[Senate Hearing 111-632]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 111-632
HELPING FIND INNOVATIVE AND COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS TO OVERBURDENED
STATE CRIMINAL COURTS
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME AND DRUGS
of the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED ELEVENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
MAY 3, 2010
__________
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
__________
Serial No. J-111-87
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
61-572 WASHINGTON : 2010
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PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont, Chairman
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JON KYL, Arizona
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland JOHN CORNYN, Texas
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania
AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
Bruce A. Cohen, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Matt Miner, Republican Chief Counsel
------
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
HERB KOHL, Wisconsin LINDSEY GRAHAM, South Carolina
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah
RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama
RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
BENJAMIN L. CARDIN, Maryland
AMY KLOBUCHAR, Minnesota
EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, Delaware
Hannibal Kemerer, Democratic Chief Counsel
Walt Kuhn, Republican Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Kaufman, Hon. Edward E., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Delaware....................................................... 2
Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 1
WITNESSES
Abraham, Lynne M., Partner, Archer & Greiner, P.C., Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania................................................... 13
Gillison, Everett A., Deputy Mayor for Public Safety,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania..................................... 9
Goldkamp, John S., Professor, and Chair, Department of Criminal
Justice, Temple University..................................... 11
Greenlee, Ellen, Chief Public Defender, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania................................................... 6
McCaffery, Seamus, Supreme Court Justice, Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....................... 3
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Abraham, Lynne M., Partner, Archer & Greiner, P.C., Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, statement........................................ 31
Gillison, Everett A., Deputy Mayor for Public Safety,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, statement.......................... 51
Greenlee, Ellen, Chief Public Defender, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, statement........................................ 57
HELPING FIND INNOVATIVE AND COST-EFFECTIVE SOLUTIONS TO OVERBURDENED
STATE CRIMINAL COURTS
----------
MONDAY, MAY 3, 2010
U.S. Senate,
Subcommittee on Crime and Drugs,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 9:05 a.m., in
Kirby Auditorium, The National Constitution Center,
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Hon. Arlen Specter, Chairman of the
Subcommittee, presiding.
Present: Senator Specter and Kaufman.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Chairman Specter. Ladies and gentlemen, the Criminal Law
Subcommittee of the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary will
now proceed. I first welcome my distinguished colleague,
Senator Ted Kaufman, who has graciously come up from his home
in Delaware this morning to join us on this panel. Senator
Kaufman is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. And I
welcome the witnesses here today, a very, very distinguished
panel, to proceed with our inquiry into the criminal justice
system in the city of Philadelphia in the light of disclosures
made in an extensive series of articles in the Philadelphia
Inquirer. This is the third in our series of hearings.
The first hearing focused on the problem of intimidation of
witnesses, and at that time we heard from parents of two young
people who were murdered because they were about to testify in
a criminal proceeding. And, obviously, it is intolerable to
intimidate witnesses because that is the way the case proceeds,
on the testimony of the witnesses. We have taken action in the
Senate on the introduction of legislation which would make
intimidation of witnesses in a State court proceeding a Federal
crime. Today it is not a Federal crime. It is a violation of
State law, but it is very different to have a Federal charge
possible which brings in the FBI and brings in the tougher
judicial system of the United States Federal courts. We have
also moved ahead passing legislation out of Committee which
would increase the funding by the Federal Government for
witness protection. The Federal Government has a witness
protection program which works pretty well, and we really need
to move ahead to get the States to have a similar program.
The second hearing focus is on the problem of fugitives.
Many people skip bail, and we found, much to our chagrin, that
there was no system in place to report to a national
clearinghouse the fact that somebody had jumped bail in
Philadelphia so that if they were apprehended, illustratively,
say in St. Louis, there was no way to notify Philadelphia
authorities they were in St. Louis and could be brought back to
Philadelphia for trial. We have moved ahead to have legislation
for more Federal funding to help with detention of fugitives,
and we have also gotten a response from the United States
Marshal to assign additional Federal personnel to finding
fugitives.
Today we have a distinguished panel: Justice Seamus
McCaffery of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Chief Justice
Castille has appointed Justice McCaffery to look into this
situation with the Supreme Court's authority in the field. We
have the distinguished former district attorney of
Philadelphia, Lynne Abraham, who served 18 years, was the first
woman to hold the position and the longest-serving district
attorney.
I might say in passing, with some pride, Lynne Abraham was
an assistant in my office, and a very able one. And I might
say, also with some pride, that Chief Justice Castille, who
appointed Justice McCaffery to look into this issue, is also an
alumnus of my office. I will not go too far into the alumni
society beyond the Governor and three colleges' presidents and
the chief judge of the Federal circuit.
We have with us Ms. Ellen Greenlee, the Chief Defender. She
has been at that job for some 19 years, and has some very
important views to express.
We have Professor John Goldkamp from Temple University, who
is the Chair of the Department of Criminal Justice, has served
on advisory boards to both the State and the city, and had a
hand in the analysis of the criminal justice system in
Philadelphia in 1990. So he has a unique perspective.
I am now pleased to yield to my distinguished colleague,
Senator Kaufman, whom I again thank for joining me in this
hearing.
Senator Kaufman.
STATEMENT OF HON. TED KAUFMAN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE STATE OF
DELAWARE
Senator Kaufman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very
much for having me up here. But I have watched, when I lived in
Philadelphia for many, many years when you were district
attorney, but even more so when I was Senator Biden's chief of
staff when he was Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, it is
not hyperbole to say that on criminal justice issues for I do
not know how many years, you are the person that everyone on
the Committee looks to, and you are the person that people in
the Senate look to. Your record of accomplishments, your
ability to kind of get to the nub of the problem, any problem
you face, has been something I have watched for many, many
years. So I am really glad to come up here.
You know, Delaware is just to the south of here. It is like
the old story, you know, when Philadelphia gets a cold,
Delaware gets a fever. Many of our problems in Philadelphia,
crime problems in Philadelphia, relate to the fact that we are
on I-95 halfway between Baltimore and Philadelphia. So when you
have problems up here, it really comes down and affects
Delaware. That is the first thing.
But the second thing is it is really important that we get
this together nationally. This is not just a Philadelphia
problem. I read all the testimony on the way up here and looked
into these things. These are problems that cities are facing
around the country, so it is a real Federal interest.
There is a special interest to us because Philadelphia is
the source of so many of the drugs that go into Wilmington,
Delaware, and so what happens here is extremely important to
the people of Philadelphia. And we have seen in Philadelphia a
lot of the same things you see up here.
We have seen witness intimidation, an anti-snitching
culture, many of the difficulties that we see up here. And that
is why I cosponsored your State Witness Protection Act of 2010
to help deal with this anti-snitch problem. I believe the
threat of Federal prosecution could have real impact on witness
intimidation in State court.
Mr. Chairman, the innovations you and these witnesses are
discussing today should have impact far beyond Philadelphia. I
look forward to listening to today's testimony.
Chairman Specter. Well, thank you very much, Senator
Kaufman, for those cogent words.
We are honored to have Supreme Court Justice Seamus
McCaffery with us today, a very unique career as well as a
distinguished career. Justice McCaffery served in the
Philadelphia Police Department for 19 years. You cannot get any
better experience in the criminal justice system than that. He
went to law school, is an attorney. He was on the municipal
court of Philadelphia and became famous by having the so-called
Eagles Court, which functioned during the Eagles football
games, and he was able to adjudicate offenses right on the
scene. Nothing like deterrence to have the judge right there to
take action. Elected to the superior court and now on the
Supreme Court, and as I said, the Chief Justice of Pennsylvania
has designated Justice McCaffery to look into the overall
situation. So we welcome you here.
The time limit is traditionally set at 5 minutes, which
would leave us the maximum amount of time for dialog after the
witnesses testify. So the floor is yours, Justice McCaffery.
STATEMENT OF HON. SEAMUS MCCAFFERY, SUPREME COURT JUSTICE,
SUPREME COURT OF PENNSYLVANIA, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Justice McCaffery. Thank you, Senator Specter, Senator
Kaufman. Thank you so much for inviting me here today
representing the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on this very
important matter, not only to Philadelphia but to the
Philadelphia region.
Senator, as you pointed out, my first exposure to the
Philadelphia municipal court and the criminal justice system
was in 1970 when I got out of the Marine Corps and joined the
Philadelphia Police Department. It was shortly after the
creation of the Philadelphia municipal court, so I have many,
many years of exposure to both municipal court and the Court of
Common Pleas here in Philadelphia County. And, gentlemen, I say
this without exaggeration. What I have seen over the years, I
have been very much dismayed.
The system has really gotten both overwhelmed and out of
control. It has diminished, in my opinion, in the ability to
give quality justice to all parties, both the accused as well
as the victims of crime.
The municipal court, when I was first elected there in
1994, we had approximately 23 trials a day in a courtroom. That
is trials, not preliminary hearings. And as such, we had, of
course, motions practice, et cetera. So these were not just
wham-bam, easy types of cases. By the time I left 10 years
later, we were over 45 trials a day in a courtroom. We went
from 35 to 40 preliminary hearings out in the districts to
upwards of 70 and 75 preliminary hearings a day.
