HomeMy WebLinkAboutProsecuting Attorney, FY 2014-15 DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS 4/14/2014
DEPARTMENTAL BUDGET REVIEWS 2014-15
PROSECUTING ATTORNEY
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 1
The departmental budget review reconvened on April 14, 2014 at 9:20 a.m., and
proceeded as follows:
Prosecuting Attorney
Honorable Mason K. Chock, Sr. (present at 10:45 a.m.)
Honorable Ross Kagawa
Honorable Mel Rapozo
Honorable JoAnn A. Yukimura
Honorable Jay Furfaro, Council Chair
Excused: Honorable Tim Bynum
Honorable Gary L. Hooser
Chair Furfaro: Okay, it is now 9:20 a.m., my apologies for the
late start. We have called back from recess our budget meeting and we are up for today's
agenda which is April 14, 2014 starting with the Prosecuting Attorney's Office, the
Department of Transportation, the Auditor in the afternoon, and the Agency on Elderly
Affairs. Is there anybody in the audience that wishes to give testimony on any of these
agenda items today.
LORI L. MARUGAME, Council Services Assistant: We have two (2) registered
speakers.
Chair Furfaro: Is it Glenn Mickens and Ken Taylor?
Ms. Marugame: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Glenn, we will call you first.
GLENN MICKENS: For the record, Glenn Mickens. I apologize to the
public that are here for the other audits and have to sit through our particular testimony
which comes up at 1:30 p.m. but I know that are the rules, okay?
Chair Furfaro: No, here are the rules, Glenn. The rules are I
should have taken testimony from the public on everything on the first day. This exception
that I give every day because these meetings are called, that is an exception myself as
Chair is making every day.
Mr. Mickens: That exception you made I really applaud it. I
writing to Office of Information Practices (OIP) to ask about his because common sense
would say if you want to testify about a certain subject, like these people are all here today
for these other two (2) audits, for the budget hearing on them. They do not want to
particularly, I do not particularly think they want to listen to this particular thing
but...and again if we had to testify and you modified the rules like a week ago, whenever
this audit hearing started, budget hearing started by the time it got to the particular thing
people forget completely what you are talking about.
Chair Furfaro: So this is the best we can do on the day, for the
day and the other departments will just...I am sure they like to hear public testimony so
would you start his time right now? You have the floor.
There being no objections, the rules were suspended to take public testimony.
April 14, 2014
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Mr. Mickens: Okay, thank you, Jay. By design, by luck or by
wisdom the members of our Council unanimously hired Ernie Pasion as our first County
Auditor by an amendment to our Charter mandated by the vote of the people. His
qualifications for this important position were highly scrutinized and found to be
impeccable. One of the finalist, was even a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) who worked
for the Federal Government Oversight Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In four (4) years he did seven (7) outstanding audits. All but one of them was agreed to by
the heads of their departments. They understood that better and more efficient methods of
operations and accountability were going to be utilized making it a win, win proposition for
everyone. The only audit that created any controversy was the gasoline usage audit. And
remember that Ernie did all his audits by his yellow book and showed no partiality or
prejudice towards any of them. Regrettably for the Mayor but gratefully for Kaua`i citizens
illegal use of County gas was uncovered and the impropriety was pointed out at the Mayor.
This illegality is now ongoing and I do not know how it will play out but hopefully justice
will be done and the tax payers will not end up with the short end of the stick again.
Obviously, vengeance then took over and today we have a honest, dedicated man fighting
for his job, his piece of mind and his financial well being. No matter how you want to
structure what was then with his budget and I have talked to Steve about this, it was cut
by thirty-two percent (32%) which can be compared to all other budgets which were cut by a
fraction of that. Some where even increased as the numbers will indicate. The two (2)
major cuts were the dollar funding of an auditor's position by the Mayor and an additional
cut of forty thousand dollars ($40,000) by this Council. Total general fund budget only had
a three percent (3%) decrease as opposed to his thirty-two percent (32%). I implore this
body to fully fund whatever budget our Auditor deems necessary to continue the
outstanding work he has done for four (4) years. Mr. Pasion is the type of person that this
County cannot afford to lose for the welfare of the people as an example of what others who
choose to work for the County must have as an example and what must be done. So,
anyway as you can see I am a strong, strong proponent of Mr. Pasion and the job he has
done since he has been in office. Thank you, Jay.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you. Ken.
