Court Opinion

ID: 9470965
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:21:59.02309+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:12.830751
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Section 3006A(d)(l) of the Criminal Justice Act of 1964, 18 U.S.C. § 3006A (1976) (“the Act”), provides that appointed counsel be compensated “at a rate not exceeding $30 per hour for time expended in court or before a United States Magistrate and $20 per hour for time expended out of court.” This section also empowers the Judicial Council of each circuit to fix compensation at “such other hourly rate, ... not to exceed the minimum hourly scale established by a bar association for similar services rendered in the district.” Id. In response to the recommendation of a bar association, the Bar Association of the Seventh Federal Circuit, the Judicial Council of the Seventh Circuit approved an increase in fees from $30 to $55 per hour for time spent in court and from $20 to $45 per hour for time spent out of court.
Although the majority purports to recognize “policy considerations weighing for or against a particular construction of the statute,” it inexplicably travels a rather tortuous and selective journey to hold that the Judicial Council lacked authority to increase the hourly rates paid to court-appointed attorneys under the Act. The majority’s conclusion necessarily rests on the following premises: first, that the existence of a local bar association minimum fee scale is a condition precedent to the Judicial Council’s authority to alter hourly rates; second, that only a fee scale of the type held violative of the antitrust laws in Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 44 L.Ed.2d 572 (1975), will suffice; and third, because Goldfarb invalidated such fee scales, this section of the Act has been voided, and it is up to Congress to amend the Act. Because my review of the Act and its legislative history reveals no support for the first two assumptions, because the third need not be reached, and because in any view the majority’s holding ignores the well settled tenet that “in interpreting a statute, the court will not look merely to a particular clause in which general words may be used, but will take in connection with it the whole statute and the objects and policy of the law,” Brown v. Duchesne, 19 How. 183, 194, 15 L.Ed. 595 (1857), quoted in Bob Jones University v. United States,-U.S. -, -, 103 S.Ct. 2017, 2025-26, 76 L.Ed.2d 157 (1983), I respectfully dissent.
I
The majority correctly notes that the starting point is the language of the statute itself. Section 3006A(d)(l) authorizes a Ju*1259dicial Council to set compensation at “such other hourly rate,” and that this rate may not “exceed the minimum hourly scale established by a bar association for similar services rendered in the district.” Following a selective review of this section’s legislative history, the majority concludes that “Congress presumed that such a fee schedule would exist before a Judicial Council would be authorized to increase or decrease the hourly rates.” Although I concede that the legislative history is far from clear, and that it may appear the majority and I are merely emphasizing different portions of legislative history, I do so in favor of “a construction that bestows the benefits of the Act on those for whom it was chiefly intended.” Ralpho v. Bell, 569 F.2d 607, 608 (D.C.Cir.1977).
At the outset, it is clear Congress was well aware that not all jurisdictions had established minimum fee scales. The report from the Committee on the Judiciary notes that “[a] 1970 publication of the American Bar Association, entitled ‘Minimum Fee Schedules,’ indicates ... that 46 States have minimum hourly rates for legal office work set by bar associations and that in 20 of these States the minimum is less than $20.”1 H.R.Rep. No. 1546, 91st Cong., 2d Sess. 9, reprinted in 1970 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3982, 3990. The recognition that Congress understood not all districts had minimum fee scales serves to put the various remarks made by the bill’s sponsors in perspective. For example, Representative Kastenmeier, upon whose comments the majority places great weight, stated that “[i]f in a particular case the judicial council feels that the hourly máximums are inadequate, it is nevertheless limited to [a] minimum rate, if any, set by a bar association.” 116 Cong.Rec. 34, 811 (1970) (emphasis added).
