Federal Public Defenders

The Sixth Amendment guarantees the assistance of counsel, and in Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963 the Supreme Court held that states must provide lawyers to poor defendants in serious criminal cases. Congress responded for the federal courts with the Criminal Justice Act of 1964, which pays for defense counsel, and 1970 amendments authorized full-time federal public defender offices. Today federal defender organizations serve nearly all of the ninety-four judicial districts.

The system has two parts. Federal public defender offices and community defender organizations employ salaried lawyers, investigators, and paralegals who represent most eligible defendants. Private attorneys appointed from Criminal Justice Act panels, paid hourly by the courts, take the remaining cases and those where a conflict of interest prevents the defender office from serving. Together they represent the large majority of people charged with federal crimes.

Unlike prosecutors, who are part of the Justice Department, federal defenders are funded through the judiciary's Defender Services appropriation, which places them in the unusual position of depending on the courts before which they argue. Funding shortfalls have repeatedly disrupted the system, and in 2025 the courts suspended payments to panel attorneys for several months when the money ran out, prompting concern about delays in cases and the right to counsel.