KEN TAYLOR: Chair, Members of the Council, my name is Ken
Taylor. I am here today to speak about the auditor's budget. As you know the last six (6)
months or so on a number of times I raised concerns about why you cut the auditor's budget
last year by thirty-two percent (32%). I have heard arguments, well we did not do it, we did
this, we did that, he did not spend the money and so on but if he did not spend the money
then he must have been doing a good job, right? What I am asking today is that you restore
his budget to what it was prior to last year's cuts regardless of how the cuts were address
but the voters voted a few years ago to establish the Office of Auditor, County Auditor and I
think under those circumstances you have an obligation to the people of this island to fund
that office as they saw fit to vote to establish it. I was very disappointed with not only the
Mayor last year but yourselves in cutting...both of you taking cuts of the budget and I just
think that it is unfortunate that things have come down the way they have and it is pretty
obvious what has been going on and I am really sad to see this kind of activity from you
folks especially as you sit here and many times reminded me that you are in charge of the
purse strings and yet to date of the seven (7) audits only two (2) of them have been put on
the agenda for any kind of discussion and at that time there was not even much discussion
and the whole purpose of the audits is to not only look at the finances of different
departments as they function in the process but also how the different departments
function as a team and the recommendations from the audits certainly if they were all
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implemented would benefit the community in general because it would certainly make
things more efficient and save money.
Ms. Marugame: Three (3) minutes.
Mr. Taylor: So I am hoping that you will see fit to restore the
budget to where it was prior to last year and remember that none of the departments come
anywhere near the kind of cut that the auditor's office took in last year budget discussion.
Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Ken. Anyone else want to testify this
morning? Joe.
JOE ROSA: Good morning Members of the Council. For the
record Joe Rosa. Again, another department that is doing something that needs to be
completed that has been going on now for a couple of years I think is something ridiculous.
Why cut something that is supposed to do and look into the government operations of this
County? Mr. Pasion started something but he rocked a few boats in the process of doing his
audits. Then all of a sudden staff got cut, funding got cut. Why? You know they all say if
you cannot stand the heat in the kitchen you get out. Well if you cannot do the work you
resign. It is time the public be aware of what is going on in this government and the audits
have found a lot of irregularities that are going on and some of them have not been
corrected. Why cut something that is doing a good job in underlining things that have not
been done right? You do not correct a right. You correct a wrong. That was the way that I
was taught and learned. So, why the funding of that office has not been restored? It was
cut the last session and you still want to cut more and the staff, why are they getting so
many raises. Public information officer, another added to the staff. All that kind of stuff,
why, what is the table of organization in this County? From what I know there are three
(3) public information officers, why do you need three (3)? It is high time that this County
tighten the belt. It is ridiculous. If I was running this County I would ask every
department to give me a table of organization of this staff and we will go on from there.
The auditor's office got cut and it still has not been restored. He is hand tied. So I would
like to see that the funding goes to the appropriate departments that were hired and the
officers were created to do a work and that was to audit the books of the various
departments in this County.
Ms. Marugame: Three (3) minutes.
Mr. Rosa: And in the process...
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Rosa: ...he has been rocking the boat so I would think
that money should be put into the department and have the thing completed. I thank you.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you, Joe. Okay the period for public
testimony is over. We will start today with our agenda that will allow the Prosecutor's
Office to come up and make his presentation. The rules continue to be suspended and you
have the floor, sir.
