal sentencing guidelines, which
require additional attorney time; changing prosecutorial priorities
that increased the number of complex drug and multiple defendant
cases prosecuted in federal court, which were more likely to result
in trials for one or more defendants; and greater numbers of offenses
carrying mandatory minimum sentences, which were more likely to
result in trials.
These arguments were supported by some anecdotal evidence and such
aggregate empirical data as total district court criminal caseload
statistics showing a rising number of criminal trials and multiple
defendant cases. However, it was difficult to document that the
reasons cited were in fact the major contributing factors to rising
workload and/or costs. This was largely due to the absence of
consistent, reliable data on such potential causes of rising program
costs as the number of Defender Services cases involving multiple
defendants or defendants charged with mandatory minimum offenses; the
percentage of such cases that go to trial; or the number of cases
investigated and developed by state agencies and handed off to
federal prosecutors because federal law and the sentencing guidelines
provided longer sentences. A more detailed analysis of the data
sources available to measure the impact of these factors is included
in appendix I.
As discussed in the following sections, there is some evidence that
certain of these factors may have affected program costs.
IMPACT OF SENTENCING
GUIDELINES
-------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.3.1
Recent Defender Services budget submissions have noted that the
federal sentencing guidelines, which became effective November 1,
1987,\23 "have profoundly altered the nature of the sentencing
process and dramatically increased federal and panel attorney
workloads." Contributing to the impact on both attorney workload and
program costs has been the need to consider the accuracy of all facts
in the judicial proceedings that could affect the potential sentence
under the guidelines; the many guidelines amendments (434 between
November 1987 and November 1991, for example); the increasing
complexity of the guidelines; more defendants choosing to go to trial
under the guidelines; and the increased number of sentencing appeals.
Our August 1992 sentencing guidelines report\24 concluded that
although empirical data and reliable work measurements did not exist,
available statistics and our interviews suggested that the guidelines
had apparently increased criminal justice workload. Though Defender
Services estimated that the sentencing guidelines implementation had
increased the time required to provide representation by about 25 to
50 percent in most cases, AOUSC officials could not provide data to
substantiate this observation.
In addition, subsequent to the sentencing guidelines implementation,
there has been a rise in criminal appeals. The authorizing
legislation for the sentencing guidelines, the Sentencing Reform Act
of 1984, provided for appeals of sentences imposed by U.S. District
Courts. For example, the act provided that a defendant or the
federal government may appeal a sentence on the basis that the
sentence was imposed as a result of an incorrect application of the
guidelines. Generally, appeals of sentences were not common prior to
the Sentencing Reform Act's appellate review provisions. There were
2,534 such sentencing appeals in fiscal year 1992, or almost 23
percent of all criminal appeals. Defender Services appeals
representations closed more than doubled from about 3,300 in 1987 to
over 6,700 in 1993, but we could not determine how much of this
increase was attributable to appeals of sentence only.
The increase in the number of appeals and cost per appeals
representation closed has affected program costs. From fiscal years
1990 through 1993, the cost per panel attorney appeals representation
closed rose 24 percent from $2,567 to $3,187,\25 while the number of
such appeals rose 118 percent from 1,825 to 3,977. During the
period, the cost per panel attorney appeals representation closed was
at least 20 percent more than criminal representations closed and
more than twice as much as "other" representations closed.
--------------------
\23 The guidelines apply to all federal criminal offenses committed
on or after November 1, 1987. However, the guidelines were not
implemented nationally until after January 1989, when a U.S. Supreme
Court decision upheld their constitutionality. Mistretta v. United
States, 488 U.S. 361 (1989).
\24 Sentencing Guidelines: Central Questions Remain Unanswered
(GAO/GGD 92-93, Aug. 14, 1992).
\25 Data to calculate the cost of FPD or CDO appeals representations
closed were not available.
NUMBER AND LENGTH OF
TRIALS CAN AFFECT COSTS
-------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.3.2
The number and length of criminal trials can also affect program
costs. The fiscal year 1994 Defender Services congressional budget
submission noted that the number of trials had increased,
particularly for defendants in multiple defendant cases or those
charged with offenses requiring a mandatory minimum prison term upon
conviction. Although specific data on trials involving defendants
represented by Defender Service attorneys were not available, we did
review general AOUSC statistical data on overall trial trends.\26
The number of criminal jury trials increased more than total criminal
trials (9.5 percent versus 2.9 percent) between statistical years
1990 and 1993. Jury trials with 4 or more defendants increased about
15 percent (from 425 to 488) during the same period, though they
tended to be a small and stable percentage (between 8.4 and 8.8
percent) of total jury trials. Longer criminal jury trials, those
requiring 6 to 10 or 11 to 20 days, increased 22.9 and 17.3 percent,
respectively, between 1990 and 1993.\27 But such trials have remained
fairly constant as a percent of criminal jury trials. The number of
trials lasting 20 days or more has fluctuated by both district and
criminal offense.
The in-court hours recorded by FPDs, CDOs, and panel attorneys can be
one rough measure of trial time for Defender Services attorneys.
While average in-court time from fiscal years 1990 through 1993 has
generally increased for FPDs, CDOs, and panel attorneys, no clear
pattern emerged. For example, while average number of in-court hours
for FPDs and CDOs in drug offense representations closed generally
increased, it generally declined for panel attorneys. In average
hours per representation closed, the largest increase for panel
attorneys was for fraud offenses (from an average of 7 to 11 hours);
the largest for FPDs was fraud offenses (3.2 to 4.6); and the largest
for CDOs was for "other" offenses (2.1 to 4.3). Panel attorneys
consistently reported more in-court hours for all types of
representations than did FPDs or CDOs, but we could not determine why
this was so.
Fiscal year 1993 data from the CDO for the Southern District of
California in San Diego provided some indication that representations
for defendants who had been charged with an offense carrying a
mandatory minimum prison term were more likely to be disposed of by
trial than other criminal representations. However, the CDO's
attorneys spent about the same amount of in-court and out-of-court
time on trials that did and did not involve defendants charged with
mandatory minimum offenses. The San Diego data indicated that
attorneys spent more time negotiating guilty pleas in multiple
defendant drug cases that involved mandatory minimums than in
multiple defendant drug cases that did not.
--------------------
\26 AOUSC provided trial data by statistical year (July 1 to June
30). AOUSC's trial database defines a trial as any contested
proceeding before a judge at which evidence is introduced.
\27 Trials lasting 6 to 10 days rose from 607 to 746. Trials lasting
11 to 20 days rose from 214 to 251.
PROSECUTORIAL ACTIVITIES
AND OTHER FACTORS
-------------------------------------------------------- Letter :7.3.3
The Judiciary also has stated that workload and costs of Defender
Service attorneys in federal criminal cases have increased as a
result of Justice Department prosecutorial initiatives, such as the
organized crime and drug enforcement task forces. Although specific
data were not available, the Judiciary pointed out that these
investigations often lead to cases that can be rather complex and
expensive to prosecute and defend.
Operation Weed and Seed is a multiple agency approach to combatting
violent crime, drugs, and gangs in high-crime areas. Project
Triggerlock targets dangerous, repeat offenders for prosecution in
federal court as opposed to state court to take advantage of federal
mandatory minimum penalties for firearms offenses. According to the
Judiciary, both initiatives have increased the complexity of cases
and the subsequent costs of Defender Services attorneys. However,
the courts do not maintain detailed data on the number of criminal
cases resulting from these initiatives. Our analysis showed that
from fiscal years 1990 through 1993, the number of weapons
representations closed\28 by Defender Services attorneys increased by
75 percent to 3,279. Data were not available to determine how many
of these resulted from Operation Triggerlock investigations and/or
carried mandatory minimum sentences.
Various sources have also cited the growing number of multiple
defendant cases as a major contributor to increased program costs.
Multiple defendant cases can be more complex and time-consuming than
other cases, particularly when they involve sophisticated drug
trafficking organizations. Conflict of interest concerns have led
FPDs and CDOs generally to represent only one defendant in multiple
defendant cases. The remaining defendants are generally represented
by panel attorneys, whom our analysis and that of AOUSC showed were,
overall, more costly per representation closed than FPD and CDO
lawyers.
