Testimony of Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., Esq. Director Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia before the United States Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia for the Fiscal Year 2005 Budget Request Hearing
March 3, 2004 Statement by Ronald S. Sullivan Jr. Director Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia Before the Senate Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on the District of Columbia March 3, 2004
Good afternoon, Mister Chairman and members of the Subcommittee. My name is Ronald S. Sullivan Jr., and I am the Director of the Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia (PDS). I come before you today to provide testimony in support of PDS’s Fiscal Year 2005 budget request. We thank you for your support of our programs in previous years.
The Public Defender Service, unique among local public defender offices in that it is federally funded, has continued to maintain its strong reputation in the area of providing quality criminal defense representation in the District of Columbia. Just last week, the United States Supreme Court, in a 9-0 opinion, ruled for a PDS client in a case briefed and argued by a PDS attorney at the request of the Court.
This case is just the latest successful example of PDS’s long history of providing quality defense representation. PDS has always been committed to its mission of providing and promoting constitutionally-mandated legal representation to adults and children facing a loss of liberty in the District of Columbia who cannot afford a lawyer, and we have had numerous significant accomplishments in pursuit of that mission. However, before PDS became a federally funded entity, we did not always have sufficient funding to allow us to achieve as high a level of proficiency in our administrative functioning as we are known for in our legal representation. PDS’s relatively new status as a federally funded entity has created the opportunity for us to focus more on enhancing our administrative functions: in the past seven years, PDS has established a human resources department, an information technology department, and a budget and finance department where none previously existed. To continue this “administrative maturation,” PDS has a need for a more sophisticated structure that will permit not only the integration of these functions with each other and with PDS’s program functions, but will permit the organization to better monitor performance and achieve even greater results. In furtherance of these goals, PDS has already adopted federal best practices in a number of support areas, and we are preparing to adopt additional federal best practices in even more areas.
It is for these reasons that PDS seeks funding for our sole Fiscal Year 2005 requested initiative, the Program Management and Performance Integration Initiative. For Fiscal Year 2005, PDS requests $29,833,000 and 227.5 FTE in direct budget authority, which includes a request for 8.5 new FTE and $3,714,000 to support this new initiative. This proposed increase in personnel resources and funding – PDS’s first ever federal capital funding request – is consistent with the President’s emphasis on achieving measurable results and improving operational efficiency.
Background Since undertaking in 1970 its intended role as a model public defender, PDS has developed and maintained a reputation as the best public defender office in the country – local or federal. It has become the national standard bearer and the benchmark by which other public defense organizations often measure themselves. In a first ever employee survey conducted just six weeks ago, 99% of responding staff reported being proud of working at PDS. The independent firm that conducted the survey informed us that PDS received one of the highest overall scores the firm had ever observed in assessing staff commitment to an organization’s mission. Congress and the District of Columbia can also be proud of this local defender office for our nation’s capital. In the District of Columbia, PDS and the District of Columbia Courts share the responsibility for providing constitutionally-mandated legal representation to people who cannot pay for their own attorney. Under the District of Columbia’s Criminal Justice Act (CJA), the District of Columbia Courts appoint PDS generally to the more serious, more complex, resource-intensive, and time-consuming criminal cases. The Courts assign the remaining, less serious cases and the majority of the misdemeanor and traffic cases to a panel of approximately 350 pre-selected private attorneys (“CJA attorneys”). Approximately 100 lawyers on staff at PDS are appointed to represent:
• a significant percentage of people facing the most serious felony charges;
• a substantial number of individuals litigating criminal appeals
• the majority of the juveniles facing serious delinquency charges;
• nearly 100% of all people facing parole revocation; and
• the majority of people in the mental health system who are facing involuntary civil commitment.
While much of our work is devoted to ensuring that no innocent person is ever wrongfully convicted of a crime, we also provide legal representation to people with mental illness who are facing involuntary civil commitment, recovering substance abusers participating in the highly successful Drug Court treatment program, and children in the delinquency system who have learning disabilities and require special educational accommodations under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act.