JUSTIN KOLLAR, Prosecuting Attorney: Good morning, Council Chair,
Members of the Council. Do we have the PowerPoint? Just at the onset I want to thank all
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of you for your comments and the discussions that I have had with you over the past year
as we move towards today, getting to where we are now. It has been very productive
having those discussions and I really appreciate all of you support, the support that you
have shown for the office and for the law enforcement community here on the island. I also
want to thank and acknowledge the Administration, the Mayor of course, Nadine, Ernie
and Steve and even Ken back there for everybody helping remind us when we get off track
and helping to keep us moving forward. We really appreciate all of that support as well.
Here with me today as resource individuals, if anything comes up, Administrative Officer
for the department, Art Williams. Victim Witness Director, Diana Gausepohl-White.
Fiscal Officer, Jamie Chong and Second Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, Rebecca Vogt. First
I will start off just buy quickly going through our mission statement. It is the same as it
was last year but it helps keep us on track when we think about what our mission is when
we come to the office each and every day. It is our mission to promote the fair, impartial
and expeditious pursuit of justice in every case, to ensure safer communities, and to
promote integrity in our profession. It is our mission to temper justice with compassion,
and to do our work in an open, transparent, and accountable way. We have got that on our
wall right in our front lobby as well as in my office so we remember what is the point to our
work. What do we do every day? We are very fortunate being prosecutors because we are
the only kind of attorneys, we are the only attorneys out there when we get up in the
morning, our job is just to do the right thing. We are not beholden to clients, we are not
beholden to anything extraneous from doing the right thing, from seeking justice so it is a
relief for us. We will talk a little bit about our structure. We are still Kaua`i's largest law
firm. Broken up into three (3) separate units on the litigation side, being Circuit Court,
District and Family Court Unit, and the Appeals and Administrative Services Unit. We
basically, the way we look at it is we apply business principles and best management
habits. We try to continually improve and make sure that we are running the department
in the most efficient way that we can making best use of the limited resources that we have
and always looking outside for grant funding and resources outside the department that
can help supplement the limited County resources. So we do have fourteen (14) attorneys
in the office right now. We have fourteen (14) clerical and support staff made up of law
office assistants, supervising legal clerks, and legal clerks. We have four (4) employees that
make our victim witness program currently. Five (5) employees on the administrative
support side although everybody kind of pitches in on different areas when they are needed
too. Then four (4) employees on the investigative support side. I will go through a little bit
more what each of those breakdowns look like.
So the Circuit Court Litigation Unit, that is courtrooms 4 and 6 over at the
courthouse, Judge Kathleen Watanabe and Chief Judge Randal Valenciano, all of our cases
in front of those two judges. The supervisor for that unit, below me would be First Deputy
Prosecuting Attorney, Kevin Takata. Kevin could not be here today, he has a Passover
tradition he does every year so that is where he is today but he supervises Deputy
Prosecutors Lisa Arin, Melinda Mendes, Shauna Cahill, Tim Tobin, Teresa Tumbaga, and
Ginger Grinpas. I think all of them were here last year and you had the opportunity to
meet all of them. Unfortunately, Mr. Tobin is departing in a month or two for greener
pastures on the mainland, that is family stuff he has going but we are pleased that we were
able to fill in that gap. You folks know Jennifer Winn, she is going to be coming back to
work in our office. She was in the Office of the Prosecuting Attorney (OPA) from
2000 - 2007 and served as First Deputy on two different occasions so while we are very sad
to lose Tim we are very happy to pick up Jennifer and I do want to acknowledge Tim's
service over the past year and a half. He has going to be an outstanding asset to law
enforcement wherever he goes. The Circuit Court Unit deals with primarily with felony
cases including crimes against persons, drug cases, property cases, as well as the career
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criminal unit. There career criminal unit is essentially for offenders who have repeat
patterns of their conduct. It is people who are either already on probation for other
felonies, people who are on parole, people who have an extensive record or persistent
offenders in the community. These cases require special attention. There are mandatory
minimum sentences that apply on those cases and it really behooves us to make sure we
have somebody that is really on top of that handling those cases. Melinda Mendez does the
career criminal cases, Becky Vogt and Ginger Grinpas do property cases, Tim Tobin and
soon to be Jennifer do the drug and firearm cases, and then crimes against persons is kind
of everybody else. The typical work in Circuit Court Litigation Unit includes motion
hearings and trials. Also, misdemeanor jury demands, misdemeanor cases, the defendant
can elect to either have a trial in front of a judge or in front of a jury. When they elect to
have a trial in front of a jury those cases goes upstairs to Circuit Court. Circuit Court
attorneys also handle grand jury proceedings which are to initiate charges in felony cases
and also in charge of felony screening and charging. Meaning from the time the Police
Department or the other investigating agency is working on the case a lot of times they will
come and confer with us even before an arrest is made as to how best to proceed in the
investigation. So they confer with our attorneys and the attorneys then work with the
reports that they receive and determine the appropriate charges and the appropriate means
of instituting those charges.