The majority’s conclusion that a Judicial Council is powerless absent a bar association fee scale results in large part from its perception that Congress feared delegating such spending power to the Judicial Councils. I find this concern unsupportable for two reasons. First, it is apparent that Congress declined to empower bar associations with discretion to set appropriate fees. Again, it was Representative Kastenmeier who explained that “[njothing in the legislation delegates the authority of Congress to determine rates of compensation to local bar associations.” 116 Cong.Rec. 34,811 (1970) (emphasis added). See also remarks of Representative Biester, id. at 34,812 (“It should also be pointed out that the Judicial Council has the power under this language, and not a local bar association.”) (emphasis added). The majority’s insistence that a fee scale is a condition precedent delegates to a bar association exactly this type of control: in areas where the statutory rates of $20 and $30 per hour were in fact higher than the “going rate,” there would be little incentive for a bar association to establish a fee scale which would allow the Judicial Council to lower compensation. And under the majority’s analysis, the Council would be unable to act in the absence of such a scale. This result is directly contrary to the expressed purpose of the amendment, which was to ensure “that the bill is neither a bonanza for some lawyers to get more than the going rate in that town, nor an empty shell which will not be used because the rates are below the going charge in those towns.” Id. (remarks of Rep. [now Circuit Judge] Mikva).
Second, the majority’s concern that “judicial councils would be left with virtually unrestrained authority to increase or decrease the maximum hourly rates,” see ante at 1256, loses considerable force when viewed in conjunction with the virtually unrestrained authority delegated to the judiciary under other sections of the Act. For example, the Judicial Council is charged with supervisory power over district courts to implement the Act (section 3006A(a)), is *1260authorized to “supplement the plan with provisions for representation on appeal” (id), and may direct the district courts to modify any aspect of the plan (id). The district court has discretion to appoint counsel in any case where “the interests of justice so require,” (section 3006A(g)), and, with the approval of the chief judge of the circuit, may waive the maximum compensation limit of the Act (section 3006A(d)(3)). I suspect that any number of choices made by a Judicial Council or a district court under the above provisions would have an equal impact on the money spent to ensure representation of criminal defendants as would raising the hourly compensation.
The majority points to the waiver provision in section 3006A(d)(3) as proof that “Congress intended to retain control over expenditures under the Act” because this section provides “specific guidelines and standards” for when waiver is appropriate. I find, however, that a standard such as “necessary to provide fair compensation” still “leave[s] something to be desired,” United States v. Bailey, 581 F.2d 984, 989 (D.C.Cir.1978), and in the final analysis must still be viewed “by everyday judicial experience.” Id. I conclude that the statute delegates authority to modify the hourly rates to the Judicial Council, and that this authority was not intended to be circumscribed by a local bar association.
II
Even assuming that an hourly scale established by a bar association is a condition precedent to raising the rates paid under the Act, in my view the issue in this case is whether the recommendation from the Bar Association of the Seventh Federal Circuit to the Judicial Council satisfies this condition. In answering this question in the negative, the majority appears to embrace alternative theories: first, that Goldfarb v. Virginia State Bar, 421 U.S. 773, 95 S.Ct. 2004, 44 L.Ed.2d 572 (1975), rendered all fee schedules invalid under the Sherman Act; and, second, that in the absence of a Goldfarb schedule, the Judicial Council is stripped of its authority to alter the hourly fees payable under the Act.
In my view, the first assumption requires little discussion. The majority finds that “[i]n the wake of the Goldfarb decision, minimum fee schedules have been abolished .... ” Ante at 1251. The fee schedule at issue in Goldfarb, however, “was enforced through the prospect of professional discipline from the State Bar, and the desire of attorneys to comply with announced professional norms.” 421 U.S. at 781, 95 S.Ct. at 2010. The Supreme Court expressly noted that “[a] purely advisory fee schedule issued to provide guidelines, or an exchange of price information without a showing of an actual restraint on trade, would present us with a different question.” Id. (emphasis added). In this case, no one alleges that the recommendation from the Bar Association of the Seventh Federal Circuit was binding on any attorney, much less that this association has any power or intent to enforce such a recommendation. For those reasons, I find Goldfarb inapplicable.2
The issue then becomes whether the recommendation to the Judicial Council constitutes a “minimum hourly scale established by a bar association for similar services rendered in the district” as intended under the Act. The majority finds that “the legislative history demonstrates that ... Congress contemplated the existence of an established minimum fee schedule like that involved in Goldfarb,” ante at 1256 n. 6, yet no demonstrations of such legislative history are supplied. Apart from my reluctance to attribute to Congress prophetic *1261and self-destructive powers such that in 1970 the sole type of fee scale it contemplated was the type five years later to be held invalid in Goldfarb, I am unable to discern any indication from the legislative history of this section that only an enforced, mandatory fee schedule would trigger the authority of the Judicial Council to increase hourly fees. To the contrary, all indicia of legislative intent lead to the conclusion that the recommendation furnished in this case is precisely the kind of local, advisory input required under the statute.
