Congress's partisan gridlock, a/k/a "the sequester" is going to degrade our Judicial branch's ability decide/try cases and hear appeals and stunt civil and criminal law enforcement activities by the Department of Justice. One result of the sequester is that Federal employees subject to the furlough are PROHIBITED from doing work-even voluntarily, for free-on furlough days. The sequester is also going to cause layoffs of many of the most experienced and efficient court employees, resulting in inevitable confusion, mistakes, and more backlog as new hires learn from scratch the Courts' complex systems and processes.
It is an outrage that the incompetence of one branch of government, Congress, can effectively destroy another, the Judiciary!