The volume of cases just continued to increase, and yet our
budgets decreased. We did have an increase in members of the
judiciary, but, quite frankly, we had so many additional
charges put on us by the legislature that it increased the
workload dramatically. Our judges were overwhelmed. Our
defenders association was overwhelmed. Our district attorney
was overwhelmed. We had young men and women coming into our
courtrooms on any given day with 30, 35 matters a day they
personally had to prepare for and handle, and then they would
have to go back to their offices, work up their files, and last
but not least, get another 35 for the next day. We have so many
cases that were just being discharged because of time issues.
When I took over as the administrative judge, 66 counties
in Pennsylvania had 180 days from the date of arrest for a
misdemeanor to the actual date of trial. Philadelphia County,
the largest county, had 120 days. Why, you might ask? I have no
idea. We have since changed that. We petitioned the Supreme
Court. Philadelphia County is now on an equal footing with the
rest of the State. We now have 180 days.
But as you can imagine, Philadelphia, because of the
magnitude of cases, the complexity of our system, the
balancing, if you will, of problems between overtime
constraints that the police department has to deal with and the
courts trying to get cases on. One of the things I saw both as
a police officer and the father of police officers was that
when individuals were arrested, the police department tried to
ensure that their officers would go to court on their day work
tour of duty. Why? It was to cut down on overtime. But what we
found were police officers with 5, 10, sometimes 15 court
notices on 1 day. One day in a city, Senator, where we do not
have, as you know, a centralized courthouse. We have
courthouses throughout the city of Philadelphia, the county of
Philadelphia, stretched as far as 55th and Pine all the way up
to Academy and Red Lion, Broad and Champlost, et cetera. That
means that these officers that are required to go to a trial
for homicides, major crimes, and even the lower-level
misdemeanor crimes, are now being required to travel all over
Philadelphia. We have judges waiting, we have courts waiting,
we have juries waiting. The system was just being clogged up by
the morass that we saw.
We tried a lot of innovative things, including bringing all
the satellite districts into the Criminal Justice Center. But
as I am sure you remember, Senator, because of budgetary
cutbacks, what was once a larger footprint for the Criminal
Justice Center became a much small footprint, thereby causing
us to have fewer elevators, bigger congested lines to get on
the elevators. It was pretty much a mess. And as a result of
it, again, more action had to be taken to lessen the problem.
So taking all of that into consideration, we tried our best
to create a lot of different situations that would alleviate
the congestion and get cases on.
What happened was more and more cases were just being
discharged. Why? Because they were either unable to put them
on, again, because of police officers not showing up, witnesses
not showing up--and, again, we all have to understand we have a
balance here. You know, we have the rights of the accused to be
balanced against the rights of the victims. So the reality was
that cases were being discharged in an inordinate--I mean, an
extremely large number. But, again, as a result of the Inquirer
articles, we are now in the process, the Supreme Court, of
creating--we created a panel to go into this whole problem and
make suggested changes, some of which have already been
implemented, Senator.
Right now--or, recently, I should say, we found a study
that was prepared in 1978, 10 years after the creation of the
municipal court. That study pointed out incredible problems
then, in 1978. This is 32 years ago. Those changes recommended
by that study have still not been implemented.
One of the big problems we have here, Senator Kaufman, is
in a municipal court, we have what is called a de novo court of
appeal. By that, I mean witnesses--everybody needs to show up
and the case has to be put on, and if the outcome is not to the
benefit of the accused, then they have an automatic right of
appeal. That includes bail, everything. These individuals are
allowed to stay on the streets. These individuals are basically
given one free bite at the apple.
In the 1978 report, it was recommended that we do away with
de novo rights of appeal, then merge the court basically with
the court of common pleas, make municipal court a division,
because, remember, during the Constitutional Convention in the
late 1960s, when the municipal court was originally created, it
was created as a probationary court, and as such, it has
really, really grown well beyond that. There have been no real
serious changes since that time, and our court is looking to
implement the changes that we feel are necessary to bring it in
line with the rest of Pennsylvania.
In closing, Senator, I just want to point out something
that I am sure you recall quite clearly. Back in the late 1960s
and early 1970s, we had the LEAP program, the Law Enforcement
Assistance Program. That LEAP program went a long way to help
urban law enforcement communities to increase their police
departments. I would suggest to you that what is needed today,
not just in Philadelphia but nationally, is a Criminal Justice
Assistance Program because, quite frankly, we do not have
enough probation officers. We do not have enough warrant unit
officers. Our probation officers are so--we are over 100
officers short right now. These officers are required to take
their own vehicles and go out and check on their individual
defendants.
Chairman Specter. Justice McCaffery, how much more time
will you need?
Justice McCaffery. I am fine. I can just shut down right
now, if you would like. But the reality is, as I have said, we
need some Federal help to make some serious changes.
Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Justice McCaffery appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Thank you. Thank you very much, Justice
McCaffery.
We would ordinarily turn to D.A. Abraham as a matter of
protocol, but she has requested to go last, and we are glad to
oblige. So we turn now to Ms. Ellen Greenlee, who is the Chief
Defender. She had worked in the Defenders Office as a trial
attorney, supervisor, first assistant, went all the way up the
line, and the last 19 years as Chief Defender. She received the
prestigious Sandra Day O'Connor Award from the Philadelphia Bar
Association, graduate of Chestnut Hill College and the
Villanova Law School.
Before we began, I told her that I was in the Defenders
Office for a month as a beginning lawyer. I will not cite the
year.
Ms. Greenlee, we appreciate your being here, and the next 5
minutes are yours.
STATEMENT OF ELLEN GREENLEE, CHIEF PUBLIC DEFENDER,
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Greenlee. They still talk about your service, Senator,
as a defender.
Thank you, Senator Specter and Senator Kaufman, for the
opportunity to be here today. As you know, anyone probably who
chooses the career of public defender has a bit of a maverick
in them, so I have chosen today--in terms of the hearing of
helping find innovative and cost-effective solutions to
overburdened State courts, I have a particular viewpoint on the
burden imposed on the poor who become embroiled in the
Commonwealth's criminal justice system, and I would like to
take this opportunity--I cannot pass it up--to speak to that
burden and what is a very real crisis in indigent defense that
was acknowledged by Attorney General Eric Holder, who convened
a national symposium on indigent defense in February in
Washington, D.C.
In my view, what would be the most surprising innovation
today in the criminal justice system would be for the
Government--both Federal and State--to make real the promise of
``equal justice for all'' by funding adequately defense
services for our poor citizens caught up in the system. This
innovation would mean parity of resources for the Government
and the defense, oversight and monitoring of defense services,
training and performance standards, as well as caseload
standards to ensure quality, competent representation at all
levels.
As brief background, the Defender Association of
Philadelphia, unlike public defender organizations in all other
Pennsylvania counties, is a non-profit corporation funded 99
percent by the city of Philadelphia. We have a staff of 480
people, including attorneys, investigators, social workers,
paralegals, and administrative staff.
We are appointed by the courts to represent indigent adults
and juveniles charged with criminal offenses, ranging from
misdemeanors to capital cases. We also represent indigent
citizens in civil mental health hearings, and our Child
Advocate Unit represents dependent and abused children in
contested custody matters.
In calendar year 2009, we were appointed to 69,000 new
cases. Our workload figures for attorneys show 396,000 court
appearances in that year. We represented clients at 34,000
preliminary hearings and at 87,000 misdemeanor trial listings.
Overall we represent about 70 percent of criminal cases,
exclusive of homicides, where we represent 20 percent of all
court appointments.
The criminal justice system here obviously could not
function without us as one of the stakeholders and active
participants in courtroom trial representation, as well as an
active participant in the many diversion programs in place,
such as Treatment Court, DUI Court, Mental Health Court,
Community Court, and specific programs for juveniles, among
others.
As is the case throughout Pennsylvania, and increasingly in
all counties and States, public defenders, as well as private
court-appointed counsel, are overworked and grossly underpaid.
The inevitable result of reduced funding and increased
caseloads is representation that fails to meet the standards
published by the American Bar Association and the National
Legal Aid and Defender Association. The weight of the criminal
justice system falls most heavily on the backs of the poor and
disproportionately on minority populations.
The indigent defense system, both statewide and nationally,
is in crisis. It is not just those of us who work in indigent
defense who realize this. Attorney General Holder, speaking at
the Brennan Center in New York City on November 16th, commented
that our adversarial system requires lawyers on both sides who
effectively represent their clients' interests, whether the
Government or the accused. Further, he said, the integrity of
our criminal justice system aside, the crisis in indigent
defense is also about dollars and cents. He cited the need to
significantly improve the quality of representation provided to
the poor and powerless. He has pledged to work in identifying
potential funding sources, legislative initiatives, and to work
with State and local partners to establish effective public
defense systems. This is a start and a refreshing change from
the policies of the previous administration.
The need for adequately financed public defense services
has expanded so drastically that today public defenders
represent defendants in more than 80 percent of criminal
prosecutions nationwide. In many States, diverse groups of
middle- and low-income people are being processed through
courts as if they were identical parts on a conveyor belt. And
the collateral consequences of criminal prosecutions include
immigration consequences, the ability to vote or own firearms,
access to student loans and professional licenses, and public
housing eligibility, among other modem equivalents of the
scarlet letter. Many of these disabilities impede a person's
ability to successfully integrate into the community. It does
appear that our society has relegated forgiveness and
redemption to the scrap heap.
