U.S. to Resume Paying Defense Teams of Poor

The U.S. court system will resume payments to defense lawyers, investigators and others appointed to aid defendants who cannot afford their own representation, court officials said Wednesday.

The court administrative office will begin mailing checks in anticipation that Congress will give final approval to a $31.5-million emergency appropriation passed by a House committee Tuesday. The measure is expected to provide enough money to pay attorneys and other members of defense teams for the remainder of the fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The administrative office announced June 23 that it had run out of money to pay for the defense of indigent clients. Thousands of lawyers and investigators who had worked months on pending cases were informed that they could not be paid until the new fiscal year.

As many as 40,000 lawyers and experts were believed to be affected by the funding shortfall and defense lawyers in several states had threatened to walk away from long-running trials unless they were paid. In some instances, lawyers were told that they could not be paid for weeks of work during the winter and spring.

But House and Senate leaders recently agreed to rush through an emergency appropriation and also gave agency officials permission this week to transfer funds from other programs to pay the lawyers’ bills now.

By using those transferred funds, “payment can be resumed immediately for court-appointed attorneys and others providing service in the federal courts,” L. Ralph Mecham, director of the office, said Wednesday.

Court officials said that they expect the appropriation will be approved by Congress before its August recess.

“If that money comes through as we expect, we should be able to pay all of these people,” added David Sellers, a spokesman for the administrative office.

Under the Criminal Justice Act, the courts can pay private attorneys up to $75 an hour to represent indigent defendants in federal cases.