PDS has also provided training for other District of Columbia defense attorneys and investigators who represent those who cannot afford an attorney and provided support to the District of Columbia Courts. In addition, PDS has developed innovative approaches to representation, from instituting measures to address the problems of clients returning to the community who have been incarcerated to creating a one-of-a-kind electronic case tracking system. Other public defender offices across the country have sought counsel from PDS as they have patterned their approach to their work after ours. As federal best practices continue to spread to the state and local level, PDS is ideally situated to serve as a model for how a public defender office can be operated most effectively in the 21st century.
Fiscal Year 2005 Request
Program Management and Performance Integration Initiative
For Fiscal Year 2005, PDS requests $29.8 million and 227.5 FTE in total direct budget authority. This request includes $2.3 million as our first capital investment in information technology. The investment will provide for the expansion of our case and data management systems to provide more efficient attorney services. Software development and deployment, and associated hardware and licensing will enhance security of privileged attorney-client information and reduce our risk of loss of client information in the event of a local disaster. Recent experience in Chicago drives home the importance to the smooth operation of the criminal justice system of ensuring that the defender organization can continue to operate even if its offices are damaged or its computer systems are destroyed. Last fall, the building housing the Cook County defender’s main offices was virtually destroyed in a fire. Had the Cook County defender lacked the capacity to retrieve data from backup sources and create sufficient off site work terminals, the criminal justice system would have stalled, and representation would have been rendered ineffective.
PDS is also working to improve its operational efficiencies. PDS seeks $1.4 million as the resources needed to reach a level of sophistication in the administration and execution over program planning and evaluation, administration, human resources, and financial management that correspond to PDS’s reputation for quality defense representation. As explained in detail in our FY 2005 Congressional Budget Justification, the $1.4 million in requested support would be used for:
• program data collection and analysis
• data system integration
• performance planning
• performance measurement
• compliance with federal standards for systems, accounting, and reporting
• coordination of electronic financial, personnel, and performance records
Historically, PDS has maintained skeletal support in those critical administrative areas; however, the increased accountability demands PDS faces require that we improve our capacity in those areas. This need was also reflected in the results of the PDS employee survey; our scores were slightly lower on questions related to our administrative operations. Additional support for PDS programs and PDS attorneys will increase the potential for greater efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out PDS’s mission. One of PDS’s goals is to maximize the time that attorneys, investigators, and social workers spend doing that for which they are best suited – developing creative and effective ways to pursue justice in the District of Columbia.
Fiscal Year 2004 Accomplishments
In Fiscal Year 2004, in addition to handling a variety of criminal, juvenile, parole, mental health, and other legal matters, PDS was very successful in instituting changes to improve the overall quality of the District of Columbia justice system through new approaches to client service, through litigation, and through very successful collaborations with other criminal justice and social service organizations.
FY 2004 Initiative: Appellate Response Initiative
In Fiscal Year 2004, Congress and the President provided a program increase for PDS totaling .5 FTE, and $100,000 in support of one new initiative – PDS's Appellate Response Initiative. PDS used the funding to hire a new attorney in the Appellate Division, whose workload has increased by approximately 50% since the passage of the 1997 Revitalization Act without any increase in staff levels. The newest Appellate Division attorney began working just over two weeks ago; her work will contribute toward reducing the backlog of unfiled appellate briefs. This backlog is due to the staffing shortage and to substantially shorter briefing schedules now being imposed in appellate cases generally by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
This additional resource will enhance the ability of attorneys in the Appellate Division to meet their obligations, which include providing constitutionally-mandated appellate legal representation to individuals who cannot afford an attorney, responding to requests from the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and the Superior Court for amicus curiae (“friend of the court”) briefs on complex or unusual issues in criminal cases, and devoting a significant amount of time to training both PDS and non-PDS lawyers.
General Program Accomplishments
Criminal Justice System Reforms
PDS has remained vigilant in protecting the rights of the indigent in the District of Columbia criminal justice system in old cases and new.
