FEDERAL DEFENDERS OFFICE APPROVED TO AID GROWING INDIGENT CASELOAD
Office, To Be Set Up Here Next Year, Will Help Ensure Adequate
Representation

A federal defenders office will be established in Milwaukee next year
to help ensure that the growing numbers of indigent criminal
defendants get adequate representation in the face of tough federal
sentencing guidelines and increasingly complex legal rules.

Establishing the office in the Eastern District of Wisconsin is
"without question the single most effective step our court could take
in the improvement of the administration of justice," Chief U.S.
District Judge J.P. Stadtmueller said. Planning the office and getting
the needed approvals from Washington, D.C., took months, he said.

Indigent defendants now are represented by "panel attorneys," or local
lawyers who agree to be called by the clerk of courts office when an
attorney is needed.

"I think the quality of the lawyering is going to improve" with the
new system, said Michael Fitzgerald, a local defense lawyer and
longtime advocate of establishing a defenders office.

The staffing level of the office, to be located in the federal
courthouse, is yet to be determined, but it likely will include an
executive director, three or four staff attorneys and support staff,
Stadtmueller said.

The budget for the new office and its precise start date have not been
established, but Stadtmueller said he hoped it could be up and running
by spring.

Developing a full-time defenders program has been discussed off and on
for years, Fitzgerald and Stadtmueller said. A number of factors
played roles in convincing the district's judges that the time had
come to make the change.

For example, Stadtmueller said, the number of panel attorney
appointments at the district court level rose from 339 in 1994 to 456
in 1998, while the number of appeals appointments rose from 49 in 1994
to 74 in 1998, he said.

The increase "has contributed to our court's inability to recruit and
retain a corps of competent, well-trained panel attorneys," he said in
a letter to Theodore J. Lidz, chief of the Defender Services Division
of the federal courts' administrative offices in Washington, D.C.

"This phenomenon is exacerbated with the scandalously low rates of
reimbursement for . . . panel attorneys, often resulting in court
staff having to contact four to five attorneys on every case in order
to obtain representation for an indigent defendant," he wrote.

Panel attorneys are paid $45 an hour for out-of-court work and $65 for
in-court services. That amount also must cover much of their overhead
costs, he said.

The defenders office executive director will be paid no more than a
U.S. attorney, which is $118,400 annually. Staff attorneys in the
office will be paid in the same range as assistant U.S. attorneys. In
the Eastern District of Wisconsin, that amount ranges from about
$40,500 to about $105,400 for a non-supervisory assistant.

Establishing the federal defenders office will not eliminate the need
for panel attorneys, but the number of panel attorneys likely will
drop from more than 300 to 50 or 60, Stadtmueller said.

U.S. Magistrate Judge William E. Callahan Jr. said the changes would
ensure a well-trained core of attorneys to represent indigent defendants.

He emphasized that he was not trying to find fault with panel
attorneys.

"The federal practice has become much more complex," he
said.

U.S. sentencing guidelines, which dictate the sentences judges can
impose on convicted defendants, are "extremely stringent, some would
say Draconian," Callahan said. The federal defenders office will
provide well-trained lawyers to "enhance his or her client's position
when it comes down the road to sentencing."

Said Fitzgerald: "The penalties in federal court have increased
tremendously. The consequences for people who appear in federal court have
increased tremendously. The complexity of practice in federal court has
increased tremendously."

A federal defenders office will help ensure that the policies of the
U.S. attorney's office are consistently applied to all defendants and
all defendants' lawyers, Stadtmueller said.

The work of the prosecutor's office "regrettably has all too often
faltered in the last couple years due to inconsistent approaches taken
on specific multi-defendant cases and other matters," Stadtmueller
wrote in his letter to Lidz.

First Assistant U.S. Attorney Barbara Berman declined to respond
directly to Stadtmueller's comment but said she is "proud of the work
our office has done for the community."

"The U.S. attorney's office has supported the establishment of a
public defender," she said. "Justice is served when there are good
attorneys on both sides of litigation."