The crucial underpinning of the Supreme Court’s decision in Goldfarb was the fact that the state bar association had both the power to enforce the minimum fee schedule and apparently little reservation in wielding that power. A necessary corollary of this finding is that the attorneys subject to this disciplinary power were members of the Virginia State Bar Association, for the state bar association would have no control over the fees charged by attorneys not licensed in that state. It follows, then, that if the sponsors of section 3006A(d)(l) indeed contemplated the existence of a Goldfarb fee schedule (as the majority holds), they would have made membership in a state bar association mandatory. The legislative history of the Act refutes this reasoning. As pointed out above, Congress was aware that not all states had established minimum fee schedules. Moreover, Representative Kastenmeier expressly rejected the suggestion that bar membership was a prerequisite to compensation under the Act. In response to the question whether “an attorney who is going to participate in this system has to belong to the bar in the State in which he is practicing,” Representative Kastenmeier replied that “[tjhere is no provision in this bill establishing that as a matter of practice,” and that “[t]his would be a matter entirely up to the Court.” 116 Cong.Rec. at 34,813. It is therefore illogical to assume that the statute depends upon a Goldfarb schedule for its vitality where the necessary predicate for such a schedule, membership in a state bar association, was specifically rejected by Congress.
Finally, any mention of the statute’s requirement of an “hourly scale” reveals an extremely liberal use of that term. It is referred to as a “bar association rate,” the “going rate,” and a rate “left to the judge, not to the bar association, and it is hoped it will in fact reflect what the private practitioner charges in those jurisdictions.” Id. at 34,812 (remarks of Rep. Mikva). I conclude that the recommendation given the Judicial Council in this case is an “hourly scale” as used in this section for “similar services rendered.”
Ill
In summary, I find that section 3006A(d)(l) authorizes the Judicial Council to increase hourly rates paid attorneys appointed under the Act, and that this authority is limited only by a minimum hourly scale, “if any.” Furthermore, even assuming that a fee scale need exist for the Judicial Council to act, I conclude that the recommendation of the Bar Association of the Seventh Federal Circuit was sufficient. I therefore dissent.

. The majority, in footnote 3, ante, “fail[s] to understand” how congressional awareness that not all states had fee schedules supports my position, and simply finds that the Act would not be operative in such states. This interpretation, however, is contrary to “the generally accepted principle that Congress normally intends that its laws shall operate uniformly throughout the nation so that the federal program will remain unimpaired.” Reconstruction Finance Corp. v. Beaver County, 328 U.S. 204, 209, 66 S.Ct. 992, 995, 90 L.Ed. 1172 (1945).

. Even granting arguendo that the existence of a fee schedule is a condition precedent for action by the Judicial Council, I therefore need not reach the question of severability the majority feels compelled to address. It is compelled because of its view that only an illegal fee schedule can satisfy the statute, a view not only refuted by the discussion above, but at odds with the familiar principle that statutes should be construed so as to be effective. See FTC v. Manager, Retail Credit Co., 515 F.2d 988, 994 (D.C.Cir.1975) (“The presumption against interpreting a statute in a way which renders it ineffective is hornbook law.”). Because under my interpretation the statute can be satisfied by a legal fee schedule (assuming the necessity of such a schedule), the question whether a statute whose condition precedent is always illegal should be saved by severing the illegal condition does not arise.