FEDERAL COURTS LOW ON MONEY FOR JURORS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, April 8, 1993                   TAG: 9304080137
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short
FEDERAL COURTS LOW ON MONEY FOR JURORS
The federal judiciary says it is rapidly running out of money to pay lawyers appointed by the courts to represent indigent defendants and is evidently upset with the Clinton administration for not rushing to the rescue.
Officials of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts said Wednesday the fund to pay attorneys assigned by the courts under the Criminal Justice Act will run dry in May.
A separate $68.9 million account to pay jurors in criminal and civil cases also is getting low, they said. The U.S. Judicial Conference's eight-member executive committee Wednesday reaffirmed its March decision that there be no more jury trials in civil cases after May 12.
"Other people have asked if we're crying wolf, but I think the numbers speak for themselves," said David A. Sellers, spokesman for the Administrative Office. "We also have a duty to notify the judges of this crisis. Never have we faced the danger of running out of money for civil jury trials and court-appointed lawyers in the same year."
Deputy Director James E. Macklin Jr. said Wednesday that "we might give them an IOU" if Congress fails to act. He said the plan to postpone civil jury trials - in order to keep the criminal cases going through the end of the fiscal year - was reconsidered by the judges Wednesday, partly because of a 1986 appellate-court decision suggesting that "you can't do this."
- The Washington Post

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB