Christopher Gregory/The New York Times

Deep cuts forced by budget sequestration are decimating America’s court system, a situation that should be provoking deep concern on Capitol Hill.

Yet only three Democrats and one Republican bothered to show up on Tuesday to a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing convened by Senator Christopher Coons, a Delaware Democrat, to examine the wreckage — especially the damage to the offices that represent indigent defenders in federal criminal cases.

The absent subcommittee members missed an important session that provided a stark and cogent overview of the federal court system’s current struggle.



The situation is so bad in Delaware, Mr. Coons noted in opening remarks, that the courts have had to cancel criminal proceedings every Friday for the remainder of the year — a situation duplicated in jurisdictions all across the country owing largely to unpaid furloughs of federal defenders forced by the sequester.

“Every day the public defenders are furloughed is another day that criminal defendants spend in pre-trial incarceration, at a cost to the taxpayer of more than $100 per day,” he noted.

Michael Nachmanoff, who heads the federal defender office for the Eastern District of Virginia, warned that absent relief from Congress, even more severe budget cuts forecast for the next fiscal year will force federal defender offices to terminate “as many as one-third to one-half of their employees” in addition to closing branches. Ironically, that would drive up the costs to taxpayers since courts will need to appoint private counselors, who charge more money to do the same work.

Judge Julia Gibbons, who chairs the federal judiciary’s budget committee, also attested to sequestration’s dire impact.

“The Judiciary cannot continue to operate at such drastically reduced funding levels without seriously compromising the Constitutional mission of the federal courts,” Judge Gibbon said. She also told of dangerous cuts to courthouse security, warning that additional cuts contemplated under sequestration “have the potential to put judges, court personnel, and the public who enter courthouses at serious risk.”

What it will take to get lawmakers to stop treating the courts — an independent branch of government created by the Constitution — as an un-affordable frill?