A California federal court dismissed a criminal case without prejudice after finding that the defendant's constitutional right to counsel was violated by a funding shortfall that left private attorneys who serve as court-appointed defense lawyers unpaid since July.
The court noted that since July, the federal government had stopped paying the roughly 12,000 private lawyers nationally who serve on court-managed panels that provide counsel to defendants who cannot afford to hire attorneys when federal public defenders are unavailable to represent them.
The court said the government's failure to pay the lawyers had put defense counsel in the "indefensible situation" of having to “competently represent and defend their clients despite a complete lack of resources to do so.”
“To expect defense counsel to properly prepare for trial, while consistently denying her the tools to do so is, in this Court’s view, not only unconscionable but also unconstitutional,” the court wrote.
This appears to be the first time a court had dismissed an indictment as a result of a funding crisis that was exacerbated by the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.
The case is U.S. v. Ortiz, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, No. 2:24-cr-00302.
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