Pennsylvania has the dubious distinction of being the only
State in the Union that provides absolutely no funding for
indigent defense. Utah, which had been in the same category,
began to provide some State funding, but is now in the process
of reneging on that promise. The Pennsylvania State Legislature
has effectively ignored a 1985 State Supreme Court decision
calling for such funding. So it is up to each county to provide
funding for indigent defense, and as you can well imagine, few
county commissioners rank indigent defense highly on their list
of priorities. Representation of the poor is, at best, uneven
and, at worst, ineffective at times due to deficiencies of the
county-funded systems.
On a somewhat optimistic note, there are stirrings in our
State capital around indigent defense issues. Out of the
tragedy that is Luzerne County, where two corrupt judges sent
hundreds of children into placement, often for trivial offenses
and without the benefit of legal counsel, the Interbranch
Commission will issue its report at the end of May, with
serious recommendations aimed at upgrading juvenile defense
practices. At the same time, I serve on a Joint Legislative
Commission on Indigent Defense which is due to issue its report
within the next couple of months. It, too, will offer
recommendations----
Chairman Specter. How much more time will you need?
Ms. Greenlee. I only have a few lines, Senator. The
Commission on Indigent Defense will offer recommendations for
improvements in representation of the poor. Of course, we will
then look to the legislature to fund these initiatives, the
same legislature that has ignored the Supreme Court order for
funding for 25 years. At best, we are very cautiously
optimistic we will see real change in the provision of defense
services in Pennsylvania.
Ours is an adversarial system of justice which requires
lawyers on both sides who effectively represent their client's
interests, whether it is the Government or the accused. When
defense counsel are handicapped by lack of training, time, and
resources, we must wonder: Is justice being done? Is justice
being served? Will you join us in working to reform the
criminal justice system so that it truly reflects the most
basic of American values: equality and fairness?
Thank you, Senator.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Greenlee appears as a
submission for the record.]
Senator Specter. Well, it appears that the first question
has gone to me, and the answer to ``will I join you'', is of
course I will.
Ms. Greenlee. I thought you might.
Chairman Specter. But I have been for decades.
Ms. Greenlee. I know. That is why it was a good forum to
raise this.
Chairman Specter. Well, that is why Senator Kaufman and I
are here. We sit on the Committee which initiates legislation
and funding.
We turn now to Deputy Mayor Everett Gillison, Deputy Mayor
for Public Safety in the city, serves as co-chair of the
Criminal Justice Advisory Board for the First Judicial
District, was an Assistant Defender in Philadelphia, has his
bachelor's degree from the University of Pennsylvania and law
degree from Syracuse College of Law.
We welcome you here, Mr. Gillison. These are issues that we
have discussed extensively with the mayor and the former mayor
and the preceding mayor and his predecessor, and we welcome you
here as his representative.
STATEMENT OF EVERETT A. GILLISON, DEPUTY MAYOR FOR PUBLIC
SAFETY, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Gillison. Thank you, Senator, and thank you, Senator
Kaufman, also for being here, and thank you for the opportunity
to testify at this Senate field hearing, ``Helping Find
Innovative and Cost-Effective Solutions to the Overburdened
State Courts.''
I am just going to probably end up summarizing, plus I will
read a couple pages of the prepared testimony, but the bottom
line is that we live in a digital age and we need to act like
it in State courts, and we need investments from both the
Federal Government and--the State government, yes, but the
Federal Government also, to invest in digital technology so
that we can end up helping one another through this problem.
Technology is all around us. All manner of businesses take
advantage of the latest technological innovations to increase
production, save money, improve operations, and operate more
efficiently. It would be unimaginable for a corporation with a
$1 billion budget and 10,000 employees to still rely on paper
and pencil to process their transactions. But that is
essentially what we do in the criminal justice system.
The public safety portion of the city's budget is
approximately $1 billion. Between police, courts, the prisons,
we employ approximately 10,000 people. But every day in the
city's criminal courts, transactions are recorded by hand on
paper. That paper is then shuffled between different
departments. And it is no surprise that mistakes are made and
errors occur.
Now, I do not want to give a false impression that our
criminal justice partners do not utilize technology. In fact,
we do. But this technology is in many instances old, not
adequately interfaced--and that is the key, interfacing--and
many essential court functions are not automated. This makes
the system vulnerable to mistakes.
Increases in the use of technology will help our
overburdened State courts. Clearly, a lack of available
resources is the impediment to having our systems modernized
and adequately networked so that work flow and essential
processes are automated. Local governments are already
overburdened and unable to make the technology investments that
are critical to enhancing court efficiencies.
Again, I do not want to give the wrong impression. Despite
our collective lack of resources, the criminal justice partners
in the city of Philadelphia have collaborated, especially over
the past 2 years, to develop initiatives that have increased
efficiencies in our State court system.
In Philadelphia, the various criminal justice system
partners recognize the need to process cases as quickly as
possible. One type of judicial proceeding that can impact the
overall system efficiency is a violation of probation or parole
hearing. The need for a violation of parole or probation
hearing results when a person is on probation and either fails
to do something required or while on supervision does something
not permitted under those terms. The judge supervising the
probation or parole is authorized to hold or detain the
individual until the judge has had an opportunity to decide if
a violation has occurred and, if so, what action to take or
sanctions to impose.
I will depart from the prepared testimony and say over one-
third of the people that we have in our local county prisons
are people who are being held simply on probation and parole
matters. So if you can really understand how we would be able
by having these kinds of technological investments, we would be
able to process those matters a lot quicker. We would be able
to have judges who would be able to use e-mail, BlackBerrys
perhaps, even secure communications, to actual hold hearings at
a time conducive to the judge's schedule, the defender's
schedule, the D.A.'s schedule, and the prison's schedule, which
obviously is available 24 hours a day, and depending on what
judge you get, as I remember Justice McCaffery--you know, no
one stops after 5 o'clock. People continue to work and can be
available.
These are the kinds of things that technology make
available, but, unfortunately, as a city, we are limited by the
amount of money that we can actually put in these particular
areas. And we need the help of the Federal Government.
I will actually submit--and literally, instead of just
talking about this, I would just like to highlight the latter
part of my testimony.
The additional efficiency that I would like to highlight
and mention is the implementation of video technology in our
courts. Every day literally hundreds of inmates are transported
to the Criminal Justice Center for trial or other hearing.
Often the matters for which inmates were brought to the
Criminal Justice Center are given another date for which the
inmate would be transported again. With the assistance of our
criminal justice partners, we have begun the use of video
technology to eliminate the need to transport inmates from
their facility of confinement to the courts. The reason why we
are doing that is because we do not really have to have them
for anything really other than a trial. Hearings can be
conducted by video, as long as everyone is working together and
understands the security of the system. But, again, it needs an
investment of dollars in order to make that happen.
I would just ask, in conclusion, that the Federal
Government make the resources available to State courts to
allow them to upgrade and modernize their technology
infrastructure. These technological improvements will increase
the efficiency with which the courts are able to process and
dispose of cases. And hearing Justice McCaffery talk about the
old LEAP program and the assistance program that did exist in
the late 1960s, early 1970s, and into the first part of the
1980s, I would also agree that that is something that should be
not only looked at as a model, but a way of actually being able
to help the cities make those investments along with the States
in order to bring the efficiencies we need.
I thank you for the opportunity to speak and send the
greetings of the mayor to both of you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Gillison appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Thank you, Deputy Mayor Gillison.
We now turn to Professor John Goldkamp, professor and Chair
of the Department of Criminal Justice at Temple University. In
the 1990s, Dr. Goldkamp worked with judicial system leaders
under the mayor's task force in Philadelphia. In the fall of
2008, he was appointed by Governor Rendell to conduct a review
of correctional and parole practices affecting violent crime by
parolees. He has a Ph.D. from the School of Criminal Justice at
SUNY Albany.
Thank you for being with us, Dr. Goldkamp, and we look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF JOHN S. GOLDKAMP, PROFESSOR, AND CHAIR, DEPARTMENT
OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, TEMPLE UNIVERSITY
Mr. Goldkamp. Good morning, Senator Specter and Senator
Kaufman. Thank you very much for this opportunity to speak
about the problems that we face in the Philadelphia courts and
justice system.
The search for constructive corrective measures for
Philadelphia's justice process has implications not only for
Philadelphia itself, but for other jurisdictions with similar
problems, whether they happen to be receiving publicity or not.
The problems faced by the Philadelphia justice system simply
are not unique. Thus, from the outset, we can know that the
lessons learned in other places may be instructive to the
improvement of practices in Philadelphia, just as the
strategies developed in Philadelphia may be helpful to the
efforts of others seeking to devise similar solutions.
Although the Inquirer series has pointed out a number of
areas of system dysfunction, perhaps four highlight the
greatest challenges to system improvement: the problem of
dismissals, the problem of backlog and delay, the problem of
jail crowding, and the problem of fugitives. Each of these is
interrelated, and their interaction is an example of an
instance when the overall negative effect of a problem is
greater than the sum of its parts.
These symptoms of dysfunction share in common that no one
agency or system actor is responsible for any single one or all
of these difficulties, and that no one agency or actor can fix
the associated difficulties without cooperation and focused co-
problem-solving from the other agencies. And this is key to the
adoption of strong corrective measures.
For the purposes of brevity, I would like to focus in my
comments on one of these problems--fugitives--because of the
powerful undermining effect they have on the perception among
victims, witnesses, the public, and even offenders, of the
integrity of the judicial process.