From there we have the District and Family Court Unit. Those are the two (2)
courtrooms downstairs in front of the Honorable Deputy Chief Judge Trudy Senda and
Family Court Judge Edmund Acoba. Supervisor in this unit is Becky Vogt and she
supervises Deputy Prosecutors Sinclair Salas-Ferguson, George White, Gary Nelson, and
John Murphy. What this unit is responsible for is District Court traffic cases, which is an
always growing and expanding docket that we will talk about a little bit later on. District
Court criminal which could be leash law cases, dangerous dog, petty assault cases, things of
that nature. Also, adult family court which includes all of our domestic violence
prosecutions, which is a several hundred per year, arrest are made by Kaua`i Police
Department (KPD) and the cases come to our unit. Gary Nelson handles those cases. He
has been doing an admirable job for several years now and very passionate about those
cases. Juvenile family court is another component of this unit and juvenile family court
right now DPA John Murphy is in charge of those cases as well as a couple of other
specialty areas. Misdemeanor screening, which is thousand of cases per year that come up
from the Police Department all need to be gone through, determined if follow-up is
necessary and then of course working with the courts to get the complaints filed.
Then there is the Appeals and Administrative unit which is very small and very,
kind of specialized work. Again, falling under Kevin's supervision and that is Deputy
Prosecutor Tracy Murakami who handles just about all of the appeals for our office and has
been doing so for many years and then DPA Murphy who also assists with the asset
forfeiture petitions. Asset forfeitures are important to our office because they are a source
of funds for training and specialized equipment that comes outside the County budget.
That is an administrative practice area that we do in front of the Attorney General's (AG)
Office. When the police seize property for forfeiture if falls to our office to then file a
petition with the AG's office, follow through, litigate that to a successful conclusion and
then of course if there are any appeals of those rulings up to the Circuit Court we have to
handle those procedures as well. Would also include Rule 40 petitions, which are petitions
for post conviction relief essentially under civil procedure and that can be from federal
prisoners, state prisoners any...ten (10), fifteen (15) years after a conviction folks still can
file these Rule 40 petitions. So we do deal with a certain volume of those cases as well.
Legislative testimony and research, that is something that Program Assistant, Ihilani Kali
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assists us with. Providing case law updates to the Kaua`i Police Department. As most of
you probably know our Hawaii Supreme Court is not the most prosecution friendly
supreme court in the country and they are constantly coming out with new decisions or new
rules that we have to then adjust our practices and adjust police practices with so when
those cases come down we will draft up a memorandum with our suggested guidance for the
police and forward that on to them as well as assist in any necessary training that needs to
be done to make sure that they are following the dictates of the Supreme Court and also
that we are as well. It is an ongoing process of training with the legal stuff. Also, Ihi is the
program liaison, the program assistant dealing with all of the external and diversionary
programs including teen court, drug court, the HOPE probation program, and the youth
level of service inventory program, which that is a little bit of a new program that Hale
`Opio has been working on for a while now and basically that is intended to address
situations where you might have somebody who it is not their first offense, not really
suitable for teen court but still somebody that might be worth working with outside the
criminal justice system in terms of hitting them with different sort of services to hopefully
get them back out of the criminal path. So that is something we are excited to be
partnering with Lavern and her staff on.