Well Being of Children
Throughout Fiscal Year 2003 and continuing in Fiscal Year 2004, PDS has drawn renewed attention to the conditions under which children live who have been committed to the care of the District of Columbia through its juvenile justice system. All experts agree that proper intervention in the lives these children at this juncture is key to breaking the cycle of involvement in the juvenile system. Current conditions for committed children not only fail to advance the cause of reducing recidivism; current conditions actually promote recidivism among these children.
As a result of PDS’s tireless 18-year effort in a case known as Jerry M., the plight of committed children has been the object of intense examination in the media, in the political arena, and just last week in hearings before Superior Court Judge Dixon. In these hearings, PDS and co-counsel are seeking to have the District’s Youth Services Administration put into receivership to finally produce the concrete changes necessary to save these children and protect the community. Whatever the outcome of this litigation, the plight of these most vulnerable children will improve because this case has put YSA on notice that the city and the public are watching. Through this lawsuit juvenile justice experts have had an opportunity to examine the children’s living conditions and recommend concrete actions that YSA or a receiver will be able to take to immediately to improve the well being of committed children.
PDS has used its expertise and experience to leverage private resources in the city to assist in this effort. After years of acting as lead counsel in Jerry M., PDS recently reached out and secured the assistance of some of the city’s finest private attorneys to provide pro bono assistance for this critical stage of litigation. This partnership is one of many examples of how PDS ensures that every dollar we receive is leveraged to its fullest potential.
PDS has carried out this class litigation while simultaneously providing services that address every aspect of a child’s involvement with the court system innumerable individual cases and in innumerable ways. Among the most important have been 1) developing qualified attorneys to represent children by generating hours of training for court appointed counsel who practice in the new Family Court; 2) increasing the services to children with educational disabilities through litigation handled by PDS lawyers with expertise in special education advocacy; and 3) working collaboratively with a wide variety of organizations to help children transition back to the community. This last effort is a direct result of a Fiscal Year 2002 initiative establishing our Community Re-entry Project that carries on to this day.
In Fiscal Years 2003 and 2004, PDS approached Catholic University about providing services to girls committed to the care of the District of Columbia. With PDS’s experience and expertise, a proposal has been developed for creating a group home for girls on the university’s campus, serviced by the university’s graduate programs. The proposal includes long-term involvement by the university in the lives of these girls or what experts refer to as “after-care.” The proposal calls for providing school services, health care, mental health services, family services, and mentorship not only while the girls reside on campus but also after the girls leave the group home and transition back into our community. Such a wrap around approach to caring for committed children could be developed at every university in this city. The potential of such programs for saving the lives of District of Columbia is enormous.
PDS is committed to staying on the forefront of looking for ways to improve the treatment of children involved in our court system.
Fairness in the Criminal Justice System
PDS’s mission also results in ensuring fairness in the criminal justice system, and PDS promotes this goal in every single case it handles. Because these are too numerous to describe, we focus on three cases and one project that are illustrative.
Recently in the Superior Court for the District of Columbia, our client, a 70-year-old former sergeant in the Marine Corps, was charged with felony gun possession. Our client had never been in trouble before. He operated his own security business and worked as a part time special police officer. He was licensed to carry a handgun while on duty and while traveling between his home and his work. One day on his way to work, he stopped at a District government office to drop off a form to renew his business license, forgetting that he was wearing his gun in its holster. As a result of this mistake, he was arrested and charged. He faced the possibility of a felony conviction and five-year prison sentence. The conviction would have cost him his business – his means to supplement his retirement income. Fortunately, he was represented by a well-trained and dedicated public defender. The result – it only took his jury ten minutes to elect a foreperson and render a verdict – not guilty.