The message that one can just walk away produces a message
of reverse deterrence in which defendants and their associated
public are taught that there are no real consequences to
defying the orders of the court and the requirements of the
justice process. The fugitive problem has a variety of causes,
but a solution involves two parts: developing a multi-part
differentiated strategy for cleaning up and disposing of past
cases, of the fugitive caseload; and preventing or reducing the
rate of the production of fugitives prospectively. Fugitive
prevention, quite simply, means strengthening the pretrial
release and detention process under a comprehensive strategy.
Now the two most critical elements of a fugitive prevention
strategy involve re-examining and strengthening the pretrial
release decisionmaking structure and developing and supporting
more effective methods of pretrial release that both ensure
community safety and attendance in court and restore the belief
in consequences and respect for the judicial process.
The pretrial release guidelines, which are judicially
adopted policy in the First Judicial District in Philadelphia
for more than a decade now, offer at least a useful framework
and good foundation now for re-examining and strengthening the
pretrial release decisionmaking process, and particularly
targeting defendants according to risk of flight and crime and
other appropriate criteria in considering the constitutional
aims of pretrial release. Their neglect has played an important
part in the size and the nature of the fugitive problem.
Actually, it is the second part of this fugitive prevention
strategy, the development and empirical testing of effective
community management methods to ensure safe release and high
levels of appearance in court, that has been most neglected. An
especially critical need in preventing absconding fugitives is
for effective non-financial release methods, conditions of
release targeted to categories of defendants according to the
risks of flight and threat of public safety they pose.
The need to manage increasing numbers of defendants in the
community in the coming future, not to mention probationers and
parolees, should place this system need high on the list of
public safety strategies of urgent need. I emphasize that the
strengthening of targeted use of non-financial methods of
supervision and management of defendants in the community
should be given the highest priority because the dollar, the
traditional currency of pretrial release in the U.S., has been
shown in empirical studies to be a poor method for ensuring
attendance at court and a still poorer means for protecting the
community from potentially dangerous defendants. The role of
the dollar in bail does allow defendants with financial
resources on hand, such as drug dealers, prostitutes, and
professional criminals, a simple way to purchase their
freedom--a mere lost of doing business.
The symptoms of dysfunction in the Philadelphia courts
involve more than the problems posed by fugitives or by the
other categories I have mentioned. Without question, it is
indispensable to craft effective interventions and strategies
both (a) in reference to current and accurate data relating to
system performance, and (b) based on substantive collaboration
of the relevant justice agencies and key actors. It is
particularly helpful to test or at least anticipate the impact
of potentially helpful policies empirically before full-scale
adoption. Yet, in addition, a great deal can be learned from
systematic review of initiatives or strategies that may have
been adopted or tested in other jurisdictions facing similar
challenges and any evidence in the literature about advantages
and disadvantages of such measures.
In the face of such crises as we seem to be experiencing in
Philadelphia, there is extreme pressure to adopt ad hoc
emergency measures that may or may not address the systemic
problems and may produce unanticipated side effects that will
exact costs to be paid later.
I opened my comments by mentioning that the Philadelphia
court system risks being held up nationally as an example of a
dysfunctional court system, courts ``at their worst''. There is
in these circumstances, however, an opportunity for
Philadelphia to demonstrate the value of a rational,
comprehensive, and evidence-based problem-solving method that
can serve as an example to other jurisdictions whose challenges
have yet to surface and who soon may as well be looking for
solutions. I thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Goldkamp appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Dr. Goldkamp.
We now turn to former district attorney of Philadelphia,
Lynne Abraham, who has had really an extraordinary record. She
was an assistant district attorney in my office--well, many
years ago, let us put it that way.
Ms. Abraham. Not that many.
Chairman Specter. Not that many? OK. I will go for that,
too. Really a strong prosecutor. I recall one day she went over
the weekend and conducted a personal investigation in West
Philadelphia. That is kind of tough to do under any
circumstances, but she came back with the witnesses.
She later served as executive director of the Philadelphia
Redevelopment Authority, legislative consultant to the
Philadelphia City Council, and then was on the municipal court
for 4 years, Philadelphia Common Pleas Court for 11 years, and
district attorney of Philadelphia for 19 years, and as
indicated earlier, first woman to hold the position. She is now
a partner in the prestigious law firm of Archer & Greiner here
in the city.
We welcome you here, D.A. Abraham, and look forward to your
testimony.
STATEMENT OF LYNNE M. ABRAHAM, PARTNER, ARCHER & GREINER, P.C.,
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Abraham. Thank you, Senator Specter and Senator
Kaufman. I am delighted to be here today with my colleagues to
talk about things that have been on our agenda for years.
As I pointed out in my testimony--which needs a few little
grammatical corrections, I regret to say; my fingers type
faster than the computer--these problems and issues have been
with us at least, Senator, since 1968. As a matter of fact, I
quoted from your report to the people of 1968 verbatim in my
notes. So there is nothing new under the sun, but they have
become exacerbated and aggravated by a whole series of things,
some of which I may cover in my first 5 minutes. But I am
particularly irritated that many of these issues never would
have come up if the city of Philadelphia had had the political
will and the foresight to make needed changes when they became
apparent.
The witness relocation/protection issue has been with us
since the early 1990s. Every year, from the first year I became
district attorney, virtually, I appeared before our city
council and almost begged for witness relocation money. We do
not call it protection because we do not have the benefits of
the Federal changing of identities. And every year, the city of
Philadelphia failed and refused to put just a little bit of
money toward the issue of witness relocation, a lot of hand
wringing, a lot of, ``Oh, terrible thing,'' ``Isn't that
awful?'' But no money.
When you want to help witnesses appear in court, you need
to have the resources to put them some place. It is not the
only thing that we can do, but it is a glaring error.
If the court system had agreed to implement zone courts,
which I had advocated after having visited Brooklyn, New York,
in 1992, we would have saved millions of dollars in police
overtime. We would have salvaged many more cases. We would have
been more efficient, and we would have done the justice system
proud. And what that essentially does is break down the court
system, to make sure those police officers, as Justice
McCaffery--one of my law students when he was a police officer,
I might add; that is how far we go back. He was running all
over to various courtrooms because they were not listed on the
basis of geography. In other words, if he was in the 18th
District, in criminal court, all he would have to do is go to a
couple of courts next door to each other, where every case that
arose in his district would have been disposed of. He would not
have had to run all over the court system.
Now, there were some minor amendments that had to be made
for juvenile court, which was at 1801 Vine, but the criminal
court is in City Hall, and preliminary hearings could have been
easily addressed by zone courts, everything done by geography,
line prosecution, and efficiency. But the judges consistently
decided that they were not going to do this just for one
reason. They were afraid that their record and their names
would be known by the public, and this was something that they
wanted to avoid at all costs.
Failure of bail reform has been an issue that I have
written to the mayors of Philadelphia--Rendell, Street, and
Goode--sorry. Well, Rendell, Street, Goode was coming out as I
was going in--and, of course, Mayor Nutter. The failure of bail
reform also is a function of lack of political will. Everybody
knew--everybody at this table who was in the criminal justice
system, whether as a police officer or a defender or a
prosecutor, knew that the bail system was a disaster, first
started off by Wilson Goode when he agreed to a prison cap
without any finding first that the prison conditions were
inhumane or unconstitutional. And Professor Goldkamp and I
worked on lots of things about bail. I have his letters here,
by the way, from 1992 on the issue of bail and dealing with
prisoners.
Mr. Goldkamp. I interviewed you in 1976.
Ms. Abraham. Well, I have been around a long time.
So I can tell you that these problems are endemic. So I
think efficiency in the court is not a good thing. I think just
doing justice by numbers and statistics is never to be accepted
as a substitute for a good system. But let me bring out in the
few minutes that I have left some of the things that I need to
bring out that others have not.
Our jurors fail to appear at astounding rates. Sometimes as
many as 50 percent of subpoenaed jurors never show up for jury
duty. The fact that we have a Hobbs Act Task Force and Federal
alternatives to State crimes, which have been in existence
since you and I first dealt with that back in the early 1990s,
is an indication that our judges are not taking crime seriously
and not sentencing them to appropriate State prisons, but
instead are clogging up the local--State prisons, but instead
are clogging up our local prisons.
Our probation and parole officers have been decimated by
these devastating cuts. Targeted social services and adequate
oversight--can you turn that off, please?--probation and parole
officers is really key to the end of recidivism and making sure
that people get job training, services, mental health
treatment, and the like.
Electric home monitoring and GPS systems, now that they are
apparently--and I say ``apparently''--tamper proof, are a great
way to make sure that a defendant is known where he is at any
given moment. It does not necessarily prevent a defendant from
committing a crime. You can deal drugs with an electric home
monitor, you can sexually assault women with electric home
monitoring, you can commit crimes while you are on electric
home monitoring, as long as you are in the geographic area that
you are restricted to. But it does at least give a sense of
where the probationer or parolee is without losing him.
We have lost many, many, many cases because we have, I
think, been inundated by the impact of electronics on our court
system--Tweeting, Facebook, all those electronic gizmos that
are now going to infect our court system. You know, there are
judges in New Jersey who make their jurors sign pledges every
day that they will not Tweet, Facebook, look up lawyers'
records, find out who the judge is, find out who is paying
taxes, do their own investigations. I think that the electronic
era as an influence on our courts to the detriment is something
that really needs a tremendous amount of attention.
