Under fire from lawmakers for planning high-dollar conference in Hawaii this August, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals defended the meeting as an important “investment” into fulfilling its responsibilities.
” The Conference is cost efficient and a productive investment into the administration of justice in the western states,” the Ninth Circuit stated in an online summary of its response to congressional inquiries. The Ninth Circuit’s Hawaii trip comes as other circuit courts cancel their conferences or hold them in lower-cost venues, such as Chicago, in order to avoid spending money.
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Two Republican senators described the court as “defiantly unapologetic” about the conference costs. “We remain deeply concerned about the conference’s overall costs, as well as the lavish recreational schedule, given that the event is subsidized by taxpayers,” said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., in a joint statement. “They show no indication of changing their financial behavior in the future.”
“The practice of law in the federal courts is always challenging and frequently changing,” the judges maintained. “The Ninth Circuit Judicial Conference enables judges, lawyers and court administrators to keep pace by providing an exceptional educational program and the opportunity to efficiently conduct numerous business meetings in one place at one time.”
The conference will include a discussion of legal ethics, “racial disparities in the criminal process . . . why some racial or ethnic groups are far more heavily represented in the prison population,” and privacy laws — “what is the government learning about us?”
