Criminal Justice Act — Judicial Business 2019

The Criminal Justice Act (CJA) provides funding for the representation of individuals with limited financial resources in federal criminal proceedings. In each district, a plan exists for providing representation through private panel attorneys and, where established, federal public or community defender organizations. This year, 81 federal defender organizations (64 federal public defender organizations and 17 community defender organizations) served 91 of the 94 federal judicial districts.

A total of 253,401 representations by counsel under the CJA were opened, an increase of 9 percent. Eighty-one percent of all federal judicial districts had higher caseloads than in the prior year. The largest percentage growth occurred in the Western District of Louisiana (up 78 percent), the Middle District of North Carolina (up 46 percent), the Central District of Illinois (up 44 percent), the Western District of Wisconsin (up 41 percent), and the Middle District of Louisiana (up 38 percent). The largest percentage decrease was in the Eastern District of Wisconsin (down 14 percent), which had reported a 20 percent rise in representations the previous year; this year, that district had a 43 percent reduction in supervised release hearing representations by counsel.

Representations closed by the 81 federal public and community defender organizations (including representations in criminal matters, appeals, and habeas corpus proceedings) dropped 2 percent from the previous year to 152,545. Representations closed by appointed panel attorneys rose 8 percent to 91,039. The number of private attorneys paid through the CJA panel attorney payment system was 8,082.

For a summary of federal defender appointments under the CJA for the past five years, see Table S-21. For information on representations for each federal public and community defender organization, see Table K-1.