I also recommended changing the treaty with Mexico. We have
many, many defendants who come from and flee to Mexico, as well
as huge amounts of drugs coming back over our borders from
Mexico, and guns and money going south. This narcoterrorism
really needs to take a second look, and I recommended as one of
the things that you may wish to look at from the Federal level,
changes in the treaty with Mexico to reflect modern realities.
Another issue is that our prisons have become the
residential mental health treatment facility of choice. I have
to tell you, I know that you respected Judge Broderick, as I
did. He was a great friend. Ray and Marjorie Broderick were
friends of mine. I never agreed with him and still do not agree
with his shutting down of mental hospitals in favor of an
absolute prohibition on admission to mental hospitals, because
it did not take into effect modern realities. And I will just
end with this----
Chairman Specter. D.A. Abraham, I have asked other
witnesses how much more time they would need.
Ms. Abraham. Just one more minute. Just one more minute.
Chairman Specter. OK.
Ms. Abraham. Maybe even less.
Chairman Specter. Fine.
Ms. Abraham. I think that the fact that we are using our
prisons as mental hospitals is a terrible disservice to our
prisoners, the mental health system, and the prisons.
And, finally, I agree that I think that one of the things--
well, most of these things that we are talking about today are
local, and these are going to have to be solved locally. But
one of the things, in addition to some of the things you and
Senator Kaufman have already mentioned that you can do, is I
believe that cameras almost everywhere are a great deterrent to
crime and a great solution to criminal conduct. And you need to
look at just two major cases:
One, the Oklahoma City bombing case, where cameras really
helped to solve the case dramatically, quickly, and also to an
appropriate ending.
But, more importantly, this past weekend in New York in
Times Square. This case may be one of the most horrific cases
that could have happened, but fortunately did not. But cameras
are helping, and I believe that we need to do more with having
cameras on the street all over the place to make sure that the
public is safe and that criminals have less of a chance to be
predators.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Abraham appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. D.A. Abraham, when Ms. Linda Hoffman of
my staff had talked to you extensively about the series in the
Inquirer. You had wanted to state your side of it, and I would
like to give you some more time now. A summary of the
conclusions of the Inquirer series related to dismissals of so
many people, the low conviction rate, the low guilty rate on
gun assault cases. And I know you have reviewed those
statistics in some detail.
Ms. Abraham. Oh, I have.
Chairman Specter. And I think that it would be appropriate
and fair to give you an opportunity in this forum to comment,
if you care to do so.
Ms. Abraham. Oh, no, I do. As a matter of fact, it is in my
recorded notes, but not perhaps as extensively as I might
because, you know, how much time does one have to discuss
weighty issues? But I thought that and I think that the
Inquirer series missed----
Chairman Specter. We ought to run the clock, timekeeper.
Ms. Abraham. I think the Inquirer series did some good, and
I gave them kudos where they deserved it. Where they do not
deserve kudos, I also said so, and one of the issues was with
regard to convictions. Because, as we pointed out to the
Philadelphia Inquirer reporters, when they provided us finally
with the information, they were comparing other places where
felonies were 1 year with our felonies which are 5 years. And
as a matter of fact, Mr. Gillison and Ms. Greenlee and I--well,
I know Ms. Greenlee spoke out about it. We both agree that the
Inquirer series did a tremendous disservice.
So what they were doing was they were comparing a Bureau of
Justice Statistics result from an old study with what we do in
our courts, and we proved to them using their own figures that
actually our conviction rate is about 85 percent overall.
Now, I must say this, Senator. I never did justice by
numbers. I never was interested in keeping statistics on wins
or losses. I was only interested in an individual case doing
justice for the victim, for the accused, and for the system.
But since we had to deal with numbers--and we do--on the basis
of what we have been able to get from the courts and the police
Department, our conviction rate is very high. Really where the
problem is is in our municipal court, not in the courts of
common pleas. The courts of common pleas have no backlog, and
they have been handling cases appropriately. But in our
municipal court, as I pointed out in my written testimony, we
had judges who were interested in blowing out cases, according
to Tom Ferrick of the Inquirer in his own article, because they
were interested in making sure that they had the final word on
what we should be doing as prosecutors. In other words, did we
really overcharge? Which we never did, or almost never did. But
what they did was they put us to the proof. First of all, they
called the case early, so if a police officer was in another
room, they blew out the case. If the witness was on his way,
they did not want to wait; dismissal of the case. And this is
because judges were interested in productivity, not justice.
They had their own way of making us prove our case at a
preliminary hearing beyond a reasonable doubt instead of just
prima facie. You can get through 30 cases if all you have to do
is prove ownership, non-permission, and that the defendant was
in possession of something that the victim identified as his.
But the courts would not accept the rules of evidence on
hearsay. They had their own rules that they made up. Three
strikes and you are out. If you could not get your case on in
three appearances, even if it was in the time limit you had to
try the case or bring the case, they dismissed it. That is
productivity, but it is not justice.
The rules of when we could bring cases were also unfairly
skewed, both to the defense and the prosecution--3 to 10 days
within the day of arrest. This has been changed, I am about--I
think I am about to say prospectively, that now it will be at
least 10 or 20 days after an arrest to have a case held at a
preliminary hearing, because nobody can be ready. Discovery was
never ready, and the defense always insisted on discovery, even
to the weight of the drugs when it was not necessary for a
preliminary hearing. More delay, more cases dismissed, and, of
course, witness intimidation.
And I must say, sort of counter to what Justice McCaffery
said, citizens of Philadelphia from outlying areas do not like
to come into center city Philadelphia. They have a skewed
version of what happens in the city of Philadelphia. People
really want to be out in their own neighborhoods for their own
preliminary hearings, so one of the reasons why the
centralization of preliminary hearings at the criminal justice
system did not work was because people did not want to come
into town, they could not afford to come into town, they did
not have the time to come into town. So between intimidation,
transportation, baby-sitting, and other issues, they just
failed to show up. And, of course, witness intimidation is a
huge issue, the ``stop snitching'' culture, the ``do not
snitch'' is just infecting our criminal justice system.
I think there are common-sense ways where, for example,
people on the CJAB, which I was a member of before I left
office, are coming to grips with some of these issues, and I
think that will be a very salutary way.
The Inquirer series did some things that were good. They
got the quarter sessions clerk to resign. The Supreme Court has
taken over the bail function, as it properly should. If we can
get the bail situation as a system under control, we will go a
lot farther in making sure we have fewer fugitives, a better
bail system, a not-overcrowded jail system, and if we can
especially get our mental health defendants out of our prison
system, which are about a third of the population, and into
appropriate treatment, properly funded, we will be going a long
way.
Chairman Specter. Well, thank you, D.A. Abraham, for those
comments. You noted that the Philadelphia Inquirer series was
very helpful in getting the changes in the clerk of quarter
sessions, and now there are proposals for legislation so that
the modernization of that unit is now possible,
computerization, et cetera, et cetera.
Ms. Abraham. You are talking about the clerk's office?
Chairman Specter. The clerk of quarter sessions.
Ms. Abraham. Yes, but, you see, here is what is wrong with
this, Senator. This is not disrespectful to the Inquirer. This
is something that I was writing Mayor Rendell about in 1998. It
did not have to take these multiple stories, my multiple
testimonies before city council to get this done. This should
have been done. It was a lack of political will that would not
get it done. The mayor did not want to do anything, council did
not want to do anything, and, of course, as an elected
official, I can understand that.
Chairman Specter. Well, D.A. Abraham, your letter to Mayor
Rendell was not as heavily publicized as the Inquirer series.
Ms. Abraham. Absolutely. But that is not the problem. I
agree that the paper printed my letter, and I gave them the
kudos they deserve. But that is not it. I am happy that the
Inquirer is getting the discussion going, but it was
unnecessary if we had the political will back in 1997 and 1996
and 1995 to make the changes that we need. That is all.
Chairman Specter. You made a comment a few moments ago that
the Inquirer performed a disservice. Would you say overall that
the Inquirer series has been helpful in focusing--let me finish
the question--in focusing public attention on the issue and
motivating the Supreme Court to get into the picture and
motivating the State Senate to have the hearings and calling it
to the attention so that my colleagues in Washington are
willing to authorize hearings by the Criminal Justice
Subcommittee? Overall, wouldn't you say that it is useful to
have that focus, that your point--and this is just one aspect--
in writing to the mayor and saying let us deal with the clerk
of quarter sessions does not get a whole lot of attention, may
not even be read? But the Inquirer buys ink by the barrel, as
the old expression goes.
So how would you evaluate the value of the Inquirer series
overall?
Ms. Abraham. I think that if you are getting you and
Senator Kaufman and other Senators and Congressmen in on this
issue, this is nothing but good. Nothing but good can come of
these hearings. I would not be here; you would not be here; all
these panels would not be here; and changes in the court system
would not have come about.
The pity is that these are all stories that have been
written about for years, and nobody was willing to change
anything.
Chairman Specter. Well, I think you are right that it has
been a motivating factor to get people to do things which, as
you say, the clerk of quarter sessions could have ended a long
time ago.
Let me ask my colleague's opinion on that because I think
it is a key point, if you would care to comment, Senator
Kaufman.