Statistics were not available on the number of representations by
Defender Services attorneys in multiple defendant cases. However,
AOUSC does maintain national data on multiple defendant cases. These
data showed that the number of multiple defendant cases increased by
about 9 percent between statistical years 1990 and 1993 to about
8,100. However, as a percent of all criminal cases, multiple
defendant cases remained fairly constant (between about 19 and 20
percent). The total number of multiple defendant drug cases also
increased; cases involving two to five defendants accounted for most
of the increase. In 1992 almost 4,000 cases, or 36 percent of all
drug cases, involved multiple defendants. However, there were no
reliable data available showing multiple defendant drug cases by type
of counsel.
The number of Defender Services representations closed for drug
offenses increased by 39 percent from 15,271 to 21,270 between fiscal
years 1990 and 1993. Drug representations closed were 43 percent of
all panel attorney criminal representations closed during the period
and, excluding death penalty representations closed, generally were
the most costly, rising about 18 percent to an average of $3,152 in
fiscal year 1993.\29 Similar cost data were not available for FDOs.
--------------------
\28 This is a representation in which the defendant is charged with a
federal firearms violation, such as the use or possession of a
firearm during commission of a felony.
\29 By 1993 the average cost of fraud representations was $3,394,
more than that for drug representations. However, fraud
representations were less than 10 percent of all panel attorney
criminal representations in 1993 and, thus, had a much smaller impact
on program costs than drug representations.
THE COSTS OF PAYING HIGHER
HOURLY RATES IN 16 DISTRICTS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :8
The current standard panel attorney rates of $40 for each
out-of-court hour and $60 for each in-court hour were set in 1984.
On the basis of its assessment of such factors as attorney
compensation and expenses, the Judicial Conference has approved
higher rates in 89 districts (as of March 1995). However, at
congressional direction, the Judicial Conference has limited the
actual payment of higher standard rates--a single rate of $60, $70,
or $75 per hour for both in-court and out-of-court hours--to all or
parts of the 16 districts for which the higher standard rates were
approved in January 1990.
Had the Judiciary paid the full amount panel attorneys requested in
these 16 districts during fiscal years 1991 through 1993, the
additional costs of paying the higher rates would have been about
$40.4 million, about 12 percent of total panel attorney obligations
during the period. However, with some regularity judges approved
less than the total compensation requested. Based on the amounts
judges approved for payment, a more accurate measure, the additional
costs were about $33.5 million, or about 10.2 percent of total panel
attorney obligations during the period.
Because they exclude virtually all appeals representations, these
estimates probably underestimate the additional costs. Appeals were
excluded because virtually all appeals representations in the
database--at least 98 percent in each year for 1990 through 1993 and
85 percent in the first 6 months of 1994--were identified only by the
appeals circuit and, thus, could not be associated with a specific
district (see app. I). Because the jurisdictions of 11 of the 12
circuit courts of appeals cover several states and a number of
districts, we could not use the circuit identifier for our analysis
in 11 of the 12 circuits.
DATA LIMITATIONS PRECLUDED FULL
ASSESSMENT OF INCREASE IN DPRC
WORKLOAD AND COSTS
------------------------------------------------------------ Letter :9
DPRCs were created in part to help reduce or contain the cost of
death penalty representations. Budget requests and appropriations
for the centers have increased sharply since the establishment of the
first one in 1988. From fiscal years 1989 to 1994 the number of
centers increased from 14 to 20, and the amounts appropriated for the
centers more than tripled, from $5,890,000 to $19,800,000.\30 During
the period, the overall cost per case increased from $9,521 to
$17,247, up about 81 percent (in current dollars). (See table 3.)
Table 3
Total Workload, Total Costs, and Cost
per Case for DPRCs and Panel Attorney
Death Penalty Cases, Fiscal Years 1988-
1994
Fi
sc
al
ye Total Total Cost per Total Cost per
ar DPRCs\a cases Total cost\b case\c cases Total cost\b case\c
-- -------- -------- ------------ ---------- -------- ------------ ----------
19 3 NA $90,000 NA NA NA NA
88
19 14 313 $2,980,000 $9,521 NA NA NA
89
19 15 491 $5,640,000 $11,487 9 $299,288 $33,254
90
19 16 670 $11,540,000 $17,224 121 $2,444,894 $20,206
91
19 19 828 $11,540,000 $13,937 156 $5,398,658 $34,607
92
19 19 1,014 $18,065,000 $17,816 246 $9,072,071 $36,878
93
19 20 1,086 $18,730,000 $17,247 NA NA NA
94
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend: NA = not available.
\a Total number at end of fiscal year.
\b Total budget obligations for DPRCs. Panel attorney obligations
reflect attorney fees only.
\c Rounded to the nearest whole number. Total "cases" and cost per
"case" for DPRCs are based on representations pending at beginning of
the fiscal year plus new appointments. Total panel attorney "cases"
and cost per "case" are based on representations closed during the
fiscal year.
Source: Judiciary's fiscal year 1996 Congressional Budget
Justifications for Defender Services (DPRC data) and other AOUSC data
(panel attorneys).
AOUSC offered three major reasons for the increases in total costs
and costs per representation: more operational centers, increased
caseload, and increased complexity of death penalty litigation.
While the number of death penalty cases in federal courts has
increased, the lack of a reliable death penalty identifier in the
database precluded an accurate measure of the increase. Almost all
death penalty cases in federal courts arise from state death penalty
convictions. Between the end of calendar years 1989 and 1993, the
total number of persons sentenced to death, including those convicted
and sentenced in state courts, rose from 2,186 to 2,785. As of March
1995, only 6 persons had been convicted and sentenced to death in
federal courts.
AOUSC asserted that the services provided by the centers actually
lower federal death penalty litigation costs by
encouraging competent private attorneys to immediately accept death
penalty cases;
providing consultation, investigative, and other services to
private attorneys; and
using expert, salaried center attorneys to directly represent
defendants/prisoners.
Due to data limitations, we could not fully assess the validity of
these assertions. Comparable empirical data on case complexity and
reliable baseline data concerning death penalty litigation costs
prior to implementation of the resource centers were not available,
and much of the available cost information was anecdotal. Our
analysis of aggregate data from quarterly reports was limited because
(1) comparable reports were available only for fiscal years 1991,
1992, and 1993; (2) the 1992 and 1993 reports included centers not
operational in 1991; and (3) complete data were not available from
all operational centers. These data limitations in turn precluded a
full assessment of the costs of death penalty litigation.
The absence of a reliable district identifier in panel attorney death
penalty representations precluded a cost comparison of such
representations in districts with and without DPRCs to determine if
the costs were less in districts with DPRCs.
--------------------
\30 The fiscal year 1994 appropriation was $265,000 less than the
1993 appropriation of $20,065,000. The fiscal year 1994 request was
$30,559,000.
EFFORTS TO IMPROVE PROGRAM DATA
AND OPERATIONS
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :10
In its fiscal year 1995 congressional budget submission, the
Judiciary acknowledged that it did not have sufficient data or
analyses to explain the causes of increased panel attorney costs and
announced steps to improve Defender Services program operations,
enhance data collection and analysis, and reduce costs. According to
AOUSC officials, many of these initiatives were undertaken in
response to congressional concerns and/or our inquiries. Several
were recommended by the Economy Subcommittee of the Judicial
Conference's Budget Committee or the Defender Services Committee.
Among the initiatives are (1) the creation of a nine-person program
analysis office within the Defender Services Division of AOUSC; (2)
efforts to develop Defender Services case weights and FDO work
measurement formulas and improve available analytical data by
requiring additional financial and statistical data, including FDO
reporting of out-of-court time; (3) implementation of new "death
penalty" panel attorney vouchers to aid improved cost analysis; (4)
continuation of a study to assess the impact of the federal
sentencing guidelines on program costs; and (5) improved audits of
FPDs, CDOs, and DPRCs. The Judiciary also announced steps to control
FDO costs, such as limitations on space alterations, salary
increases, and travel.
The Judicial Conference's Committee on Defender Services has
established a Death Penalty Representation subcommittee (generally
known as the Cox Committee, after its Chair, Judge Emmett R. Cox) to
reevaluate the DPRC concept and report on proposals for containing
death penalty litigation costs. The subcommittee is reviewing
available data, soliciting the views of various sources, and planning
to complete its work during the summer of 1995.
