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In 2020, President Donald Trump sent federal police to Portland to protect the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse from property damage committed by protesters. In 1997, WW examined the newly finished building's extraordinary price tag—and found "a monument to waste and Mark Hatfield's ego." Here's the story, from Nov. 12, 1997.
By BOB YOUNG
Charlie Turner and Peter DeFazio couldn't be more different. Turner is the former U.S. attorney for Oregon, a born-again Christian conservative who was appointed by Ronald Reagan. DeFazio is the ornery Democrat from Eugene who was once denounced as a "socialist" by a fellow Oregon congressman.
The two men don't agree on much, but they do share one belief: Portland's new $129 million Mark O. Hatfield Federal Courthouse is scandalous.
It may seem a little late to criticize the new courthouse: The ribbon on the 17-story monolith gets cut this week.
But only now has information surfaced that reveals just how unnecessary Oregon's most expensive high-rise building truly is.
The project received federal funding from Congress in 1992 because local federal judges argued that their workload would explode in the next 30 years and that many more judges—each entitled to his or her own courtroom—were needed.
But Willamette Week's analysis of judicial workloads shows that the predictions for growth were vastly overstated. Last year, for instance, the judges handled fewer cases than in each of the previous two years.
A recent study by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, also found that the new courtrooms—each bigger than the average house in the region—will be used about as frequently as a summer beach home.
To some critics, the construction of the new federal courthouse is not surprising, despite the apparent lack of need for it. The size, scope and majesty of the skyscraper is more a reflection of the awesome power of federal judges and former senator Hatfield than the actual needs of the federal bench, they say.
Anyone who doubts the sway of federal judges and the building's namesake need only look at the Multnomah County Courthouse, which sits just across Chapman and Lownsdale squares from the new federal high-rise. In this cramped facility, built when Teddy Roosevelt was president, 36 state judges work heavier caseloads in much smaller courtrooms and chambers and have to buy their own water because they can't drink the orange liquid that comes out of the pipes in the old building.
"The new courthouse is very extravagant and opulent no matter how you describe it," says Barnes Ellis, a lawyer with the Portland firm Stoel Rives and a former member of the State Bar's board of governors. "And just across the green you see the state system is absolutely overwhelmed. It's that disparity that troubles me most."
"That new building is a monument to waste and Mark Hatfield's ego," agrees George Joseph, former chief judge of the state court of appeals.
If that's not enough, a plan has recently surfaced in Congress to build a new $72 million federal courthouse in Eugene. The new courthouse would contain eight courtrooms, although currently only one federal district judge, Michael Hogan, the chief judge of Oregon's federal judicial district, works in Eugene.
"Lord, where will it ever end," Joseph said when told of the plans. "Thanks for sharing. You ruined my day."
For 65 years, federal judges in Oregon worked out of the Gus J. Solomon Courthouse in Portland. Built in 1932 as a New Deal jobs project, the seven-story fortress occupies an entire downtown block and is named for one of Oregon's most feared jurists. According to local legal lore, when Solomon would bellow at lawyers in his cathedral-ceilinged courtroom, even the most high-powered barristers would quake in their wingtips.
"There is no doubt that federal judges hold an awesome amount of power," says John Henry Hingson III, an Oregon City lawyer and former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers.
The power doesn't just come from their $133,600 salary. Federal judges are appointed for life by the president, and they collect full pay until they die—even though they can work as little as they want once they attain coveted "senior" status.
They also get to work in magnificent buildings. "There was nothing more fun than to walk into Judge Jim Redden's courtroom in the Solomon, look at those towering columns and realize that you have to fill a virtual amphitheater with your voice. It was like being Pavarotti at the Met," says Hingson.
There's another reason the job of federal judge is viewed as the pinnacle of an American legal career.
"When in federal court, people expect something larger and more serious," says Sid Lezak, who was Oregon's U.S. attorney for 21 years. "Federal issues tend to involve greater amounts of money because they are interstate in nature and tend to be more complex."
Indeed, federal judges often decide big civil lawsuits, including those concerning copyright, patent and anti-trust disputes. In the criminal arena, they sentence bank robbers, terrorists and drug kingpins. They also have the power to shape federal policy in cases testing federal laws ranging from abortion rights to endangered species.
Federal judges were feeling particularly assertive during the Reagan era. In 1987, for the first time, judges got involved in the design and construction of courthouses—work that had previously been done by the General Services Administration, an agency that acts as federal landlord. During this time, the judges revised the U.S. Courts Design Guide, the 400-page book that set the standards for federal courthouse design.
The new guidelines "increased design and construction complexity, decreasing efficiency and increasing cost," according to a 1994 report by Senate investigators—the first of two landmark courthouse critiques by Congress.
Meanwhile, the Federal Judicial Conference in Washington, D.C., asked federal judges around the country to project future workloads. These projections would launch a building spree that called for 210 new courthouse projects, costing $10 billion.