Senator Kaufman. Yes, well, I do not read the Inquirer
regularly. I read the Wilmington News Journal. But I do think
this is a problem. It is not just here in Philadelphia. I know
wherever I go this is a problem and many of the same kinds of
problems. You can literally take a laundry list. And I think
Professor Goldkamp is right. I hate, you know, reinventing the
wheel. I hate being the person that has to--I mean, I guarantee
you there are places around this country where you can go--and
we have done it, and we have done it on the Criminal Justice
Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee and brought in best
practices and brought in things that worked everywhere. And
Senator Specter has been one of the leaders in that, and my
former boss, Senator Biden, when he was Chairman of the
Committee, was a leader on that.
But it is one of the things in our time, and it is not--you
know, it is like criticizing the weather. You know, more and
more, media is playing an important part in setting the agenda
for what we do. And I think that what the Inquirer has done
with this series, which laid out, again, a problem that
everybody sitting at this table and anyone who has been
involved in the system--I mean, I would say without a shadow of
a doubt, if we got your predecessors for the last 25 years, sat
them down in a room, just as Lynne Abraham is saying, there is
nothing new under the sun. But I tell you, I am going to be
doing this--I leave in November, and sitting here listening to
this and having listened to it so many times in the past for so
long--now, the ``no snitch'' thing is new, but the
digitalization and modernization of the computer system, the
LEAP program, which was a great program, the discontinuing of
the revenue sharing that went to help the justice system, the
problems of the indigent not getting what they deserve, the
problems of people just walking in and out of the justice
system like a revolving door--it is scary, because I really
think we are reaching a point where these things--we have let
this grow and grow and grow, and I could not agree with you
more. No money at a local level for prosecutors, for defenders,
for modernization, for courts, for the things around the
courts. I mean, this is just--it is very scary to me, because I
have just heard it for so long. And I just hope--and I think
that is the main point the Chairman wants to make, is we have
got to deal with these things. We absolutely have to deal with
them. It is going to eat us alive.
And so the idea that the Inquirer did a series on this is a
good thing, and I am very sympathetic to Lynne Abraham because
having watched these series develop, sometimes they--you know,
to make a point, they stretch things. But I think the fact that
they did this series is very, very important, and the fact that
we are sitting here is very important.
I want to tell you, time is running out. We cannot do this
again. We cannot come back here 10 years from now--I really
believe it from the bottom of my being. We cannot come back 10
years from now and do this again. We have got to do some things
about what has been raised by the panel, things we have to do
in order to do the things that everybody agrees have to be
done.
Chairman Specter. Thank you, Senator Kaufman.
We will now go to 10-minute rounds of questioning, and I
will lead.
A theme which has been mentioned repeatedly has been
funding, a request for the old LEAA, Law Enforcement Assistance
Administration, revenue sharing. Senator Dole made a famous
comment when revenue sharing ended. He said, ``There is no more
revenue to share.'' We have had the stimulus package, the
Recovery Act, $878 billion, in Pennsylvania $16 billion paying
for unemployment compensation now and Medicaid.
There was a lawsuit filed, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,
District Attorney Arlen Specter, in 1973, against Ralph Dennis.
He was a magistrate. You remember him, Justice McCaffery.
Magistrate courts were eliminated in the 1969 Constitution
after the magisterial investigation, which I ran in 1964, and
sought a writ of mandamus to require judges to remain on duty
for 8 hours. We used to have trouble taking the judge's word.
And it was dismissed; no clear right to the relief requested
was the conclusion.
There have been mandamus actions brought to compel public
funding, and the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the
authority of the court to mandamus funding for education in
Kansas City, Missouri, which surprised me in that the
responsibility of taxing has been traditionally legislative,
really loosely legislative.
But what do you think? I will turn to you first, Ms.
Greenlee. You have a question about the adequacy of equality in
the justice system, no doubt about that problem. It is sort of
unthinkable that it was not until 1963 in Gideon v. Wainwright
that there was a constitutional right to have a lawyer. If you
are haled into court, Justice Black said you have a right to a
lawyer. Before that, there was a right to a lawyer in a
homicide case, charged with murder. Betts v. Brady gave us
that.
Would you go so far as to mandamus the legislature, the
city council, the Commonwealth? You said the General Assembly
has ignored the mandamus order in the past. Before taking up
how they got away with it, which I will ask you about, should
we resort to that, compelling the legislative bodies to
appropriate funds?
Ms. Greenlee. If there is actually a way to do it, I think
it is not a bad idea. I am really focused on Pennsylvania,
although this is a national problem, and you see systems
breaking down in Michigan and other States--Louisiana--
throughout the country. There is not sufficient funding for
indigent defense.
In Pennsylvania, though, the system is really, really in
crisis because it is a county-funded system, and the counties
really simply cannot afford to pay for the criminal justice
system with the increase in what they have to handle.
Chairman Specter. How did the General Assembly avoid
complying with the court order, which you referred to earlier?
Ms. Greenlee. Beats me. I think they just simply ignored it
all these years. They simply ignored it and----
Chairman Specter. Was there an application for a contempt
citation? The court has the power to hold people in contempt
who do not follow the judicial orders.
Ms. Greenlee. I am not aware of that. I do not know whether
Justice McCaffery knows anything about it. I am not aware of
anything recent where the court, in effect, ordered the
legislature, other than 1985--I think it did come up since, but
there has been no----
Ms. Abraham. They did. They did.
Ms. Greenlee. Yes. There has been no action by the
legislature.
Chairman Specter. Mr. Justice McCaffery, I am not going to
ask you a question about that subject, but if you care to
comment, I would be interested. I do not want to trespass on
judicial prerogatives.
Justice McCaffery. Senator, obviously I cannot comment on
the case that is currently pending in front of our court
dealing just with this very topic. As I am sure you are well
aware, years ago when it first came up in the Allegheny County
case, former Justice Matamura was tasked by the Supreme Court
to come up with, if you will, a game plan for the assimilation
of the county courts into the Administrative Office of
Pennsylvania Courts. That did, in fact, start with the
administrative officers and deputy court administrators. That
was implemented. It was stalled, again, because of lack of
funding. But to answer the question, there has not been any
mandamus, and the court has been, quite frankly, trying to work
with the legislature, but this year alone Chief Justice
Castille was really handed a huge setback with a $31 million
shortfall in the court budget. We are looking at a legislature
now, Senator, that creates new judgeships, but yet fails to
fund them. They create new programs, but they fail to fund
them. And right now the new thing, if you will, are the
problem-solving courts where I have taken a leading role. But
as we keep pointing out, we are taking the judges and the court
staff out of hide, and we are not getting new judges, we are
not getting new staff personnel, nor can we open up new rooms
because our friends in the Defenders Association and the
district attorney, they do not have enough personnel to fund
it.
One of the things that we are looking at now, Senator, is
all of the things that the courts are doing--and we are doing a
lot. A lot of things have been implemented since the Inquirer
articles. And, by the way, no disrespect to our former district
attorney, but just real fast on that topic, you know, remember,
in 1978 there was a huge study done on the municipal court, and
it became what is known as shelf art. Nothing ever happened
with it. We have seen so many times, myself included, where we
are asking for a change, asking for help, and nothing happened.
But it was not until the Inquirer article came out that we are
now doing things, and the Supreme Court is now implementing
them. The Supreme Court is taking the action. But for--and just
so you know, Senator, that very first day it came out, I went
out and bought out every single Sunday Inquirer at the local
Wawa and sent it to my colleagues all over Pennsylvania--in
Pittsburgh, Dauphin County, Cumberland County--so they could
see firsthand. So that article, that series of articles, helped
us.
Chairman Specter. You say the series of Inquirer articles
has helped the issue by bringing it to the public forum?
Justice McCaffery. Significantly. Whether or not you agree
or disagree with the substance of the articles, but for that
series of articles, the entire Supreme Court has now been
motivated to make the necessary changes, and we are
aggressively pursuing it with all parties involved--defense,
prosecution, courts, prisons, bail. All issues will be
addressed. We have also brought in outside consultants who are
going to prepare a full report, and our Supreme Court is
committed to implementing the changes, and not only as we go
along but----
Chairman Specter. Let me turn to the city representative on
the issue of funding. Right now, President Obama has appointed
a commission to evaluate the entire funding issue nationally,
the issue of revenues, the issue of entitlements. There is no
doubt that--talk about a crisis. The country is in a crisis
with the deficit that we have and the national debt in excess
of $12 trillion. May the record show the D.A. shaking her head
in the affirmative. And we really have to deal with the deficit
and the national debt.
But how would you respond, as the mayor's representative,
Deputy Mayor Gillison, with the issue of funding? What more can
the city do?
Mr. Gillison. Well, I think that the city is obviously
handcuffed by the fact that the revenues that we have lost over
the last 2 years put us in the position where we are trying to
seek efficiencies everywhere. We have actually gone to
Washington--the budget director and the finance director here,
Rob Dubow and Steve Agostini have gone to Washington, have
discussed with the administration there that the TARP funding
and the way that the country rallied in order to save the
banking institutions, we are saying that we should be saving
cities that are--where the rubber hits the road, and to be able
to use some of the monies that have been repaid under the TARP
funding to help cities basically get themselves out and
reallocated those dollars.
I can tell you that----
Chairman Specter. Absent Federal funding, Deputy Mayor
Gillison, what can the city do?
Mr. Gillison. The city can only beg, borrow, and basically
borrow some more.
Chairman Specter. Beg, borrow . . . there was one
additional comment.