Another example involved appellate and trial representation. Recently, PDS represented a young man charged with murder in an appeal from the trial court’s decision to hold him in jail until his trial could take place. The Court of Appeals upheld the trial judge’s ruling that there was sufficient reliable evidence to justify holding our client in jail until his trial. What the trial court, the Court of Appeals, and PDS did not know at the time this appeal was argued was that the prosecutor had failed to reveal all the relevant facts during the hearing before the trial judge. Through tenacious litigation and a persistent search for the truth, PDS uncovered evidence making it clear that the government’s eyewitness was very suspect: the government’s eyewitness was not simply a bystander as the trial court had been led to believe, but, rather, the witness had participated in shooting the victim and had only implicated PDS’s client as part of an effort to secure a deal with the government. Once PDS uncovered the truth, PDS undertook consultations at the highest levels with the United States Attorney’s Office, resulting in a very unusual joint motion to vacate the Court of Appeals opinion, an opinion that was rendered on a compromised set of facts. The result – the opinion was vacated, the integrity of the court was preserved, and truth – and thus justice – prevailed. Later, the USAO, after weighing the merits of the murder case itself, dismissed the charges against the PDS client altogether. Finally, PDS has been advancing the position for several years that eyewitness identifications can be inaccurate. Recent studies of cases where DNA has exonerated individuals have demonstrated that in the vast majority eyewitnesses were mistaken in their identifications. Indeed, we know that defendants in the District of Columbia have been wrongfully convicted as the result of erroneous eyewitness identifications: more than a decade ago, a Superior Court jury convicted a former PDS client of multiple felonies in large part because of mistaken eyewitness testimony. After spending a year in prison, our client was exonerated by DNA evidence. Cases like these undermine public confidence in our criminal justice system. And yet, every single day, District of Columbia courts are allowing juries to evaluate eyewitness testimony without accurate information about its limitations.
Over the past thirty years, social scientists have identified many of the specific reasons that eyewitnesses make mistakes. For example, studies have shown that a witness’s subjective confidence in the strength of her identification has virtually no correlation with the accuracy of the identification. Unfortunately, the lay public, uninformed that social science and empirical evidence undermine reliance on such evidence, routinely misjudges what weight to give eyewitness testimony.
Introduction of accurate social science evidence into the courtroom, and the use of jury instructions that accurately reflect this science, would go a long way toward preventing these kinds of errors.
PDS has already begun to lay the groundwork to bring this sort of ungrounded legal thinking up to date so that criminal cases will be decided on the basis of reliable science. PDS has developed model instructions, identified experts and most recently conducted a jury survey to demonstrate conclusively to jurists in the District of Columbia that the average juror is not familiar with current scientific research regarding eyewitness identification and that jurors can benefit from the testimony of experts when evaluating eyewitness evidence. Bringing the law in the District of Columbia in line with more than 16 states, including Alabama, Arizona, California, New Jersey, Oklahoma, Texas, and multiple federal circuits and the United States Army Court of Criminal Appeals is yet another example of PDS’s ongoing efforts to provide quality representation. These are but a small sample of how PDS positively affects people’s lives and the administration of justice here in the nation’s capital.
Other Program Accomplishments PDS engaged in a number of activities during Fiscal Year 2004 that improved the overall administration of justice or that had significant implications for individual clients.
APPELLATE DIVISION
The Appellate Division’s appellate litigation has impact throughout the District’s criminal justice system as decisions in their cases often establish or clarify the standards trial court judges and litigants must follow in criminal and juvenile cases. The complex and novel legal issues the Division is called upon to address therefore are best handled by experienced and talented attorneys – which the Division has no lack of. In Fiscal Year 2003, even the highest court in the land looked to the Appellate Division for assistance.
Supreme Court litigation: The Supreme Court of the United States appointed an attorney from the Division to represent an incarcerated man where the federal courts of appeals had issued conflicting opinions on the applicability of a rule to lawsuits challenging the conditions of confinement, but not implicating the fact or duration of confinement, i.e., matters lying at the core of habeas corpus jurisprudence. The Supreme Court recently ruled unanimously in favor of the arguments advanced by the PDS attorney. Failure to disclose bias: In a case in which for ten years the Appellate Division challenged the United States Attorney’s Office’s refusal to comply with its obligation to provide exculpatory information, the trial court issued an order granting a new trial for a client whose trial on a murder charge was marred by secret payments from the government to the sole eyewitness and by a prosecutor who incorrectly argued to the jury that the government had done nothing to benefit the witness. The Appellate Division obtained two reversals of trial court post-conviction rulings before the trial court ultimately decided that PDS’s post-conviction pleadings warranted a new trial.