Oregon's federal judges were among those who justified a plan for a new courthouse. At the time the new Portland courthouse was conceived, it was only the second federal courthouse in American history to cost more than $100 million (Los Angeles' was the first). This ambitious plan surfaced even though some prominent Portland lawyers and jurists thought the Solomon Courthouse—which had recently undergone a $5 million renovation— was plenty big.
"I thought the Solomon was very functional," says Ellis, who has practiced law in Portland for more than 30 years. "I'm unpersuaded that there's a need to justify abandoning it and building a very, very expensive new courthouse."
As late as 1991, in fact, federal judges here were content to stay in the Solomon and build a $33 million annex across the street to meet future space needs—they even got Congress to authorize the plan.
But in 1992 and 1993, with the help of Hatfield and dramatic new workload projections, judges received $130 million to build a new courthouse. Construction began in 1994, and the 563,300-square-foot tower opened two weeks ago. Hailed by The Oregonian as a wonderful new breed of skyscraper, and compared to the Greek Parthenon by the government's chief architect, the courthouse evokes classic formality with its $2.8 million in terrazzo, marble, onyx, granite and limestone and another $2.5 million in cherry wood paneling and doors.
The courthouse's 15 high-tech courtrooms are also equipped for the 21st century, with video screens that drop from 16-foot-high ceilings, and lights and microphones that can be controlled by a judge's fingertips. (There's planned space for 21 courtrooms, with additional courtrooms to be finished as new judges are hired.) Courtrooms are a majestic 2,400 square feet in size.
The judges' chambers that adjoin the courtrooms are spacious as well. Each chamber contains a reception area, office space for two clerks, a judge's office overlooking the Willamette River, a bathroom, a kitchenette and a private law library. At 1,895 square feet, the chambers dwarf judges' chambers in the county courthouse—which average 536 square feet.
It's not the lavishness of the new federal courthouse, however, that makes for waste in the eyes of some experts. It's that the statistics used to justify the project in the first place appear to be wildly exaggerated.
In 1992, local judges predicted that the number of federal judges in Portland would need to increase from 10 to 23 by the year 2020. This dramatic jump was justified, they told Congress, by Oregon's "steady increase in population" and a commensurate climb in "complex" civil and criminal cases.
Now those claims appear dubious. The 130 percent increase in judges far surpasses the 53 percent growth in population that Metro predicts for the Portland region over the same time—and the latest data from experts at Portland State University suggests that the region's population growth may be even less.
More important, the judges' 1992 predictions about mushrooming caseloads in Portland are not supported by the facts.
Even in 1994, investigators with the Senate public works committee foresaw problems with the projections being made around the country. "The planning is flawed and leads to enormous overestimations of courthouse construction needs," the investigators' December 1994 report said.
These criticisms are coming to life in Oregon. Since 1992, for instance, the number of cases filed in Oregon's federal court has increased by less than 2 percent a year—an amount that former U.S. attorney Turner calls "trivial."
Last year, the number of cases filed was actually less than in each of the previous two years.
Federal prosecutors—who have much to do with determining the judges' caseload—admit that the cavernous building is bigger than it needs to be today. But U.S. Attorney Kris Olson believes the number and complexity of future cases concerning environmental, tribal, health-care and high-tech issues "will substantially increase the workload and caseload" for judges.
Some of Olson's lieutenants concur. "If you cut the building in half it would be sufficient for today," says Assistant U.S. Attorney Kent Robinson. "But check back in 10 or 20 years; those statistics may be obsolete."
George Joseph, who was chief judge of the state court of appeals from 1981 to 1992, doesn't agree. "How anyone claimed 15 courtrooms were needed is beyond me," he grouses. "It isn't just a building, it's a palace. I just don't think, in this day and age, when the most commonly heard words are that government wastes money, that it's appropriate to build palaces for anybody at the public expense."
Even if the federal court did need to more than double the number of judges in Oregon, those judges might have stayed in the old Solomon Courthouse and its annex by learning to do something most of us were taught back in kindergarten: to share.
It's not a concept that comes easy to judges. "A judge would rather share his wife than his courtroom," one congressional investigator joked. Historically, in Oregon and around the country, the federal court's policy has been to provide each district judge and most senior judges, who work part-time, a courtroom, chambers and staff.
But there's compelling evidence that millions of taxpayer dollars could be saved if judges shared more courtrooms—a practice that's under way in San Diego, St. Louis and Albuquerque.
Congress' General Accounting Office launched a study earlier this year of courtroom use in seven cities, including Miami, Dallas and Washington, D.C.
The study found that courtrooms were vastly underused. Courtrooms were used for trial activities only 27 percent of the 250 federal workdays in 1995. Most of the remaining time they sat dark and empty.
