Judges and lawyers went to Capitol Hill on Tuesday to once again warn of the dangers of inadequate federal court funding, even as lawmakers moved forward with bills that would restore budget cuts that are crippling the nation’s public defender and clerk offices.
Judge Julia Gibbons of the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit and chairwoman of the U.S. Judicial Conference’s budget committee, told a Senate subcommittee that the nearly $350 million in cuts to the courts this year under the across-the-board government spending reductions called sequestration, have been “devastating” and “painful.”