AOUSC's Office of Audit continues to play a role in evaluating
various aspects of the program. The Office, either directly or
through its contractor accounting firm, conducts periodic financial
audits of court operations, which include reviews of FPD activities
and panel attorney payments. The Office's audit staff has identified
some FPD office deficiencies regarding payroll, time and attendance,
and disbursements, as well as problems in some DPRCs' reporting on
time spent on federal representations. At its January 1995 meeting,
the Judicial Conference's Committee on Defender Services directed
AOUSC to contract centrally for audits of CDOs and DPRCs.
AOUSC's comments on a draft of this report mentioned some additional
initiatives (see app. III).
AGENCY COMMENTS
----------------------------------------------------------- Letter :11
AOUSC's written comments incorporated the views of the Chair of the
Judicial Conference's Committee on Defender Services. AOUSC said
that the findings and issues identified in our report would assist
the Judiciary in its ongoing efforts to increase the type, quality,
and consistency of data being collected on the activities of FDOs,
DPRCs, and panel attorneys. AOUSC identified a number of specific
efforts, planned and underway, to improve data collection and
analysis and contain Defender Services costs. A number of these
efforts were initiated in response to our work. On the basis of our
review of the information provided by AOUSC, we agree that successful
completion of AOUSC's efforts--both those mentioned in its letter and
those discussed in our report-- would help to rectify the issues
identified in our report. The full text of AOUSC's comments are in
appendix III.
--------------------------------------------------------- Letter :11.1
We are sending copies of this report to the Subcommittees on
Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies of
the House and Senate Appropriations Committees; the Chairmen and
Ranking Minority Members of the House and Senate Committees on the
Judiciary; the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the House
Judiciary Subcommittee on the Judiciary and Intellectual Property;
the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Senate Judiciary
Subcommittee on the Courts and Administrative Practice; the Director
of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts; the Chairman of the
Judicial Conference of the United States' Committee on Defender
Services; and other interested parties. We will also make copies
available to others upon request.
Major contributors to this report are listed in appendix IV. If you
have any questions about the contents of this report, please call me
on (202) 512-8777.
Sincerely yours,
Norman J. Rabkin
Director, Administration
of Justice Issues
OBJECTIVES, SCOPE, AND METHODOLOGY
=========================================================== Appendix I
The former Chairman, and now Ranking Minority Member, of the
Subcommittee on the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the
Judiciary, and Related Agencies, Senate Committee on Appropriations,
requested that we examine a number of issues regarding the Federal
Defender Services program and the causes of the rapid growth in both
program workload and costs. Specifically, we were asked to assess,
for fiscal years 1990 to 1993 and the first half of 1994:
the causes of the growth in overall Defender Services workload and
costs, including the reasons that Defender Services workload has
grown faster than district court criminal cases;
the comparative costs of representations closed provided by FDOs
and panel attorneys and, if the FDO costs were lower, what
actions the federal judiciary was taking to increase the use of
FDOs;
the additional costs of paying standard higher hourly rates to
panel attorneys in all or parts of 16 districts; and
the causes of the increased workload and costs of the DPRCs,
including whether the DPRCs had helped to reduce or contain the
costs of panel attorney death penalty representations.
However, because of the data limitations described below, and as
agreed with the requestor, we changed our objectives to provide
information on (1) reasons that Defender Services workload has grown
faster than district court criminal cases; (2) data available to
assess the causes of increased Defender Services workload and costs;
(3) comparative costs of representations closed by federal defender
organizations and by private attorneys directly assigned by federal
judges; (4) additional costs of paying higher standard hourly rates
to private, court-appointed attorneys in all or parts of 16
districts; (5) the comparative costs of panel attorney and DPRC death
penalty representations; and (6) the potential causes of increased
DPRC workload and costs.
To meet these objectives, we reviewed prior studies of the Federal
Defender Services program, including those of the Committee to Review
the Criminal Justice Act (commonly referred to as the Prado
Committee), the Judicial Conference of the United States, the
Defender Services Division, and the Financial Analysis Office of the
Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts (AOUSC). We also reviewed
a number of private studies of death penalty litigation, including
studies of DPRCs by the Spangenberg Group, a consulting firm.
We met with federal court officials, including the Chairman of the
Executive Committee of the Judicial Conference of the United States,
the Chair of the Judicial Conference Committee on Defender Services,
the Defender Services Advisory Committee, and the Chief Judge of the
Second Circuit court of appeals. We also met with judges, federal
and community defenders, and other officials in the Eastern and
Southern Districts of New York, Eastern District of Michigan,
District of New Jersey, District of Delaware, and Southern District
of California. These districts were judgmentally selected. Delaware
was chosen because it was served by the FPD for New Jersey. The
districts of Southern and Eastern New York, Eastern Michigan, and New
Jersey had large criminal caseloads and were near our regional office
staff. We chose the Southern District of California because Defender
Services officials told us this district had developed a method of
tracking attorney hours that captured many of the elements, such as
representations for defendants charged with offenses carrying a
mandatory minimum sentence, not captured by the national data systems
used in our analysis. We also met with AOUSC officials in the Office
of Audit, Defender Services Division, Office of Finance and Budget,
and Statistics Division to discuss a number of issues, including
studies they had or were conducting on Defender Services workload and
costs.
DATA AVAILABLE ON DEFENDER
SERVICES WORKLOAD AND COSTS
We identified the workload and cost data available from AOUSC. FPD
and CDO workload data are reported semiannually by each office on
form JS-50. We obtained these semiannual workload reports for fiscal
years 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, and the first half of fiscal year 1994
and produced a dataset to analyze FPD and CDO workload by case type,
disposition (where available), and type of representation--criminal,
appeals, and all other representations (such as bail and
probation/parole revocation hearings and habeas corpus proceedings).
We obtained a copy of the automated database created from the
vouchers submitted by panel attorneys for fiscal years 1990 through
1993, plus the first 6 months of fiscal year 1994. This database
contained data on the amount of in-court and out-of- court
compensation requested by panel attorneys and approved by the court,
the approval date, the payment date, and the attorney's authorized
hourly in-court and out-of-court billing rates. We did not verify
the accuracy of the data entered on the forms or the database AOUSC
provided. However, edit checks on the internal reliability of data
in selected data fields in the database, such as attorney hourly
rates, revealed some questions about the accuracy of the data in
these fields. These problems are discussed in later sections of this
appendix.
AOUSC's master criminal file provided a wide variety of data on
overall criminal workload in the federal district courts. We used
this database, the annual statistical reports of the courts, and a
Statistics Division analysis to identify trends in total district
court criminal workload, such as the number of multiple defendant
criminal cases filed in district courts, the number of trials with
four or more defendants, and trial lengths in days.
However, the master criminal file did not reliably differentiate
between Defender Services cases and other cases, precluding a
comparison of overall workload trends and Defender Services workload
trends. In addition, data on some of the workload and cost variables
we were asked to examine were unavailable or too incomplete to be
analyzed. These included data on:
the number of defendants who required court-appointed counsel
because their assets had been seized or frozen (not available);
the total number of cases in which defendants were charged with
offenses carrying mandatory minimum sentences (not available
nationally, although we found that the CDO for the Southern
District of California maintained such data, beginning in fiscal
year 1993);
the number of panel attorney appointments resulting from multiple
defendant cases in which more than one defendant required a
court-appointed attorney (not available nationally);\1
the additional hours Defender Services attorneys expend on
representations because of the implementation of the federal
sentencing guidelines (not available);
federal prosecutions of cases developed by state investigative
agencies, such as weapons or drug cases prosecuted in federal
courts to take advantage of higher mandatory minimum sentences
imposed under the federal sentencing guidelines (not available
from AOUSC).\2
the link between the increased number of assistant U.S. Attorneys
and the number of criminal cases filed in U.S. district courts
(only basic trends can be described from available data, such as
the percent increase in resources for criminal prosecutions and
criminal cases initiated in federal courts).
Defender Services officials said that each of these factors had
contributed to increased attorney hours and costs per representation
closed. Early in our work we informed Subcommittee staff that these
data limitations precluded an assessment of the direct impact of
individual factors on Defender Services workload and costs.
