[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 60 (Friday, May 9, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4278-S4279]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        AMERICA'S JUSTICE SYSTEM

  Mr. DORGAN. Finally, Mr. President, on a subject I came to the floor 
to speak about for a couple of minutes, I have been to the floor of the 
Senate repeatedly to talk about our justice system. Our judicial 
system, in many respects, is a remarkable and interesting system. In 
some respects, it is broken.
  I have talked on this floor of case after case of violent crimes, 
committed

[[Page S4279]]

by violent criminals, who we knew were violent, but yet were turned out 
of prison, and in many cases turned them out of prison or jail early 
because they earned good time for early release.
  Parole, probation, early release for good time means that the young 
boy I have spoken about on the floor of the Senate, Jonathan Hall, 
murdered, stabbed over 50 times, by a man who had kidnapped and 
murdered twice before and was out early on good time, living in young 
Jonathan Hall's neighborhood, killed that young boy and threw him down 
a pond. The young boy, when they found him, had dirt and grass between 
his fingers, because he obviously had not been dead, despite being 
stabbed 50 times, and tried to climb out of the pond before he died.
  Why was he dead? Because someone was let out of jail early to live in 
that neighborhood and kill young Jonathan.
  Bettina Pruckmayr, a young woman who came to Washington, excited 
about a wonderful future, stabbed many, many times by someone at an ATM 
machine, someone who had been in jail and let out of jail early, who 
should never have been let out on the streets. I will come again to 
talk about that.
  It is disgraceful that the average sentence served for committing 
murder in this country is 7\1/2\ years. The average sentence served in 
jail or prison is 7\1/2\ years--that is a broken system.
  There is more to the broken system that I want to mention today. That 
is the trial that is now going on in Denver, CO, about the Oklahoma 
City bombing case. I will not talk about the merits or what I think 
about the case, but I want to talk about something that is haywire in 
the public defender system.
  The 6th amendment to the Constitution offers a right to every 
American to a fair trial. Therefore, an indigent defendant has a right 
to a public defender. We have an alleged murderer on trial in Denver 
who drove a truck up in front of a courthouse and killed many, many 
people. No one will forget the memory of the fireman holding that young 
child from the day care center in his arms, dead as a result of some 
murderous coward who decided to kill innocent people with a truck bomb.
  Now, what happens when someone who is indigent is arrested and goes 
on trial for committing a crime of that type? Let me tell you what 
happens.
  The public defender system in this country today offers that 
defendant, on trial now in Denver, 14 attorneys. Yes, Mr. McVeigh has 
14 lawyers working for him, paid for by us, and 6 investigators on top 
of the 14 lawyers. We are also paying 25 expert witnesses, and we paid 
for 9 foreign trips by his lawyers and his investigators to Israel, 
trips to Italy, Great Britain, Syria, Jordan, Hong Kong, the 
Philippines, and all these trips were paid for by the American taxpayer 
under the public defender system, which offers someone who allegedly 
committed murder by a truck bomb at the Oklahoma City courthouse offers 
him 14 lawyers, 6 investigators, 25 witnesses, and 9 foreign trips to 8 
foreign countries. It is estimated to cost $10 million of taxpayers' 
money for a defense.
  I support the sixth amendment. I support public defenders being 
offered to indigent people accused of crimes. But, Mr. President, the 
Administrative Office of the Courts estimates that there is a 68-
percent jump in the cost of court-appointed attorneys in Federal 
capital cases. In 1 year alone, there is a 68-percent jump in the cost. 
The Administrative Office of the Courts will overrun 1997 
appropriations for these expenditures. The appropriation was $308 
million. It will overrun by $25 million.
  Now, I am not a lawyer. I suppose some will say, well, you need to 
understand this. I do not understand this. The sixth amendment 
guarantees the right to a fair trial. I believe it guarantees the right 
for an indigent defendant to be given a defense, and for that defense 
to be paid for by the American taxpayer. I do not believe any twisted 
interpretation of that should persuade us, the American taxpayer, to 
pay for 14 lawyers, 6 investigators, 25 expert witnesses, and trips to 
foreign countries in a case like the Oklahoma City bombing case.
  Now, I don't know what the answer is. But I know this is broken. I am 
hoping, as I sift through this with some of my colleagues, that we can 
find a way, yes, to preserve the rights under the sixth amendment to 
every defendant, but to stop this sort of nonsense. The records, 
incidentally, in this case are sealed, so we don't know exactly what 
has been spent. It has been estimated that from $3 million to $10 
million, in early April, was spent in this circumstance. But when I see 
this sort of thing happening, I get angry again about a judicial system 
that seems broken. I am tired of people being let out of jail early to 
kill again. We have over 3,000 people in prison in this country right 
now who were in for having committed a murder and, while they were out 
early, have committed another capital crime. At least 3,000 families 
ought to feel that someone is an accomplice when they let out a known 
violent criminal early only to commit murder again.
  That system is broken, and one more evidence of a broken system is 
the lack, somehow, of restraint in a circumstance where we take a 
public defender requirement under the sixth amendment and decide this 
is a pot of money that has no bottom, hire as many lawyers as you want, 
and somebody will say, yes, dig as deep as you like and some will say, 
yes, because the old taxpayer pays for that. There ought to be a limit, 
and we ought to start talking about it when we see this kind of twisted 
logic resulting in this kind of waste. I think it is time for Congress 
to act.
  Do I know the specific answer? No, I don't. But I think we need to 
define, decide, and discuss limits in this area, so we tell those folks 
involved in the public defender system that there is a limit. No, there 
is not a limit on sixth amendment rights, but there is a limit on the 
use of taxpayer funds to hire 6, 8, 10, 12, or 14 lawyers. It is time 
that we use a little common sense. I hope when we come around on the 
appropriations side--and I am on the Appropriations Committee--and look 
at appropriating again in this account, we can start thinking about how 
this money ought to be used. Is there a sensible limit? I sure hope to 
be one of those who helps to find that out in the future.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LIEBERMAN addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Burns). The Senator from Connecticut.

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