Prosecutorial Misconduct: In another lengthy case involving exculpatory evidence, the Appellate Division advanced First Amendment claims to convince the United States District Court for the District of Columbia to unseal the post-conviction proceedings in a federal court conspiracy case, where the court documents included, among other things, a Department of Justice Office of Professional Responsibility report concluding that a prosecutor had committed misconduct by misusing government funds to pay government witnesses and their family and friends. Although the District Court ultimately ruled in PDS’s favor in November, Appellate Division lawyers had been litigating for almost two years to allow the light of public scrutiny to shine on court proceedings. The Appellate Division has been seeking a new trial on behalf of that same client as a result of gross misconduct by the same former Assistant United States Attorney whose malfeasance is detailed in the now-unsealed OPR report. Among other claims, our motion shows that the prosecutor misused a fund for the payment of court witnesses to provide secret payments to witnesses at the trial of our client. This misconduct parallels some of the misconduct that the Justice Department’s own internal investigation uncovered in the federal court case.
Government admissions: In still another case involving the government’s duty of fairness, the District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled that certain statements in a search warrant affidavit endorsed by an Assistant United States Attorney constituted government admissions and could be introduced by a PDS client at his trial. This ruling is important because it meant that the government would pay an evidentiary price for taking opposite positions on critical factual questions in two different proceedings. The case is also important because it is one of the most developed decisions on the question of when government submissions in court constitute admissions.
Attorney-client privilege: In In re PDS, the Court of Appeals wrote an opinion that may be one of the most extensive discussions of an issue of national importance – namely the scope of the crime fraud exception to the attorney-client privilege. In this case, a trial judge had held PDS in civil contempt (but stayed execution of any penalty upon PDS’s representation that it would comply with the court ruling if affirmed on appeal) for refusing to disclose information it believed to be protected by the attorney-client privilege. The Court of Appeals concluded that PDS was acting within the highest standards of the bar in investigating the case as it had, and that the information held by the PDS lawyer was protected by the attorney-client privilege because the elements of the crime fraud exception had not been shown.
Habeas corpus litigation: In a series of cases involving Appellate and Special Litigation Division attorneys, we have been litigating the question of whether District of Columbia judges have habeas corpus jurisdiction over cases involving clients with District of Columbia law issues, but who are incarcerated outside the District. We have litigated this question in both the District of Columbia Court of Appeals and in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The question is now pending before the United States Supreme Court in a separate case. The question is immensely important to our clients and to the citizens of the District of Columbia, because in the wake of the Revitalization Act, District of Columbia prisoners were moved from Lorton to non-District facilities. Because these prisoners were sentenced in the District of Columbia courts for violations of local District of Columbia laws, and because their parole is governed by laws unique to the District of Columbia and generally involve facts that occurred in the District of Columbia, the most logical forum for hearing D.C. prisoner claims is the District of Columbia courts where the bench and bar have substantial expertise in addressing D.C. law questions. In fact, the District of Columbia government has supported PDS’s position – not the federal government’s – in this litigation.
SPECIAL LITIGATION DIVISION
The Special Litigation Division’s focus on systemic issues in the District of Columbia justice system leads it to litigate those issues before every court in the District of Columbia – the Superior Court and Court of Appeals in the local system, and the District Court, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court in the federal system. These are some of the highlights of our litigation:
Conviction of the innocent: With the advent of DNA testing, we now have evidence that the American criminal justice system sometimes produces demonstrably wrong results – innocent people are convicted and the real culprit goes free. DNA testing is a powerful tool for catching these mistakes, but its scope is limited to the few cases in which biological evidence is available, can be tested, and is connected to the crime. Even in those cases, the biological evidence is often reported lost or destroyed, or is too degraded to get a conclusive result. For every DNA exoneration, there are countless cases where testing cannot help because no DNA was left at the scene, or the evidence that was once there has been lost or destroyed.