Mr. Gillison. I did not get to the last one because we
cannot do that. But we are begging at the State level. We have
been taxing ourselves trying to get down. We have been cutting.
And criminal justice is one area where we took our first cut,
and I have been saying that at this point we cannot cut any
more because basically at this point all we would be cutting is
bodies.
I cannot lay off police officers, really. I cannot lay off
firefighters, really. I cannot go into the prisons where we
have now prisons that are going on and lay those folks off.
And----
Chairman Specter. Before my time expires, I want to come to
Professor Goldkamp on a two-part question. You have a nice
phrase, Professor Goldkamp, ``reverse deterrence.'' I had not
heard deterrence used exactly that way in reverse. But the two-
part question is: With respect to the so-called three strike
rule and the dismissal of cases, I would like your comment on
whether that can stand up, should stand up? And the second part
is about the use of hearsay in preliminary hearings. We all
know that hearsay is used in Federal grand juries. Would you
think it appropriate to have hearsay in preliminary hearings so
the police officer can testify from the report and establish a
prima facie case?
Mr. Goldkamp. Well, we can get back to reverse deterrence,
and I would like to be cautious about commenting on small
pieces of strategies that we hear are emerging without
knowledge of the full approach.
I agree that the problem of dismissals is a huge one, but
it also has been a traditional one. In fact, this is a terrific
example of a problem that exists in every jurisdiction and has
been documented as a major concern since the 1920s, if not
before. When you look at some of the commission reports from
the 1920s and 1930s that were done, dismissals were one of the
biggest issues involved. A principal cause of large numbers of
dismissals is found at the charging stage and that function has
a lot to do with the quality of cases that are sent forward
into the court system. Weak cases do not survive the
preliminary hearing stage. This can happen sometimes as a
result of law enforcement initiatives, for example, when the
system has to handle sweeps that produce large volumes of
arrests. All of the resulting arrests are not the strongest
cases. Often making strong cases is not the point of the law
enforcement actions.
When it comes to ad hoc fixes such as hearsay and the three
strikes, I certainly do share the system's impatience with
difficulties experienced by both sides, including witnesses and
victims, and defendants not showing up. However, I worry about
the ``downstream'' side-effects of such short sighted measures:
Are we making bigger problems in the long-run by putting off
systemic changes today? Some of the causes of these problems
have to do with this culture of alienation which we experience
in Philadelphia. A real good start--with steps by DA Williams
underway--is to review the charging function and to strengthen
that. And if cases arrive in better shape, you will not see
dismissals at the rate that we have been seeing them recently.
But I would step aside from discussing things that are
being worked on without knowledge of the overall plan and
proposals that are only being heard about piece by piece. I
would like to get back to your question about the Inquirer and
whether its coverage was worthwhile or not.
I think that opportunity comes in a time of crisis. Since I
have been around here--and it has been a very long time--we get
things done usually because of litigation or some other kind of
crisis when all of a sudden we have to all get together and
look at everything and come up with some good corrective ideas.
In the current environment what I am concerned about,
however, is making the mistake of producing ad hoc emergency
measures that then do not go away or do not get adjusted later
when the din dies down. We have some such measures still in
effect from the days of the 1990s that need to be re-examined,
as plenty of things do right now.
Chairman Specter. So you mentioned whether the Inquirer
series was worthwhile. What is your bottom line?
Mr. Goldkamp. I think it was very worthwhile not
necessarily because of its accuracy in all areas, but because
of the scope of issues that the series raised. They are
important issues. I think the issues and discussions of
dismissals, fugitives particularly, backlog, and crowding. I
know there are those that think we have cured jail crowding in
Philadelphia. I advise that we take advantage of the little
breathing space that we have regarding jail crowding, to put
reforms in place before the next tidal wave engulfs us one
more.
So the inquirer has pinpointed and made very public some of
our most difficult challenges. Court systems are among the
least funded and most overlooked function in the justice arena,
if you take the court system to mean a broad collection of
various functions and agencies. Everybody just expects them to
work--with or without sufficient resources. Everyone expects
them to accept whatever business shows up at their doorstep,
and yet criticizes them when, all of a sudden, we have
difficulties because we cannot staff the things that we need to
staff to make the system function effectively. Well, that's
where we are.
Chairman Specter. Thank you, Professor Goldkamp.
Senator Kaufman.
Senator Kaufman. Yes, first off, on hearsay, the evidence
is that it works very well in Delaware, having hearsay in
preliminary hearings. And I really do believe going around and
checking with other folks and seeing what works is very
effective, so I would recommend that. And deficits, I discussed
in a minute, Senator Specter and I both really, really, really
care about the deficits. But we are not going to solve the
deficit. If we eliminated all non-defense discretionary
spending, which is about $500 billion, it would not solve a
$1.4 trillion deficit.
So there is a lot of stuff going on in Washington talking
about we are going to eliminate this program--if we eliminated
all the criminal justice programs, if we eliminated the Coast
Guard, if we eliminated the highway fund, if we eliminated all
those things, that is not going to solve the problem. We have
to do something about, as the Chairman spoke about, we have got
to do something about entitlements--Medicare, Medicaid, and
Social Security. We have to do something, figure out where the
money is, defense.
And I will tell you what has been the biggest growing thing
in the deficit is interest on the debt, which interest rates
are low now, it is going to go through the roof. So we need a
major decision on this. I think we have to watch every penny we
spend. But this is a crisis, and this is a national security
crisis. And I think that at some point we are going to have to
get into it.
So what I would like to do, every one of you has spoken a
little bit about what you would like the Federal Government to
get involved in terms of money. What I would like to do is talk
about the budget and then be thinking about some non-budget
things, as Ms. Abraham said about a treaty with Mexico.
So, Justice McCaffery, you talked about the LEA Program, a
new criminal justice program. What would be the very, very high
priority things you would like to see in that?
Justice McCaffery. Quite frankly, I would like to see some
statutory help requiring the proper funding in every State for
the court systems. I think that that is something that
obviously the U.S. Supreme Court has looked at, and I agree
with that, because, quite frankly, the judiciary--even though
we are a co-equal branch of Government, we are treated as a
subsidiary, and we are the ones that go hat in hand at the end
of the day to the budgetary process where our Chief Justice has
to walk into our friends in the legislature, after they have
already, you know, made up their mind on the budget, and then
we get, by the way, less than 1 percent of the State budget.
Less than 1 percent. And I think that it would be only right if
the Federal Government could step up to the plate and mandate
reasonable funding for all criminal justice partners in every
State, because then it would eliminate the requirement for us
to politicize ourselves by walking in and almost begging for
financial support.
Senator Kaufman. Yes, one of the problems we have, I think
it is--and it is not a problem--it really is a problem, and
that is, unfunded mandates. I mean, I think it is very
difficult to get--and the Chairman can comment--I think it is
very difficult these days to get something through the Congress
that is an unfunded mandate where you mandate that the States
have to do something but you do not put the money in it to pay
for it.
Justice McCaffery. Senator, I have spoken to other Justices
from other States, and they have in their States--Ohio is an
example. If the legislature creates a judgeship, it must be
funded.
Senator Kaufman. Right.
Justice McCaffery. Pennsylvania just created 11 new common
pleas judges--11 new, not filling old, 11 new. That is $1
million apiece. That is $11 million that we do not have.
Senator Kaufman. Is there anything else that you--in terms
of anything else the Federal Government should be doing that
you----
Justice McCaffery. I really think that if we could look
back on the LEAP program, really, the Criminal Justice
Assistance Program would go a long way to help all of our--
especially our urban areas because, remember, even though it is
Philadelphia, it is regional. It is Bucks, Montgomery, South
Jersey.
Senator Kaufman. It is Delaware.
Justice McCaffery. Exactly. It is a regional issue, and we
really need to look at--one-third of our defendants in the
criminal justice system in Philadelphia were not from
Philadelphia.
Senator Kaufman. Mr. Gillison, you talked eloquently about
the need for digitalization and things. What would be the top
priority if, in fact----
Mr. Gillison. There are two, and technology is at the root
of both. Obviously, digitalization, technology improvements. I
know the Federal Government likes to invest in things that it
can not only touch but see and see the effect.
The other thing is that we have to start really talking
about an interconnected way of dealing with how you advise
people on their rights.
One of the things that you have to be sensitive to is what
Ms. Abraham was talking about when she said that the mental
health situation in the prisons is because there is no funding
in the mental health courts--or the mental health situations
outside of the prisons, so they are becoming the de facto
place.
So we have the mental health situation impacting on prisons
where prisons have really not guide--you know, they're to be
there. So I would end up looking at how do we end up
interconnecting those particular agencies--mental health, the
prisons, and be able to use release of information forms so
people's rights are protected, but if you happen to be in a
prison, if you happen to be there, you can still get what you
need and funding for it that goes with it. So that the place
that you get the treatment should actually--the money should
actually follow the person rather than just artificially saying
that because I am not in an outpatient facility I cannot access
certain dollars. If you are inside and you are getting help,
why should your dollars be cut off?
So that is something that the Federal Government actually
has and stands in the way right now, and if we could get that
kind of cooperation, I think that would help us as well.
Senator Kaufman. Ms. Greenlee, do you want to give a little
bit of the indigent problem, what the Federal Government should
do in indigent defense?