Therefore, as agreed with the requestor, we changed our objectives.
Table I.1 summarizes the limitations of available Defender Services
workload and cost data for criminal representations closed.
Table I.1
Criminal Defendant Workload Data
Available From Four Databases of the
Federal Judiciary
All Panel San
criminal FDOs attorney Diego
Type of data cases\a \b s\c CDO\d
------------------------ -------- ---- -------- --------
Workload data
------------------------------------------------------------
Number of new defendants Yes\e Yes No\f Yes
who
received appointed
counsel
Number of multidefendant Yes No No Yes
cases
Number of defendants Yes Yes\ Yes\g Yes
whose cases were g
completed (disposed)
Number of in-court hours No\h Yes Yes Yes
per representation
closed
Number of out-of-court No\h No\i Yes Yes
hours per representation
closed
Disposition and offense data
------------------------------------------------------------
Total dispositions by Yes No No Yes
type of
disposition--cases\j
Total dispositions by Yes Yes\ No Yes
type of g
disposition--defendants
Disposition by type of Yes\k No No Yes
offense
Number of defendants
charged with mandatory In No No Yes
minimum offense part\l
Cost data
------------------------------------------------------------
Cost per representation No Yes Yes Yes
closed\m
Cost per representation
closed by district No\h Yes\ In Yes
n part\o
Cost by type of No\h No Yes\ No
representation closed\p
Cost by offense category No\h No Yes No
Appeals data
------------------------------------------------------------
Number of appeals closed Yes\ Yes Yes Yes
Appeal of sentence Yes No\q No\q Yes
Appeal of conviction Yes Yes Yes Yes
------------------------------------------------------------
\a Criminal cases in district courts were recorded in the master
criminal file; the appeals database contained data on criminal
appeals; the trial database included data on the number and length of
criminal trials.
\b Data for these offices are reported semiannually on the JS-50
form.
\c Panel attorney workload data were derived from the CJA-20 database
which includes data from the forms (called CJA-20s) on which panel
attorneys requested payment and on which approved payments were
recorded. Attorney requests for payment for other expenses, such as
expert witnesses and investigators, were reported on the CJA-21 form,
which we did not review.
\d The CDO for the Southern District of California in San Diego has
developed its own automated system for tracking attorney hours and
assignments that includes many data elements not recorded on the
forms we reviewed. The San Diego system was not designed to track
costs per representation.
\e The master criminal file included a field for type of legal
counsel, including whether the defendant had a court-appointed
attorney. However, according to AOUSC, the data in this field were
not reliable. Our own validity test confirmed this assessment. The
data in this field could be entered twice--when the case was filed
and when the case was closed.
\f A representation appeared in the database only when an attorney
submitted a request for partial or complete payment. This request
may not have appeared in the file for the fiscal year in which the
attorney was appointed. If the attorney submitted two vouchers for
the same representation in two different fiscal years, the second
voucher was counted as a separate representation. Thus, it was
possible to double-count representations and defendants in such
cases. For example, in fiscal years 1991 and 1992 we found that
1,591 (about 2 percent) of the panel attorney representations were
double-counted.
\g For panel attorneys, determining the number of unique defendants
disposed requires matching individual vouchers with a number of data
elements as discussed later in this appendix. The number of
defendants disposed by each type of counsel cannot necessarily be
added together to obtain the total number of separate defendants whom
FDOs and panel attorneys have represented. It is possible for a
single defendant to be represented by more than one type of attorney.
For example, the defendant could be represented by a FPD or CDO
attorney at the bail hearing, but by a panel attorney for the
remainder of the case. In such instances, Defender Services data
would report two representations--one for FDOs in the JS-50 reports
(under "other" representations for the bail hearing), and one in the
CJA-20 database (under criminal representations) for the panel
attorney representation.
\h Not available. The master criminal file and appeals databases
were designed to track overall workload, not cost per case or
attorney or judge hours per case.
\i Out-of-court hours were to be reported beginning in fiscal year
1995.
\j Types of dispositions included guilty pleas, dismissals,
acquittals, and trials, including both nonjury and jury trials. The
master criminal file defines nonjury trials as any contested
proceeding before a judge at which evidence is introduced.
\k The master criminal file contained data on the type of disposition
by case and defendant, but not on the length of the trial, if there
was a trial. The trial database contained data on the length of
criminal trials but not by type of offense, such as drugs or weapons.
\l The master criminal file included the most serious charge at
indictment and the most serious charge of conviction as determined by
the maximum penalty that could be imposed. If the mandatory minimum
offense were not the most serious charge in either case, it would not
be shown in the database.
\m In its December 1992 study of Defender Services costs, AOUSC
calculated the cost per representation closed for FPDs and CDOs by
dividing their total obligations by the total number of
representations closed. In the fiscal year 1995 budget submission,
cost per representation closed was calculated as total obligations
divided by total new appointments. The cost data for panel attorneys
in both the December 1992 study and the fiscal year 1995 budget
submission reflected representations for which at least partial
payment had been made. Our analysis used representations closed for
both types of counsel. For panel attorneys, we used the same
definition of case closed as AOUSC.
\n Some FDOs serve more than one district. There is a place on the
form to identify the district of jurisdiction. We did not use these
data or check their reliability.
\o In the database the district of origin was not available for about
98 percent of appeals representations closed for fiscal years 1990
through 1993 and for about 85 percent of representations closed in
the first 6 months of fiscal year 1994. The district of origin was
missing for about 10 percent or less for all other types of
representations.
\p Types of representations included criminal, appeals, and other
(which includes bail hearings, probation and parole revocations, and
civil actions, such as habeas corpus proceedings and prisoner
petitions).
\q Data included total number of appeals, but not whether the appeal
was an appeal of conviction, sentence, or both. Under the federal
sentencing guidelines, a defendant may appeal the sentence without
appealing the conviction. The government may also appeal the
sentence.
The types of data reported for panel attorneys and for FDOs differed
in many respects, significantly limiting the comparisons that could
be made between the work of panel attorneys and defender
organizations. As shown in table I.1, the criminal caseload data
available from the principal judiciary databases were varied and not
always comparable. While the number of multiple defendant cases
could be obtained from the master criminal file, for example, we
could not determine how many defendants in these cases required
court-appointed counsel. The national workload data available for
FDOs and CDOs included the number of new representations, number of
representations closed, and number of representations pending at the
end of the fiscal year. However, the data available on panel
attorneys included only the number of representations
closed--representations for which panel attorneys had requested
payment. If the representation were closed, but the panel attorney
did not request payment during the same fiscal year, the
representation would not appear in the database until the attorney
had submitted a voucher for payment.
COMPARISON OF DEFENDER SERVICES
REPRESENTATIONS WITH DISTRICT
COURT CRIMINAL WORKLOAD
To determine why the rate of Defender Services representations closed
has exceeded the increase in criminal filings in recent years, we
tried to identify those Defender Services representations that were
most analogous to criminal filings in district courts. Defender
Services representations were reported in three broad
categories--criminal, appeals, and other. After consulting with
Defender Services and AOUSC's Statistics Division, we determined that
the category "criminal representations" was most analogous to
criminal filings as reported by the district courts and recorded in
the master criminal file.
Appeals are reported in AOUSC statistical reports as workload of the
courts of appeals. Thus, such representations would not be reported
in district court workload statistics. The category "other
representations" included proceedings, such as prisoner petitions and
habeas corpus petitions, that are civil actions and reported in
district court civil workload statistics.
Defendants disposed rather than commenced in district courts was the
most appropriate comparison between Defender Services criminal
representations and district court criminal workload statistics.
This was because panel attorney data were not available on new
appointments but were available only for representations closed
(those for which payment had been requested). When this comparison
was made, we found that Defender Services criminal representations
did not exceed the number of criminal defendants disposed in district
courts.
COMPARING FDO AND PANEL ATTORNEY
WORKLOAD AND COSTS
As summarized in table I.1, comparable workload and cost data for
FDOs and panel attorneys were limited. FPDs and CDOs reported
aggregate data on case disposition (such as trial or guilty plea);
panel attorneys did not. Panel attorneys reported both in-court and
out-of-court hours; FPDs and CDOs reported only in- court hours.
