Hundreds of employees within the federal public defender system could be laid off under funding levels proposed by the House and Senate, according to judiciary officials who say the system has imposed a hiring freeze as uncertainty looms over the appropriation figure.
Public defenders and their allies warn that the proposed allocations in the fiscal 2024 Financial Services and General Government spending bills would be devastating, causing delays in criminal cases and longer pretrial detention for their clients.
And with workload demands, some public defenders say the proposal would decrease the quality of legal representation their offices would provide to defendants too poor to hire an attorney.
