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CJPA director asked to help fund Public Defender’s Office

Currently they only help the victims, says CJPA… not the defendants
fili@samoanews.com

Some faipule are hopeful that the Criminal Justice Planning Agency (CJPA) will be able to provide some sort of federal funding to help with the lack of financial resources faced by the Office of Public Defender, which is 100% funded by local revenues.

And during a House Judicial Committee hearing last week, committee chairman Rep. Teoaina Faufano Autele pointed out that the Public Defender’s Office represents individuals who are indigenous and lack financial resources.

“I believe these people are innocent until proven guilty and I believe it’s very important for your office to help them,” Toeaina informed CJPA Director Keith Gebauer, referring to defendants who are presented by the Public Defender’s Office.

Toeaina asked if the CJPA has grants available to help the PD’s Office, including hiring additional attorneys, to which Gebauer responded that CJPA currently does not provide US Department of Justice grant funds for the PD’s Office.

“We had in the past been able to fund them, while our funding was at a higher level,” Gebauer explained adding that funding has shrunk and the parameters are very specific on where grants are awarded and how they’re used.

“Because the public defender is defending the alleged folks that have been charged with crimes, our funding goes towards the victims of crime, it goes towards the stakeholder in the justice system that defends the victim of crime,” he said.

For example, grant funding for the Attorney General’s Office can only cover the criminal attorneys, but not civil attorneys in that office. “While they’re all under the Attorney General’s Office, funding is not permitted to go to the civil side,” he explained.

“With the Public Defender’s Office, all their clients are the alleged defendants,” said Gebauer and Toeaina reiterated that these individuals are presumed innocent until proven guilty and there has to be some sort of help the PD’s Office can receive for the indigenous people.

Gebauer says that he will have to “double check if there is a way that we could look into funding some of their attorneys” at the PD’s Office and that “I know we’ve had in the past, but that might have been under a specific grant.”

For the USDOJ formula grant, Gebauer said that as far as he knows it’s not eligible to be used for the PD’s Office. He again promised to re-check on this issue and Toeaina again asked Gebauer to look into the matter. 

The committee hearing with CJPA, that covered various grant issues, came three days after the committee heard testimony from Public Defender Douglas Fiaui on the challenges his office faces as well as other issues.

According to the fiscal year 2017 budget, the PD’s Office total budget stands at $436,500 with 8 employees, with 367,000 towards personnel costs. It also shows that besides Fiaui, the office employs three other attorneys.

In its third quarter performance report for FY 2016, the PD’s Office says, the “case load of the attorneys on staff is overwhelming. We are currently short of attorneys”. And the PD’s Office handles over 90% of the criminal and traffic cases filed and nearly 100% of juvenile cases with only four budgeted attorneys — including Fiaui.