I also want to take just as second and go through some of the boards and task forces
that our attorneys and that our office participates in. These are things that help us
maintain our professional relationships with prosecutors and attorneys both within Kaua`i
and across the State of Hawaii because the legal world is really a small world and it is a
cohesive world. It is a world we need to be a part of if we are going to be successful, if we
are going to be successful at recruiting and retaining talented attorneys, if we are going to
be successful at getting the legislation we want passed, if we are going to be successful at
calling on the other prosecutors throughout the state to assist us with their knowledge at
appropriate times. Just to give you a little perspective as to what we do and I will not
spend a lot of time on all of these but there is the Violence Against Women Act Working
Group, we get a lot of funding under the Federal Violence Against Women Act and the Stop
Violence Against Women Act. The Governor's Committee on Crime, The Mayor's Crime
Task Force, The Kaua`i Juvenile Crime Enforcement Committee, The Hawai`i Highway
Safety Council, Hawai`i Integrated Justice Information System (HIJIS) Executive
Committee, The Mock Trial Directors, Mentors, Coaches and Judges, and I cannot tell you
how proud I am of my staff that participates in the Mock Trail program with the high
school students from our different high schools here both as directors, coaches and judges
assisting some of those amazingly bright kids that we have here on Kaua`i who are going to
make the next generation of prosecutors. The Hawaii Coalition Against Human
Trafficking, the Impaired Driving Task Force, the Board of Bar Examiners, the Young
Lawyers Division Board, the Kauai Domestic Violence Task Force, the Drug Enforcement
Committee, the Hawai`i Sexual Assault Response Team, the Kaua`i Sexual Assault
Response Team, the Kaua`i Children's Justice Committee, the Governance Committee for
Statewide Automated Victim Information and Notification (SAWN), and the Justice
Reinvestment Initiative Workgroups. A few of the really important ones that we
participate in the Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions — Criminal/Committee on Penal
Rules, this is something that Kevin Takata has been involved with for more than twenty
(20) years. This year we were able to successfully, as a result of participating here initiate
a change in the penal rules that allows declarations to be used for judicial determinations of
probable cause. What this means is that police do not have to go and try to hunt down a
notary republic at 3:00 a.m. when they are trying to get their paperwork done. They can
simply sign off and affirm that those are the facts that are in their knowledge. The
Committee on Professionalism, which elevates the level of legal practice and ethics and is
responsible for instituting the requirement that all attorneys receive mandatory continuing
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legal education. The Hawai`i Coalition Against Human Trafficking, which focuses on
educating others and gathering data on the extent of the problem. Two (2) different major
components of human trafficking that happen in Hawai`i at the present time; number 1 is
sex trafficking. We are all aware that happens, primarily that is on Oahu but there is also
a second category which is trafficking of agricultural labor which is something that
certainly does happen on Kaua`i and on all of the neighbor islands as well. There is also the
Interagency Advisory Committee, which is comprised of police, prosecutors, victim witness
advocates and social service providers. Which addresses challenges in handling of child sex
assaults and physical abuse on Kaua`i as well as the Conference of Western Attorney
Generals and again our First Deputy Kevin, he is an instructor with them and every year
he goes to Mexico and teaches their prosecutor how to prosecute murder cases. If you can
imagine how difficult it is to prosecute a murder case in Hawai`i or in the United States
magnify that by several orders of magnitude and you will understand what it is like to be a
homicide prosecutor in Mexico in terms of low pay and a very dangerous work atmosphere.
We are very proud that we participate in these organizations.