Ms. Greenlee. Well, I think the main thing for me would be
to have parity of resources between prosecution and defense. I
think that is the main issue. For instance, in the area of
digital technology, we have for years tried to get funding for
our computers to get up to speed, to be able to have electronic
files. We are still in the paper stage in terms of our files,
passing files around. We have been turned down by the
Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency and actually
turned down by the city of Philadelphia repeatedly in the last
20 years.
So I think that raises that issue of parity of resources,
and I think also to give some life to the idea of loan
forgiveness for people who are serving in public interest jobs
would encourage people to be able to work in our jobs. We ask
our young lawyers for a commitment of 3 years, and it is really
a struggle for them, with the loans that they bring with them,
to be able to do this job. So I would lump it under the issue
of parity of resources both for prosecution and for defense.
Senator Kaufman. Mr. Goldkamp, you talked about fugitives,
but I have a feeling there are some other areas of interest
that you might have where the Federal Government should be
involved.
Mr. Goldkamp. Sure. I would say two areas. First, the
courts--and the whole justice system but principally the
courts--have become the social service institution of last
resort, and I have had lots to do and been involved in the
development of what you call special courts over the years.
They all start with little grants, and then you walk off, and
you say, Do a good job and go get a big target population and
make a difference, but funds are out because you have used your
three things and that is all you get. And now the courts are
stuck with all sorts of different kinds of very good special
courts, but talk about an unfunded mandate. So I think that is
an issue.
But here is the big one that is very broad, and it is the
wave of the future. We are going to be managing larger numbers
of defendants and offenders in the community. There is no help
for it. Parolees, probationers, and defendants. We lack hard-
nosed methods that have been tested, tried and true. The
district attorney has mentioned a few of those, but there are a
whole variety of kinds of things that we need. So we better
learn pretty soon how to manage safely--and this does take
resources because it involves public safety, people in the
community, appropriately. And that is--I would say that
fugitives, however, we do not even know how to measure
fugitives. When we think of the problem of fugitives, in
Philadelphia, we have peeked under the skirt of fugitives. It
is a secret thing, and all sorts of other places. It is
something that is not known in the country. We need to learn
how to measure that.
And, finally, I would say there is one thing--and I agree
with the district attorney on this--that is not about funding,
and that is political will. And often we substitute crisis for
political will to make change that we already know needs to
occur. So if you could give us a little political will, I think
we would all greatly benefit. Thank you.
[Laughter.]
Senator Kaufman. I am not even going to touch that.
Ms. Abraham.
Ms. Abraham. Well, could I speak to it and then I will--I
am always in an alternative universe, so let me bring up some
things that have not yet been touched upon.
Obviously, with all the hoo-ha about the Arizona law that
recently passed, we are forgetting that one of the most
important issues facing the criminal justice system is how do
we protect our borders from a national security point of view,
but also immigrants who are here illegally. I do not care what
you call them--undocumented. They are not here lawfully. They
are illegal immigrants. How do we handle the issue of criminal
justice issues with illegal immigrants? Never mind the--and the
language barrier and the cultural barriers and everything else.
I think that part of our criminal justice system of things
that do not directly impact us locally--and I will get to a
couple local things in a minute, but human body parts, a
cadaver, illegal use of cadavers and transportation into this
country, that is a huge issue.
Obviously, narcoterrorism has involved a tremendous amount
of the Senate and the House's time and the President's time,
which I, of course, support.
Another great issue coming along that is going to hit us in
ways that we do not even contemplate are the massive computer
hacking issues that come from countries that not even the
Federal Government can handle, from China to Nigeria, to
Australia, to wherever it is, the massive computer hacking that
violates not only our national security and imperils our very
safety, but also because its global scale has direct relation
to criminal conduct, whether it is identity theft, fake
passports, invasion of our privacy, whatever that means under
today's lack of privacy, credit card frauds, house stealing--
you know, all kinds of fake documents including what is getting
to be our national identity card, our driver's license.
Human trafficking of both adults and children is an
unbelievable issue, and for us, probably more locally than
globally, scientific enhancements.
You know, I remember that prosecutors used to go crazy when
they first started to talk about DNA. And then we discovered
that it was probably one of the best things to happen. DNA
helps prosecutors. Now we are faced with the National Science
Academy, NSA, coming up with all kinds of new scientific
gizmos. If you think that the issues that Justice McCaffery and
Everett and Ellen and John and I have been talking about are
big, wait until we get hit with all this new kind of scientific
stuff that is going to be required, not only that our labs be,
let us say, ASCLD certified, but how are we going to be
handling all this super-scientific stuff that nobody has the
capacity to buy or learn or do, but which are going to be
imposed upon us by the courts because that is the wave of the
future?
It is sort of like the prison cap in reverse. The Prison
Litigation Reform Act, which I lobbied for and my office helped
to write, was great. It stopped judges from imposing prison
caps. So what do the judges do? Now they started to change it.
No more prison caps. We are going to change the conditions of
imprisonment. We are going to insist that the prisons put this
kind of program in, without a concern for what the cost, the
human cost is. Ask Justice McCaffery. He is laughing over
there.
I think that there are so many things that are going to be
driven by just the irreducible minimum. Obviously, from my
point of view, political will, the desire to change--I am a
change agent. I am always throwing spears and trying to make
changes. Political will is one thing, but when it is the
irreducible minimum, it is all going to be in dollars. That is
where the rubber meets the road. And whether you have a $12
trillion deficit or a $15 quintillion deficit, the problems are
still going to be hanging around our necks until we have
sufficient resources to address them in a humane and a
comprehensive fashion.
Senator Kaufman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Specter. Thank you, Senator Kaufman.
Ms. Greenlee, the issue about loans has been addressed to a
very substantial extent in a recent reconciliation bill, which
provides for loan forgiveness, and I am a cosponsor of the John
R. Justice Prosecutors and Defenders bill, which specifies loan
forgiveness for defenders.
Ms. Greenlee. Right.
Chairman Specter. Well, thank you all very much. One final
question. Is there anything specifically, aside from the
funding issue, that you would like to see legislation on? Now
is a good time with a couple Judiciary Committee members
listening.
Ms. Greenlee. No more laws. We have enough to see us into
the next millennium.
[Laughter.]
Justice McCaffery. Senator, can you get the SERVE Act
passed for our veterans?
Chairman Specter. For veterans, yes, we can. I think we
will move ahead on that.
Senator Kaufman. Let me tell you one thing about--you know,
everybody talks about bipartisanship in Washington and how hard
it is. There are a number of issues that you always get
bipartisan support--I have never seen it in all the years I
have been around the Senate--and that is veterans. I mean, you
sit in a hearing, and it is just like, ``What can we do more
for our veterans?'' And, you know, what our people do, what our
folks are doing, especially in Afghanistan and Iraq right now,
is--I mean, the sacrifices they are making, their families are
making, and I am so proud of the Congress because we are
putting out really good things to take care of veterans that
come back but also take care of our veterans from previous
wars. It is really a bipartisan issue. It goes right to the
bone.
Justice McCaffery. Senator Kaufman, Senator Specter held
hearings in Pittsburgh. I flew out for the hearings in support
of our veterans courts, serving veterans with post-traumatic
stress disorder. Our district attorney's office, our public
defender's office are working here in Philadelphia County, but
they have opened in Allegheny County, Scranton, Pennsylvania,
and here. And we are trying to get them statewide, but, again,
it all comes down to funding. And I know--I believe both of you
gentlemen were cosponsors of the SERVE Act, along with Senator
Kerry, but we need that money into the States to help our
veterans with the VA. And, by the way, the VA has been
absolutely wonderful in supporting our programs. Thank you.
Chairman Specter. Justice McCaffery, I think that
legislation has a good chance. For those who do not know the
contours of it, it provides for a veterans court where the
court has special sensitivity to what the veteran has gone
through. A veteran comes into court with post-traumatic stress
disorder might explain what goes on and that you need--it is
very useful to have some expertise by the judge, by the court
in dealing with that. I have legislation pending under the
caption of a Veterans Bill of Rights which deals with a number
of items. One of them is expanding the veterans court. Another
is the plan to eliminate homelessness for veterans and the
issue of tax credits to employ veterans. But as Senator Kaufman
points out, that is a big, big issue, and that is one which is
being addressed on a bipartisan basis.
Well, thank you, Justice McCaffery----
Ms. Abraham. Could I just take a point of privilege,
Senator, since you asked? I know that you and others on the
Senate Judiciary Committee and elsewhere have supported Senator
Webb's----
Chairman Specter. Crime Commission.
Ms. Abraham. What is it called?
Chairman Specter. Crime Commission. I am the cosponsor----
Ms. Abraham. The Crime Commission of 2010----
Chairman Specter. Webb-Specter.
Ms. Abraham. Yes. The preamble to his putting this bill up
for consideration got me a little bit nervous when he tried to
compare China's imprisonment system to ours and Japan's. But
let that go for the time being. The bill has been voted on, and
there is going to apparently be a commission. All I am going to
request is that when the commission--which seems to be very,
very small--is considered, it be enlarged because I do not
think the commission membership number is broad enough to be a
comprehensive review of the criminal justice system. And I will
volunteer my services to be a member of the commission if you
see me fit to serve.
Chairman Specter. OK. Thank you, Justice McCaffery, D.A.
Abraham, Deputy Mayor Gillison, Ms. Greenlee, and Professor
Goldkamp.
That concludes our hearing. Thank you all.
[Whereupon, at 10:39 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follow.]
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