In order to effectively address the recurring, institutional problems that contribute to the conviction of the innocent, PDS's Special Litigation Division has focused on two major problems revealed by the DNA exonerations: common misperceptions about the reliability of eyewitness identification evidence, as described above, and juror misunderstanding of the demonstrated phenomenon of “false confessions” – situations in which someone who did not commit the crime admits to it anyway. Working with trial lawyers in individual cases, as well as through litigation of our own cases under the District's Innocence Protection Act, PDS's Special Litigation Division has marshaled a variety of resources on these subjects, including social science research, testifying experts, surveys of potential jurors to determine the reason for their failures to properly understand these subjects, and information about the causes of wrongful convictions around the country, in order to help courts begin to address these problems systematically. The focus of these projects is to allow the defense to point out potential flaws in the reliability of seeming solid evidence, so that the adversarial system will work more efficiently and not continue to produce wrongful convictions at such an alarming rate.
Unfair delay in release from jail: Another recurring problem in the District of Columbia’s criminal justice system is its failure to release people who have been found not guilty after trial or whose charges have been dismissed. While local corrections officials have asserted some need to “check” – often for several days – to ensure that the right person is being released and that the case really was dismissed, other systems around the country have managed to do this before the charges are dismissed so that people can be released directly from the courtroom. Los Angeles, for example, has developed a model procedure that ensures that people with no pending charges are not held in jail unnecessarily.
The Special Litigation Division has contacted local corrections officials and attempted to educate them on the extreme unfairness and likely illegality of the current system, and has prepared model pleadings for lawyers at PDS to use to attempt to secure speedy release for clients who are no longer facing criminal charges. Because local officials have proven unreceptive, however, PDS also has been cooperating with the lawyers litigating a class action lawsuit against the District to address this issue.
Special education services for youth at the D.C. Jail: The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act was enacted to ensure “that all children with disabilities have available a free appropriate public education that emphasizes special and related services designed to meet their unique needs.” The youth housed at the D.C. jail are clearly entitled to these services – and need them most desperately – but are not receiving anything close to what the law requires because the District’s public school system and the D.C. Department of Corrections do not have any comprehensive system in place for identifying those youth who are entitled to special education services at the jail, and for providing those services to them. PDS's Special Litigation Division is currently seeking to compel the District’s school system and Department of Corrections to provide these important services.
OFFENDER REHABILITATION DIVISION
Examples of clients benefiting from the resources made available to them through our Offender Rehabilitation Division.
Employment: Over many years a former star athlete on a professional team lost everything – his job, his family, his home, his friends and his pride – to cocaine. He began selling drugs, he was arrested, and he wouldn't accept anyone’s help before he was referred to ORD. At the time our staff became involved, he didn't even have enough money for a $10 ID card. Through ORD’s intervention, he gained the courage to interview for a job at a local trade association where he began an intensive job training and parenthood program. The result – he graduated from the program and has gone on to be a successful fundraiser for the association. He has not only gone from being involved in the criminal justice system to being a productive member of our community – he has gone even further and is giving back.
Education: A young woman who had been in the neglect system virtually all of her life later was charged with a juvenile offense and sent to the District’s juvenile detention facility in Laurel. The Division assisted her in moving into a therapeutic group home, and now she is enrolled as a freshman at a local university where scholarship programs are paying for her education.