I will review very briefly fiscal year 2014 goals and objectives. Let you know what
we have accomplished, let you know what we still need to work on. In terms of case
management and workflow we talked a lot about that last year. Accomplished, we did
successfully implement the JustWare Case Management System (CMS) and transitioned
away from the legacy program which was known as HOKU. We have successfully by
implementing this system been able to reduce a lot of duplicative and redundant data entry
by our support staff and we have transitioned to a policy by which we provide discovery to
the defense bar electronically instead of via hard copy, that saves paper, saves toner, saves
people running back and forth trying to track things down. It is right there in the
JustWare, I will show you that in a minute or two and you can see how simple it is for us to
do that. A couple of our goals and objectives from last year that are still in progress,
primarily is our attempts to interface with the new KPD Records Management System
(RMS) which will really help us streamline our workflow. I am sure you folks are aware
that they have been transitioning to a new records management system. Still some bugs
being worked out of it and we look forward to when those bugs are worked out of it, having
the ability to get reports and cases from them electronically. Right now we still,
unfortunately are dealing with the situation where we get cases hard copy from the Police
Department. In most cases, not in all but we do look forward to transitioning to an
environment where we get everything electronically. Again it is just much simpler, much
less stress on the clerks and it just saves money on paper and energy and toner. Our
mobile solutions, including tying our case management system into the tablet devices for
the attorneys so that productivity can continue regardless of what their location is. There
has been a little bit of beta testing in that area but it looks like Just Ware is not quite there
in terms of rolling it out onto an apple product. There may be some android related
products we can look at for the next generation of devices that we use that would help us
give the attorneys better access to all the case information when they are at remote
locations but that is something that is moving forward and we are happy that we have
made progress on it.
This is what our JustWare system looks like, our case management system. Just to
give you a little portrait of what the attorneys are looking at, what the support staff are
looking at, what the managers are looking at. Basically that is a view of our calendar, right
there. When we have a case in the system, come back from court, files go back to the clerks,
they can actually enter in what the next dates are for the cases, the attorneys can know at
a glance what they have got coming up on a particular day or a particular week, days or
months into the future. Click on...open each one of those items, see exactly what the task
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is, see exactly what motions are being heard, see exactly what they need to know. It is a
tremendous benefit for them to have this information at their finger tips. Drilling down in
terms of management tools in the case management system, what it does is it help me and
the other supervisors, including the legal clerk supervisors and our Deputy Prosecutor
supervisors know exactly what the work load is on all of the attorneys and victim witness
staff at any given time. This is just one (1) of the many reports that we can generate.
Anytime I want to know how the Deputies caseloads stacking up, we can dial in there and
see exactly who has what. Then we can go down and click on each one of those names and
get more specific information in terms of the cases, their statuses, their charges, and where
they are at. I think I explained when we were here last year that the different kinds of
cases require different amounts of work. There is a difference between caseload and
workload. Where somebody at the top there like George has four hundred (400) cases
assigned to him, those cases tend to be mostly misdemeanor jury demands and simpler
cases. He is one of our newer attorneys. As you go down you might see somebody like
Melinda there who had, on that particular day eighty-three (83) cases. Those cases by their
very nature are much more labor intensive but what this does is it gives us an accurate
picture of what the work is in the office and who has the work and where it is at. Drilling
down farther we can click on each name and ascertain the status of all of the cases in terms
of which cases are open, which cases are in different statuses as far as sentencing, is it
something that is coming up for trial, is it something that is on a bench warrant status, if it
on a bench warrant status that means we are waiting for the police to pick up the
individual. It just gives us a lot of information to work with.