Because panel attorneys submitted vouchers for each type of
representation they were assigned--criminal representations, appeals,
other--it was possible to calculate the average cost per
representation for different types of panel attorney representations.
However, FPD and CDO cost data were not available by type of
representation. Consequently, we could not determine FPD and CDO
costs by type of representation using existing data. Therefore, we
used aggregate FPD and CDO costs per representation when comparing
panel attorney and FDO costs per representation.
An AOUSC study found that CDOs had a lower average cost per
representation closed than FPDs or panel attorneys. Defender
Services officials suggested that a large number of relatively
inexpensive immigration representations, particularly in the CDO for
the Southern District of California in San Diego, may have largely
accounted for the lower average CDO costs. The CDO for the Southern
District of California accounted for more than half of all Defender
Services immigration representations. Because of its impact on total
CDO workload and costs, we examined CDO workload and costs with and
without San Diego included in the analyses.
The San Diego CDO has developed its own system for tracking attorney
assignments and hours that captured a variety of data not available
from the AOUSC forms, such as representations involving offenses
carrying a mandatory minimum prison term, dispositions by type of
offense, in-court and out-of-court hours by type of offense, and
multiple defendant cases. The San Diego system was not designed to
capture costs per representation closed but was principally designed
to track attorney hours and aid in attorney assignments. The fiscal
year 1993 San Diego data on attorney hours provided a case study of
the impact of multiple defendant cases and representations involving
mandatory minimum offenses on attorney hours. The San Diego data
also illustrated how such attorney hour data could aid the Defender
Services Division in analyzing its workload.
--------------------
\1 In such cases, only one defendant was generally to be assigned to
the local FPD or CDO; all remaining defendants requiring
court-appointed counsel were to be assigned to panel attorneys. The
rationale for limiting FPD and CDO appointments to a single defendant
in multiple defendant cases is to avoid conflicts of interest that
may arise from representing more than one defendant in the same case.
\2 The U.S. Attorney database indicated that the U.S. Attorneys
initiated a total of 35,000 criminal cases in federal district courts
in fiscal year 1992, including 1,158 cases referred by state
investigative agencies and 344 cases referred by District of Columbia
authorities. About two-thirds of the cases referred by state or D.C.
authorities were narcotics cases.
HOW WE COUNTED FPD, CDO, AND
PANEL ATTORNEY
REPRESENTATIONS
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:0.1
To compare the workload and per representation costs for FPDs, CDOs,
and panel attorneys, we developed a working definition of
representation, and calculated costs and in-court hours per
representation. As explained below, we used representations closed
as our basic measure of Defender Services workload. Because FPDs and
CDOs did not report out-of-court hours per representation closed for
the years we reviewed, we could only compare in-court hours per
representation closed for FPDs, CDOs, and panel attorneys.
Prior to its fiscal year 1996 submission, the Judiciary's
congressional budget submissions counted workload differently for
FDOs and panel attorneys. FPDs and CDOs have been reported as cases
opened, the basic equivalent of new court appointments. For panel
attorneys, the submissions have used "cases against which payment is
made in a given fiscal year." In its fiscal year 1996 submission, the
Judiciary used "representations closed" for reporting FPD and CDO
workload, adopting the method we used to count workload.
Our analysis used FPD and CDO representations closed as reported on
the AOUSC forms, because data for panel attorneys were available only
for (1) closed representations; or (2) representations for which
panel attorneys had requested partial payment, though the case may
not yet have been completed.\3 We defined a panel attorney
representation as the representation of a defendant charged with or
convicted of a specific offense by a private, court-appointed
attorney. Representations for convicted defendants included appeals
of conviction and/or sentence or habeas corpus proceedings in which
the defendant may be challenging a state conviction in federal
court.\4
We took several steps to avoid double-counting panel attorney
representations closed. When a panel attorney was appointed, the
court assigned a unique voucher number that the panel attorney was to
use when submitting request(s) for payment. Panel attorneys may
submit more than one voucher for each representation using the
voucher number they were assigned upon appointment. We considered
all claims for payment under a single voucher number to be part of a
single representation. If payments under the same voucher number
were approved and paid in two successive fiscal years, AOUSC counted
the request for payment in the new fiscal year as a separate
representation. We found 691 voucher numbers that appeared in fiscal
years 1990 and 1991, 900 numbers that appeared in fiscal years 1991
and 1992, and 1,202 numbers that appeared in fiscal years 1992 and
1993.\5 Thus, AOUSC would have counted as separate representations
691 voucher numbers in 1991, 900 in 1992, and 1,202 in 1993.
We followed the AOUSC convention because we were tracking payments
per representation closed in each fiscal year. Thus, like AOUSC, our
counts of representations closed in each fiscal year were not
precisely accurate. First, we overestimated representations actually
closed in fiscal year 1990 by as much as 691 (2.4 percent of the
28,575 representations we attributed to 1990); in fiscal 1991 by as
many as 900 (2.5 percent of 36,027 representations); and in fiscal
year 1992 by as many as 1,202 representations (3.3 percent of 36,479
representations).
Second, this method of counting did not accurately reflect panel
attorney costs per representation closed. If each voucher number
appearing in two fiscal years represented a single representation,
then the true cost for each representation closed would be the total
of all the payments made under each voucher number for both fiscal
years. This approach affected hours per representation closed for
the same reason. The total attorney hours appearing in both fiscal
years would be the true hours per representation closed.
Some defendants were represented by more than one panel attorney in
the same case, but we counted such situations as a single
representation. To determine a single panel attorney representation,
we matched offense, court district, docket number, and defendant
name. Multiple records and multiple voucher numbers that matched
exactly on these data elements were considered part of a single
representation. If they did not match on all data elements, we
counted them as separate representations.
--------------------
\3 While panel attorneys are generally expected to submit a single
voucher after the representation is closed, they may and do submit
interim vouchers for payment.
\4 Habeas corpus proceedings are civil, not criminal, proceedings.
\5 We did not determine how many numbers, if any, appeared in more
than two successive fiscal years.
HOW WE CALCULATED COSTS PER
REPRESENTATION CLOSED
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:0.2
We calculated FPD and CDO costs per representation closed by dividing
the total budget obligations for all FPDs or CDOs by the total number
of FPD (or CDO) representations closed in that fiscal year, as
reported on the AOUSC forms. Thus, if total FPD obligations were
$100,000 and total representations closed were 1,000, the cost per
FPD representation closed would be $100 ($100,000/1,000). This
calculation was not very precise, but available data did not permit a
more detailed estimate of costs per representation closed. This
methodology may have overstated the FPD and CDO costs per
representation closed because an undeterminable portion of their
budgets was used for representations opened, but not closed, during
the fiscal year. In addition, FDO attorneys provide training for
panel attorneys, the costs of which are included in FDO budgets.
The calculation of panel attorney costs per representation closed was
somewhat more complicated. The AOUSC used "payment date"--the date
on which the check was written--to calculate per representation
costs. In fiscal years 1991 and 1992, payments to panel attorneys
were deferred due to shortage of funds, with large numbers of
payments made in the first month of the new fiscal year. Thus,
payment date was not necessarily the best measure of when the
representation was closed. Therefore, we used "certification date,"
the date on which the court approved payment, because this date was
likely to be closer to the date on which the work was completed and
payment requested than the payment date.
We calculated costs per representation closed using a two-step
process. First, to determine costs for closed representations having
a single panel attorney, we aggregated all payments for each voucher
number. That is, if there were five payments approved for voucher
number 12345, we combined all five payments to obtain a single cost
for that voucher number. Second, we aggregated all payments for each
voucher number associated with the same representation. For example,
if voucher numbers 54321 and 67890 were associated with the same
representation, we combined them into a single total for that
representation.
As noted, our panel attorney costs per representation closed may be
somewhat understated since in the database we used the costs for as
many as 691 representations that were split between fiscal years 1990
and 1991, 900 between 1991 and 1992, and 1,202 between 1992 and 1993.
Moreover, our costs per representation closed included attorney time
only. The costs of experts, investigators, and other services,
reported on another form, were not included in our costs because of
the difficulty of matching these payments, recorded in a separate
database, with the representations recorded in the AOUSC database for
attorney hours. However, such costs were included in the costs for
FPDs and CDOs, since these costs were included in the total budget
obligations we used to calculate FPD and CDO costs. Thus, the FPD
and CDO cost per representation closed used in our analysis included
all costs incurred by these organizations, while our panel attorney
cost per representation closed included only attorney time.