Mental health: Some of our most challenging clients are severely mentally ill persons who are arrested on less serious charges, but incarcerated pending trial, and who are without support systems. Their incarceration results in the cancellation of all their benefits (SSI, SSDI, Medicaid). Without their benefits, our clients lose access to affordable housing and some essential services. Because of the relationships that the Offender Rehabilitation Division staff is developing with a number of agencies and with individual contract providers of mental health services, this situation is improving. More and more of our severely mentally ill clients are now able to obtain financial benefits, housing, intensive outpatient mental health services, and in the last year, we have had tremendous success helping these clients re-enter the community without re-offending. CIVIL LEGAL SERVICES UNIT
Special education services: PDS continues to meet the needs of children in the delinquency system for special education advocacy. The Unit’s attorneys specialize in advocacy under the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA), which mandates special accommodations in public schools for children who cannot be adequately educated in a traditional classroom setting due to a learning disability or other challenge. The Unit’s attorneys ensure that children receive an appropriate diagnostic assessment and work with the school system to secure alternative educational programs. TRAINING
Forensic Science Conference: In addition to PDS’s usual training efforts (e.g., annual Criminal Practice Institute and CPI Practice Manual, courses for court-appointed CJA attorneys and investigators), PDS coordinated and presented its first forensic science conference last summer using grant funds from the Department of Justice. This free training program for defense attorneys included as presenters a number of nationally known forensic science experts. The success of this conference led to the grantor to award funding to PDS for a similar conference to be held in May of this year.
Investigator certification: After adopting an investigator training proposal from PDS, the Superior Court implemented a requirement that all CJA criminal investigators receive training, be certified, and maintain their certification. After providing training to those investigators seeking certification, senior PDS investigators and PDS staff attorneys prepared the training materials and coordinated the training sessions on all aspects of criminal investigation to allow investigators to maintain their certification. As of the first five months of Fiscal Year 2004, over ___ investigators have been trained and certified, and PDS has already planned training for an additional 20 investigators in the coming month. This program is designed to ensure that now, and in the future, there are sufficient qualified investigators to assist CJA attorneys.
ADMINISTRATIVE ACCOMPLISHMENTS
PDS’s has been able to institute additional improvements in its operational functions. Particularly now that PDS is a federally-funded agency, it seeks to reach a corresponding level of sophistication in the administration and execution of its responsibilities. Recent improvements made by PDS provide the necessary infrastructure to support our programs and our program staff and increase the potential for greater efficiency and effectiveness in carrying out PDS’s mission.
Information Technology: PDS has expanded internal access to its self-designed case tracking software. The program, “Atticus,” provides comprehensive case management functionality for PDS attorneys, staff, and management. Atticus now links the Trial, Investigations, and the Offender Rehabilitation Divisions to streamline referrals and processing for criminal and juvenile cases. Attorneys, investigators, and program developers can now report and track case events in a central electronic location, reducing or eliminating staff’s reliance on less efficient means of communication, and ensuring that all staff who share responsibility for an individual case are kept fully informed on all case developments as needed.
Strategic Planning: PDS has developed an Office of Management and Budget-approved five-year strategic plan similar to the plans required of federal executive agencies under the Government Performance and Results Act. PDS has also prepared a draft annual performance plan that has received preliminary approval from the Office of Management and Budget. PDS has begun to establish the baseline measures described in its plans in anticipation of the implementation of the strategic plan in Fiscal Year 2005. PDS continues to make progress toward establishing the administrative infrastructure necessary to support the development of a performance-based budget request.
Appellate Brief Bank: PDS has completed the establishment of an appellate brief bank that consists of briefs filed in the Appellate Division’s cases over the past 25 years. This searchable, comprehensive brief bank now provides far easier, more effective access to previously completed research, enabling attorneys to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort.
Each of the above reforms, cases, or projects has contributed to a better, more efficient criminal justice system, or has improved the quality of services provided to people who cannot afford an attorney in the District of Columbia justice system. These activities are all consistent with PDS’s goal of efficiently providing representation by qualified attorneys to those it is dedicated to serve.
Conclusion
PDS’s current increased focus on building up its administrative functions represents a further step toward better serving clients and toward better serving as a model defender organization. The right to a qualified attorney for people who cannot afford one can be read to include an expectation that representation will be provided to clients not only effectively, but also efficiently. As PDS has been in the forefront in meeting and exceeding the standards defining what it means to satisfy the requirements of the right to counsel, it can also be on the forefront in modeling excellent financial and management practices in support of that right.
I respectfully request your support of this initiative, and I would like to thank the members of the Subcommittee for your time and attention to these matters and for your support of our work to date. I would be happy to answer any questions the Subcommittee members might have.
