The ongoing federal government shutdown is starting to have dire consequences at Chicago’s Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, where money has run out to pay staff and some jury trials have already been canceled amid growing uncertainty.
In one bit of good news, however, the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts notified all federal courts nationwide this week that there are sufficient funds to continue to pay jurors and grand jurors for up to about three months.
U.S. District Chief Judge Virginia Kendall told the Tribune on Friday that the announcement was “out of the blue,” but the exact date the funding would run out was unclear.
“I think we have funding to make it to the end of the year as far as paying jurors,” Kendall said.
Still, the ongoing shutdown, which began Oct. 1 and currently has no end in sight, prompted Kendall to announce Friday the U.S. District Courts in Chicago are now entering “Phase 2” of its shutdown operations, stopping salary payments to courthouse employees and reducing operations at the clerk’s office to only “excepted activities” such as constitutional functions.
While the courthouse will remain open, Kendall said that workers — from docketing employees to clerks and courtroom staff — will get their last paycheck on Oct. 24. After that, they’ll be working without pay as “excepted” employees in order to keep the court’s constitutional functions running, she said.
Kendall said the courthouse staff is keeping a stiff upper lip, but the prospect of working without pay is daunting especially in an uncertain economy.
“Regardless of your political position, it’s critical that the court has stay open for those seeking redress, and it’s unfortunate that Congress is not understanding that those individuals working to keep it open are citizens who need to support their families,” Kendall said.
The shutdown initially affected only civil litigation involving the United States as a party since the court keeps a reserve of funds that allow most operations to continue.
Despite that, judges in several criminal cases at the Dirksen courthouse this week decided to move jury trials that were imminent to avoid having to shut it down in the middle of proceedings.
Among the cases postponed was that of Antoine Larry, a police officer in south suburban Phoenix who had been scheduled to go on trial Wednesday on charges he shook down drug dealers for money.
Also canceled was the trial starting Wednesday of Jawad Fakroune, a Moroccan national accused of threatening and assaulting a Chicago restaurateur to collect a debt Fakroune claimed he was owed. In a minute order last week, U.S. District Judge Manish Shah said the “uncertainty” surrounding the lapse in appropriations could affect the ability to summon jurors in the near future.
“Although circumstances could change between now and (the start of trial), the court concludes that resetting the trial will allow the parties a better opportunity to reasonably and effectively prepare for the trial,” Shah wrote. Fakroune’s trial was reset for January.
Kendall said that because of the way jurors are called in for service, some judges went forward with canceling trials before it was known this week that funding would indeed be available to pay the panel. She said she’s since told the 34 district judges that “If you have a trial this year and you haven’t canceled yet, I think we have funding to make it to the end of the year.”
While government shutdowns — and threatened ones — have affected the courts numerous times over the past decade and a half, the situation this year is the most serious since 2013, when federal workers who were deemed “essential” reported to work but went without paychecks until Congress later approved the money.
At the U.S. attorney’s office that year, about a third of its 300 employees — mostly from its civil litigation and support staff — were sent home during the budget stalemate. Most of the office’s approximately 125 criminal prosecutors are exempt from budget-related furloughs, and their work would not be affected.
Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for current U.S. Attorney Andrew Boutros, said Friday the office had furloughed about a quarter of its staff, also mostly civil litigation and support employees.
Kendall said the Federal Defender Program, the not-for-profit that represents clients who can’t pay for their own lawyer, has told her they have enough funding to last through November.
How long the shutdown lasts this time around is anyone’s guess, but there is no doubt the money will run out eventually.
In 2013, then-U.S. District Chief Judge Ruben Castillo told the Tribune that if the stalemate hadn’t been resolved, he was prepared to send a doomsday email that would have halted all trials at the busy downtown courthouse because he had no more money to pay jurors and court-appointed attorneys or cover other costs of a trial.
Officials in Washington had told Castillo to give jurors IOUs for their service if necessary — something he refused to do.
jmeisner@chicagotribune.com