Consequently, any FPD or CDO cost advantage we found in our analysis
was probably somewhat understated.
HOW WE CALCULATED HOURS PER
REPRESENTATION CLOSED
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:0.3
We used the in-court hours reported on the JS-50 forms for
representations closed to calculate FPD and CDO in-court hours per
representation closed. FPDs and CDOs did not report out-of- court
hours. Panel attorney vouchers included separate sections for
in-court and out-of-court compensation requested and approved. In
all but 16 districts panel attorneys were reimbursed at the standard
rate of $60 per hour for in-court time and $40 per hour for
out-of-court time. Thus, in these districts in-court hours are
reimbursed at a rate 50 percent higher than out-of-court hours. The
court may reduce the amount requested for either in-court
compensation, out-of-court compensation, or both. However, where the
court made a reduction in the amount approved for payment, the
database did not usually indicate the number of attorney hours by
which the request had been reduced. Rather, the database showed
separately the amount requested and the amount approved for payment.
Because attorney hours were not entered into the automated database,
AOUSC calculated the actual number of in-court hours expended per
panel attorney representations by dividing the total amount of
compensation requested (for example, $2,400) for in-court time by the
authorized hourly rate ($60 in most districts). The same calculation
was made for out-of-court hours. The database supports no other
reasonable method of calculation. Consequently, we used the same
method to calculate attorney hours per representation closed.
If the the authorized hourly rate is recorded erroneously on the
CJA-20, this would affect the calculation of attorney hours. We
found a wide variety of hourly rates reported in the database for
both death penalty and nondeath penalty representations. Some
appeared to be keying errors. For example, in more than 1,300
nondeath penalty panel attorney representations in fiscal year 1993
the out-of-court hourly rate was recorded as $752, perhaps reflecting
a data entry error. The correct rate was probably $75--the higher
standard hourly rate in those districts authorized to pay the higher
rates. However, because of the method used to calculate panel
attorney hours, this error would reduce by a factor of 10 the actual
out-of-court hours reported as expended in such cases. Due to
resource limitations, we did not validate the hourly rates entered in
the database. Consequently, we could not determine the magnitude of
the error that may be attributable to such erroneous hourly rates,
and the data used in our analyses were based on the rates as reported
in the database.
FPDs and CDOs were not assigned death penalty cases during the period
of our review. Therefore, when comparing FPD, CDO, and panel
attorney average costs per representation closed, we used the average
panel attorney cost per representation closed, excluding death
penalty representations. We separately calculated the costs for
panel attorney death penalty representations closed for the analysis
on death penalty representations.
HOW WE ESTIMATED THE IMPACT
OF INCREASED REPRESENTATIONS
CLOSED ON PROGRAM COSTS
------------------------------------------------------- Appendix I:0.4
To estimate the impact of increased workload (as measured by
representations closed) on program costs, we estimated what fiscal
year 1993 costs would have been if the average cost per
representation closed had remained unchanged throughout the period at
the fiscal year 1990 average cost per representation closed
(unadjusted for inflation). For example, in fiscal year 1990, total
panel attorney criminal representation costs were $47,212,797, with
an average cost of $1,985 each. At $1,985 each, the 29,237 panel
attorney criminal representations closed in fiscal year 1993 would
have cost $58,035,445, or $10,822,648 more than the total 1990 costs.
However, total 1993 panel attorney costs for criminal representations
were actually $30,009,222 more than the 1990 total. Thus, we
estimated that the increased workload accounted for about 36 percent
of increased panel attorney costs for criminal representations
between fiscal years 1990 and 1993.\6
We did not adjust the 1990 cost per representation closed for
inflation because we wanted a comparable estimate for panel attorneys
and FDOs. While FDO attorneys received cost-of-living adjustments
during the period (though not always at the same time in the fiscal
year), the basic panel attorney hourly rates in 78 of 94 districts
remained unchanged at $40 (out-of-court) and $60 (in-court). We had
already separately estimated the impact of paying higher standard
hourly rates to panel attorneys in the 16 districts in which higher
rates were paid in fiscal years 1991, 1992, and 1993. Although our
use of 1990 average costs unadjusted for inflation may have
underestimated the impact of increased workload on program costs,
particularly for FDOs, it was the most straightforward method of
developing reasonable, comparable estimates for panel attorneys and
FDOs.
HOW WE CALCULATED THE ADDITIONAL
COST OF PAYING HIGHER HOURLY RATES
IN 16 DISTRICTS
In 78 districts, panel attorneys are paid a standard hourly rate of
$40 for each out-of-court hour and $60 for each in-court hour. In
all or parts of 16 districts, panel attorneys are paid a single,
standard higher hourly rate of $60, $70, or $75 for both in-court and
out-of-court hours. The applicable rate varies by district. The
AOUSC database included the hourly rate and the separate amounts of
compensation requested for in-court and out-of-court hours, but the
database did not include the number of in-court or out-of-court hours
on which the request was based. We excluded from our analysis
representations compensated at rates other than the standard higher
rates, as applicable, of $60, $70, or $75 per hour in these 16
districts. Representations compensated at other hourly rates would,
by definition, have been exceptions to the standard higher hourly
rates prevailing in these districts. In some of these districts, the
higher rate applies only to specific location(s) within the district.
To the extent that the higher standard rates were approved in
specific cases outside these locations, they would be included in our
analysis because we could identify representations only by district,
not by specific locations within a district.
We calculated the number of in-court hours and out-of-court hours by
dividing the total requested amount by the approved hourly rate. We
used these hours to recalculate the requested compensation at the
rate of $40 for each out-of-court hour and $60 for each in-court
hour. This provided a comparison between requested compensation at
the higher standard rate in these districts and the amount that would
have been requested using the lower standard hourly rates of $40
out-of-court and $60 in-court.
However, the courts reduced some requests for compensation at the
higher rates. Consequently, a comparison based solely on requested
compensation would overstate the amount actually paid in the
higher-rate districts. To determine how much had actually been
approved and paid in each of the 16 higher-rate districts, we used
the AOUSC database to identify the amount by which the requests for
compensation had been reduced in each district.
We then compared the amounts actually approved and paid at the higher
rates with the amounts that would have been requested at the lower
rates. We did not also reduce the calculation using the lower rates
because the database provided no basis on which to make such an
adjustment. The database did not explain the basis for the
reductions in requested compensation, nor were there any data on the
number of hours disallowed--only final dollar amounts approved and
paid. Our method of calculation produced a conservative estimate of
the additional costs of paying the higher rates in the 16 districts.
Our estimates and cost comparisons were also conservative because we
excluded from the analysis any voucher without a district identifier.
For every type of representation--criminal, appeals, other--some
representations did not include district identifiers, but only the
appeals circuit in which the district was located. Each circuit,
except the District of Columbia circuit, covers a number of states
and districts. The higher-cost districts are in the second, third,
seventh, ninth, and tenth circuits, but not all districts in each of
these circuits were authorized to pay the higher panel attorney
hourly rates.
At least 98 percent of all appeals in the database for fiscal years
1990 through 1993, and 85 percent in the first half of 1994, were
identified only by the circuit in which the appeal was filed.
Consequently, our estimate of paying the higher rates excluded the
costs of most appeals originating in the districts authorized to pay
the higher rates.
DEATH PENALTY RESOURCE CENTERS
To assess the costs of representations by DPRCs we relied primarily
on DPRC budget and workload data included in the DPRCs' quarterly
reports and data on panel attorney costs per death penalty
representation closed from the AOUSC database. Because there were no
baseline cost data prior to the DPRCs' creation, we could not
determine whether the services the DPRCs provided had helped to
reduce the costs of death penalty litigation. Because of
considerable variations in the type of work each DPRC does, including
the mix of direct representations and assistance provided to private
counsel, we could not determine whether the increased costs of the
DPRCs were justified by the workload.