Although Portland was not one of the cities studied, local court officials acknowledge there's no reason to believe the findings would be any different here. Federal Judge Malcolm F. Marsh, the court's resident expert on space needs and spokesman for the courthouse project, says there's no evidence that Portland's courtrooms are busier than those in cities studied by the GAO.
GAO investigators also found that semi-retired senior judges—who get their own courtrooms as long as they carry 25 percent of a normal judge's caseload—used their courtrooms for trials on average 43 days a year.
That's particularly troubling in Portland because the new courthouse was built, in part, to accommodate a projected increase in senior judges from two in 1990 to four in 1997, and to seven in 2020.
'The whole thing with senior judges is a scandal," says DeFazio. "Either you're working or retired. No one else gets a full salary and staff with the discretion of deciding how much they want to work. If they're basing courtroom demand on senior judges, that's absurd."
Judges argue that the GAO's statistics don't tell the full story.
During an interview with WW in his 15th-floor chambers, overlooking the Willamette River and Mount Hood, Marsh gestured toward his empty courtroom and explained its value. "Look at it right now," he said. "It's bone dry, empty. Does that mean it's not being used? No. It's being used every minute."
Marsh wasn't hallucinating. Rather, he believes—as do many federal judges—that the mere availability of courtrooms allows for more swift justice. The more empty courtrooms there are, Marsh explains, the more trials can be scheduled; and the more trials scheduled, the more quickly cases are settled. (The vast majority of cases are settled before trial: Only 3.5 percent of federal civil cases and 7.5 percent of criminal cases ever get to trial, according to GAO.)
Without such leverage, or pressure to push settlement, "justice is delayed," says Marsh, "and people who have a right to their day in court don't get resolution."
Sharing courtrooms may be a good idea for senior judges with a substantially lighter load than district judges, Marsh concedes. But senior judges in Portland work too hard to share, he says.
Some experienced federal lawyers dispute claims about the so-called "latent" use of courtrooms.
"I don't buy that at all," says former U.S. attorney Turner. "In all of the 31 years that I've practiced law, I never thought that courtroom availability was going to get me to settlement. That was never a consideration."
Lezak, Turner's predecessor, says the same. "It doesn't follow that the mere fact there's an empty courtroom encourages a settlement," Lezak says. "If you ask me whether we ever had to postpone a case because of the lack of a courtroom during my 21 years as U.S. attorney, the answer is 'No.'"
Two studies completed last year—one by the GAO, the other by the private Rand Institute for Civil Justice—noted that the judiciary has no data to support its contention that the availability of courtrooms expedites settlements.
Regardless of whether more judges and courtrooms are actually required, critics say the new 2,400-square-foot courtrooms are much larger than they need to be.
In the early 1990s, judges argued that they needed larger courtrooms, in part to handle the big drug-conspiracy cases that were so prevalent during the Reagan-era war on drugs.
But the court's own statistics show that the multi-defendant drug cases of the 1980s are subsiding. Judges are handling the same number of felony cases as in 1992, and the average number of defendants in felony cases last year was 16 percent less than in 1992, according to the court's own statistics.
"You're talking about a tremendous amount of square footage for not all that much activity," says Steven Brill, founding editor of American Lawyer magazine and Court TV. "By comparison, Judge Ito's courtroom [in the O.J. Simpson trial] was probably one-quarter the size of a typical federal courtroom."
"The fact of the matter is that the vast percentage of cases involve a single plaintiff and defendant and you don't need all those big courtrooms," says Turner. 'The caseload statistics show the weakness in their whole argument."
There are signs that Congress is starting to clamp down on courthouse projects after years of lax oversight, and reason to believe that Portland's new high-rise wouldn't be authorized in today's political climate.
"We've started to turn the direction of the ship, which was an ocean liner in the case of federal courthouses," says Jeff Nelligan, spokesman for the House Infrastructure and Public Works Committee, which oversees funding for federal buildings.
"But your project came about two years before we started to change the rules on construction," Nelligan says.
Even Marsh acknowledges that the Portland project was well-timed. "We dodged that bullet," the judge says, referring to a recent congressional freeze on new courthouse spending. "This project was just ahead of that wave."
The result is a $129 million building that will cost another $1.3 billion to operate in the next 40 years, according to GSA.
As rebellious Oregon voters have risen up and voted repeatedly to cut existing taxes and have rejected new taxes for roads and light rail, the federal courthouse stands as a monument to both Hatfield (who did not return WW's call) and an unprecedented era in judicial spending. It also stands as a reminder that much government spending remains beyond local control—and suggests why the national debt is $6 trillion and climbing.
Meanwhile, Multnomah County officials have shelved a two-year-old plan to build a new courthouse, convinced that voters aren't in the mood to pony up the money. The county plan, it should be noted, calls for a smaller, cheaper courthouse than the new federal one. Nevertheless it would accommodate 78 judges, who would share 1,500-square-foot courtrooms, libraries, lounges and bathrooms—and have chambers smaller than the ones they have today,