About 37 percent of panel attorney death penalty representations
closed in fiscal year 1991, 23 percent in fiscal year 1992, and 17
percent in fiscal year 1993 were not identified by district. This
precluded a comparison of the costs of panel attorney death penalty
representations closed in districts with and without DPRCs.
To develop descriptive information on DPRCs, we reviewed the fiscal
year 1991, 1992, and 1993 quarterly reports submitted by the DPRCs on
their workload. California did not submit quarterly reports until
fiscal year 1994 because it submitted monthly vouchers instead;
fiscal year 1991 quarterly reports for the Georgia DPRC were also
unavailable.
We also reviewed studies by the Spangenberg Group, a consulting firm,
on death penalty litigation and costs, and incorporated some of their
data in our analysis, as appropriate.
--------------------
\6 This is derived by dividing $10,822,648 (the cost of the increased
workload at the 1990 average cost per representation closed) by
$30,009,222 (the actual increased costs).
SELECTED DATA ON DEFENDER SERVICES
WORKLOAD AND COSTS
========================================================== Appendix II
This appendix provides selected tables on Defender Services workload
and costs for fiscal years 1990 through 1993. Where available, data
for the first 6 months of fiscal year 1994 are included. The tables
in this appendix supplement the tables and figures in the letter.
Only overall costs per representation closed were available for FPDs
and CDOs. However, per representation costs by type of
representation and major offense category (within criminal
representations) were available for panel attorneys and are shown in
tables II.7 and II.8.
Table II.1
Representations Closed by Federal
Defender Organizations and Panel
Attorneys, Fiscal Years 1990 Through
First 6 Months of 1994
Type of
representa
tion FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- --------- ---------- ------------------
Criminal 23,743 23,782 24,660 28,119 24,634 28,555 25,670 29,237 12,115 13,485 8% 23%
Appeals 1,391 1,825 1,746 3,699 1,818 3,225 2,149 3,977 1,077 2,000 54 118
Other 9,795 2,959 10,741 4,088 11,888 4,543 12,192 4,545 5,524 2,395 24 54
Death NA 9 NA 121 NA 156 NA 246 NA 171 NA 2,633
penalty
=================================================================================================================================================================
Total 34,929 28,575 37,147 36,027 38,340 36,479 40,011 38,005 18,716 18,051 15% 33%
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend: FDOs = Federal Defender Organizations
PAs = Panel Attorneys
NA = not applicable
\a Percent change based upon fiscal year 1990-1993 data only.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.2
Defender Services Representations Closed
by Type of Attorney, Fiscal Years 1990
Through First 6 Months of 1994
Type of
representa
tion FPDs CDOs PAs FPDs CDOs PAs FPDs CDOs PAs FPDs CDOs PAs FPDs CDOs PAs
---------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- -------- --------
Criminal 15,326 8,417 23,782 17,068 7,592 28,119 17,749 6,885 28,555 19,220 6,450 29,237 8,891 3,224 13,485
Appeals 1,150 241 1,825 1,411 335 3,699 1,549 269 3,225 1,825 324 3,977 943 134 2,000
Other 6,747 3,048 2,959 7,163 3,578 4,088 8,007 3,881 4,543 8,667 3,525 4,545 3,932 1,592 2,395
Death NA NA 9 NA NA 121 NA NA 156 NA NA 246 NA NA 171
penalty
====================================================================================================================================================
Total 23,223 11,706 28,575 25,642 11,505 36,027 27,305 11,035 36,479 29,712 10,299 38,005 13,766 4,950 18,051
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend: FPDs = Federal Public Defenders
CDOs = Community Defender Organizations
PAs = Panel Attorneys
NA = not applicable
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.3
Comparison of Average In-Court Hours by
Type of Representation Closed for
Federal Public Defender Organizations,
Community Defender Organizations, and
Panel Attorneys, Fiscal Years 1990
Through First 6 Months of 1994
1st
Type of half 1st half 1st half
representation 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994
------------------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------ ------------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -----------
Criminal 3.0 3.4 3.9 3.8 3.6 2.1 2.6 3.1 3.4 3.0 8.1 9.2 9.2 8.9 8.4
Appeals 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.8 0.7 0.8 0.7 0.7 0.7 0.6 0.9 0.7 0.8 0.7 0.7
Other 1.0 1.0 1.3 1.2 1.4 0.9 0.8 0.9 0.9 0.9 1.7 1.6 1.5 1.5 1.6
Overall average 2.3 2.6 2.9 2.8 2.8 1.7 2.0 2.3 2.4 2.3 7.0 7.5 7.6 7.2 6.8
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.4
Criminal Representations Closed by
Federal Defender Organizations and Panel
Attorneys, Fiscal Years 1990 Through
First 6 Months of 1994
Ty
pe
of
of
fe
ns
e FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs FDOs PAs
-- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- ---- -------- ---- -------- ----
We 982 887 1,32 1,36 1,51 1,63 1,57 1,70 801 741 61% 92%
a 1 5 7 1 7 2
p
o
n
s
Im 4,34 1,76 3,88 2,11 3,01 1,71 3,32 1,83 1,748 905 -23 4
m 2 5 9 0 9 0 9 4
i
g
r
a
t
i
o
n
Dr 5,82 9,44 6,30 11,8 7,22 12,5 7,61 13,6 3,296 6,20 31 45
u 8 3 1 83 4 89 1 59 1
g
s
Fr 2,85 1,78 2,94 2,35 2,87 2,56 3,07 2,81 1,590 1,45 8 57
a 5 9 0 4 9 3 9 4 9
u
d
Ot 9,73 9,89 10,2 10,4 9,99 10,0 10,0 9,22 4,680 4,17 3 -7
h 6 8 09 07 5 62 74 8 9
e
r
==================================================================================
To 23,7 23,7 24,6 28,1 24,6 28,5 25,6 29,2 12,115 13,4 8% 23%
t 43 82 60 19 34 55 70 37 85
a
l
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend: FDOs = Federal Defender Organizations
PAs = Panel Attorneys
\a Percent change based upon fiscal year 1990-1993 data only.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.5
Comparison of Average In-Court Hours for
Federal Public Defender Organizations,
Community Defender Organizations, and
Panel Attorneys by Major Offense
Category in Criminal Representations
Closed, Fiscal Years 1990 Through First
6 Months of 1994
Type of
criminal
representatio 1st half 1st half 1st half
n 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994
------------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ----------- ------ ------ ------ ------ ------------ ------ ------ ------ ------ -----------
Weapons 3.8 4.8 6.0 4.9 4.7 4.0 4.3 5.2 5.2 4.6 4.9 6.1 5.4 5.9 6.5
Immigration 1.7 2.0 2.5 2.5 2.5 0.5 0.7 0.9 0.9 0.9 3.1 2.8 3.4 3.2 2.6
Drugs 4.2 4.8 5.1 4.9 5.1 3.7 4.7 4.4 4.7 4.4 12.2 12.7 11.6 11.0 10.6
Fraud 3.2 3.6 4.6 4.6 4.2 2.6 3.3 3.1 2.7 2.7 7.0 9.8 11.7 11.0 10.4
Other\a 2.5 2.7 2.9 2.9 2.7 2.1 2.6 3.4 4.3 3.8 5.7 6.7 7.2 6.9 5.9
Average, all 3.0 3.4 3.9 3.8 3.6 2.1 2.6 3.1 3.4 3.0 8.1 9.2 9.2 8.9 8.4
offenses
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Panel attorney data excludes hours for death penalty
representations.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.6
Average Cost per Representation Closed
by Federal Public Defender
Organizations, Community Defender
Organizations, and Panel Attorneys,
Fiscal Years 1990 Through First 6 Months
of 1994
Average
Number Average Number Average Number cost Number Average Number Average Number Average
Type of attorney closed cost each closed cost each closed each closed cost each closed cost each closed cost each
------------------ ------ ---------- ------ ---------- -------- ------------ -------- ---------- -------- ---------- -------- -----------
FPDs 23,223 $1,647 25,642 $1,869 27,305 $2,380 29,712 $2,652 13,766 NA 27.9% 61.0%
CDOs 11,706 $907 11,505 $1,107 11,035 $1,618 10,299 $2,123 4,950 NA -12.0 \134.1
Panel attorneys
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Including death 28,575 $1,946 36,027 $2,383 36,479 $2,595 38,005 $2,746 18,051 $2,790 33.0% 41.1%
penalty
representations
Excluding death 28,566 $1,936 35,906 $2,323 36,323 $2,458 37,759 $2,523 17,880 $2,638 32.2% 30.3%
penalty
representations
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Legend: FDOs=Federal Defender Organizations
CDOs=Community Defender Organizations
NA=not available
\a Percent change based upon fiscal year 1990-1993 data only.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.7
Number of Panel Attorney Representations
Closed and Average Cost per
Representation Closed by Type of
Representation, Fiscal Years 1990
Through First 6 Months of 1994
Type of Number Average Number Average Number Average Number Average Number Average Number Average
representation closed cost each closed cost each closed cost each closed cost each closed cost each closed cost each
------------------ ------- --------- ------- --------- --------- ---------- --------- ---------- --------- ---------- -------- ----------
Criminal 23,782 $1,985 28,119 $2,385 28,555 $2,584 29,237 $2,641 13,485 $2,647 22.9% 33.0%
Appeals 1,825 2,567 3,699 3,049 3,225 3,221 3,977 3,187 2,000 2,986 117.9 24.2
Other 2,959 1,148 4,088 1,245 4,543 1,125 4,545 1,183 2,395 1,334 53.6 3.0
Death penalty 9 33,254 121 20,206 156 34,607 246 36,878 171 32,222 2,633.3 10.9
=====================================================================================================================================================
Total 28,575 $1,946 36,027 $2,383 36,479 $2,595 38,005 $2,746 18,051 $2,790 33.0 41.1
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Percentages calculated using 1993 data because 1994 data include
only the first 6 months of the fiscal year.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.8
Number of Panel Attorney Criminal
Representations Closed, Total Costs, and
Average Cost per Representation Closed
by Major Offense Category, Fiscal Years
1990 Through 1993
Total Average Total Averag Total Averag Total Average
Major offense category number Total cost cost number Total cost e cost number Total cost e cost number Total cost cost
----------------------- -------- ------------- -------- ------ ------------ ------ ------ ------------ ------ ------ ------------ -------
Weapons 887 $1,339,719 $1,510 1,365 $2,726,530 $1,997 1,631 $3,138,966 $1,925 1,702 $3,507,405 $2,061
Immigration 1,765 1,435,092 813 2,110 1,736,657 823 1,710 1,774,858 1,038 1,834 1,862,166 1,015
Drugs 9,443 25,306,561 2,680 11,883 37,111,706 3,123 12,589 $40,763,518 3,238 13,659 43,052,951 3,152
Fraud 1,789 3,826,579 2,139 2,354 6,113,566 2,597 2,563 8,365,042 3,264 2,814 9,551,100 3,394
Other criminal 9,898 15,304,845 1,546 10,407 19,371,328 1,861 10,062 19,732,877 1,961 9,228 19,248,396 2,086
=====================================================================================================================================================
Total 23,782 $47,212,796 $1,985 28,119 $67,059,787 $2,385 28,555 $73,775,261 $2,584 29,237 $77,222,018 $2,641
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.9
Districts in Which Higher Standard Panel
Attorney Rates Have Been Implemented as
of January 1, 1990
Circuit/district $60 $70 $75
------------------------------ -------- -------- --------
District of Columbia x
Second Circuit
New York, Southern x
New York, Eastern x
Third Circuit
New Jersey x
Sixth Circuit
Michigan, Eastern (Detroit) x
Ninth Circuit
Alaska x
Arizona (Phoenix and Tucson) x
California, Northern x
California, Central x
California, Eastern x
(Sacramento and Fresno)
California, Southern x
Hawaii x
Nevada (Las Vegas and Reno) x
Oregon\ x
Washington, Western (Seattle) x
Tenth Circuit
New Mexico (Las Cruces) x
------------------------------------------------------------
\a The Judicial Conference has authorized all locations in these
districts to pay the $75 per hour rate subject to the availability of
funds.
Source: AOUSC.
Table II.10
Estimated Additional Cost of Paying
Panel Attorneys Higher Standard Rates in
Sixteen Districts (Based on Amounts
Approved for Payment)\a
Fiscal year Fiscal year Fiscal year First half
Compensation rate 1991 1992 1993 1994
----------------- -------------- -------------- -------------- -------------
In-court compensation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Higher rate\b $5,268,998 $6,327,422 $5,834,069 $2,611,307
Lower rate 4,457,413 5,334,113 5,046,650 2,249,896
($60/hour)\c
Difference 811,585 993,309 787,419 361,411
Out-of-court compensation
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Higher rate\b 21,429,473 26,494,753 27,272,108 13,520,886
Lower rate 12,420,513 15,566,189 16,266,000 8,060,878
($40/hour)\c
Difference 9,008,960 10,928,564 11,006,108 5,460,008
================================================================================
Total $9,820,545 $11,921,873 $11,793,527 $5,821,419
difference
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Amounts in this table exclude most appeals representations. For
about 98 percent of all appeals representations in fiscal years 1990
through 1993 and 85 percent in the first half of fiscal year 1994,
the database does not contain an identifier for the district from
which the case was appealed.
\b Totals reflect any court reductions in the amount of compensation
requested.
\c Totals at lower rate assume compensation for total number of hours
requested. Because the database did not reflect the number of hours
by which requests were reduced, only dollar amounts of the
reductions, we could not correspondingly reduce the amount that would
have been approved at the lower rates.
Source: GAO analysis of AOUSC data.
Table II.11
Death Penalty Resource Centers, End of
Fiscal Year 1993
Federal judicial
Resource center Location districts served
------------------------------------------- ------------ ---------------------
Alabama Capital Representation Resource Montgomery AL (N, M, S)\a
Center
Arizona Capital Representation Project Tempe AZ
Arkansas Death Penalty Resource Center Little Rock AR (E, W)
California Appellate Project San CA (N, E, C, S)
Francisco
Volunteer Lawyers' Resource Center, Inc. Tallahassee FL (N, M, S)
Georgia Appellate Practice and Educational Atlanta GA (N, M, S)
Resource Center, Inc.
Capital Resource Center Evanston IL ( N, C, S)
Kentucky Capital Litigation Resource Center Frankfort KY (E, W)
Loyola Death Penalty Resource Center New Orleans LA (E, M, W)
Mississippi Capital Defense Resource Center Jackson MS (N, S)
Missouri Capital Punishment Resource Center Kansas City MO (E, W)
Nevada Appellate and Post-Conviction Las Vegas NV
Project, Inc.
North Carolina Death Penalty Resource Raleigh NC (E, M, W)
Center
Ohio Death Penalty Resource Center Columbus OH (N, S)
Capital Post-Conviction Project of the Norman OK (E, N, W)
Oklahoma Appellate Public Defender System
South Carolina Death Penalty Resource Columbia SC
Center
Capital Case Representation Resource Center Nashville TN (E, M, W)
of Tennessee, Inc.
Texas Appellate Practice and Educational Austin TX (N, E, W, S)
Resource Center
Virginia Post-Conviction Assistance Project Richmond VA (E, W)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
\a Letters indicate districts as follows: E = eastern; W = western;
S = southern; N = northern; M = middle; C = central.
Source: AOUSC.
(See figure in printed edition.)Appendix III
COMMENTS FROM THE ADMINISTRATIVE
OFFICE OF THE U.S. COURTS
========================================================== Appendix II
(See figure in printed edition.)
(See figure in printed edition.)
MAJOR CONTRIBUTORS TO THIS REPORT
========================================================== Appendix IV
GENERAL GOVERNMENT DIVISION,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
William O. Jenkins, Jr., Assistant Director, Administration of
Justice Issues
Doris Page, Senior Evaluator
M. Grace Haskins, Senior Evaluator
David Alexander, Senior Social Science Analyst
BOSTON/NEW YORK FIELD OFFICE
Rudy Plessing, Core Group Manager
Amy Hutner, Senior Evaluator
Lucine Moore-Willis, Evaluator
DETROIT FIELD OFFICE
Kelly Haggard, Senior Evaluator
Keith Landrum, Evaluator
William G. Sievert, Technical Assistance Group Manager
OFFICE OF THE GENERAL COUNSEL
Jan Montgomery, Assistant General Counsel
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