A recap very quickly the FY 2014 goals and objectives for our Victim Witness
Program. First was to reorganize and strengthen the program by reestablishing the
director position to oversee day to day operations. That is done. The Victim Witness
Program since a lot of the money that goes into that program is grant funds there is a
tremendous amount of work to be done as far as accounting for how we use those funds. It
is a tremendous amount of statistical keeping, record keeping, and having a director in that
position really facilitates that work. Second was to enhance and improve the program by
increasing the number of victim witness counselors through a new Justice Reinvestment
Initiative (JRI) grant which is State funds under Governor Abercrombie's Justice
Reinvestment Program. That is done. Utilizing those funds we were able to add another
victim witness counselor to the program increasing the number of advocates from two (2) to
three (3) and having an advocate now that can focus especially on property crimes. I am
sure Councilmembers are aware that there has been a lot of property crime in the
community over the last several years and having a victim witness advocate to handle those
cases really facilitates the attorneys in getting their work done. They are taken away from
the cases was less and it helps it makes sure we have better communications with the
community. As well as the ongoing Victims of Crime Act grant we were able to identify
funds basically under the (inaudible) grant which should enable us to hire a fourth victim
witness counselor which would restore us to 2008 levels in terms of the strength of that
program. That position has been posted, it is in progress, and we are recruiting for that
right now and looking forward to filling that and restoring the program to its full legacy
and strength. Serve victims more effectively by providing outreach services. This one is an
incomplete or an in progress. When we get that fourth counselor on board we anticipate
that we will be able to begin providing more outreach services rather than just servicing the
cases that we have active with the police or the criminal justice system. As well as through
renewed partnerships with related County and State agencies as well as non-profit service
providers that has been done. We have basically established strong relationships, strong
lines of communication with folks, Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), folks at
Hale `Opio, folks at the other State agencies, the Attorney General's Office. Agencies that
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are essential for making sure we keep the funds coming to support this program and also
providing the services that we cannot provide out in the community as well as restoring the
relationships with neighbor island victim witness programs which have been done. We
spend a lot of time talking with the coordinators on the other islands, Dennis Dunn in
Honolulu, folks at the Crime Victims Compensation Commission, and working together we
are really able to get things done.
On the legislative side I spent some time talking about that last year. We were able
to strengthen our presence in the legislative arena by taking a more active role in working
with lawmakers. That includes helping them understand the implications of the things
that they do over there as well as suggesting things that they might be able to do for us to
make our lives a little bit easier. Lobby for increased protection for victims of domestic
violence. This is an emphasis area for the office and for me. Personally and as the
Prosecuting Attorney was to increase prosecutions...increase protections rather for folks
that have been victimized or who are survivors of domestic violence. Last year we were
able to get a piece of legislation passed that is making a difference in that area. I will talk
about that in a few minutes as well and as well as more legislation this year that we will
talk about. Also to work closely with our partners in the Hawaii Prosecuting Attorneys
Association (HPAA) to support a coherent legislative agenda. We have been able to do that.
We talked to the folks in Honolulu, Big Island, Maui at the AG's office, Lance Goto, Jon
Karamatsu, Mitch Roth, Richard Minatoya, those folks on almost a daily basis. What is
going on? What is still active? What is dead? What is moving? What is not moving? What
do you need support on? What do we need support on? So this communication is
strengthening law enforcement, strengthening partnerships. Still in progress we were not
successful in getting a Constitutional Amendment establishing Crime Victim Rights in
Hawaii. We are one (1) of seventeen (17) states that do not have a Constitutional
Amendment guaranteeing specific rights of crime victims and their immediate surviving
family members. There are rights conferred on crime victims by statute here in Hawaii but
nothing that is in the Constitution like they have in many other states. What is in progress
in now actually, as well as another Bill that originated here on Kauai which is House Bill
1993, which is on a Senate Draft 2 currently is now in the Conference Committee at the
Legislature. What this statute will accomplish is to make it a felony to commit domestic
abuse in the presence of a child under fourteen (14). We were very fortunate to have this
legislation sponsored by all three (3) of our State Representatives on Kauai. So we want to
thank them and acknowledge their support for victims and survivors of domestic abuse.
When through three (3) committees on the House side, went through two (2) committees on
the Senate side. Now we just have to get through the Conference Committee and then it is
off to the Governor's desk for his signature. That is last year's Bill signing with Governor
Abercrombie, Representative Kawakami, and House Judiciary Chairman Karl Rhoads.
That was House Bill 587. What that Bill accomplished is to extend the protections of the
domestic violence law in Hawaii to include domestic relationships that were not previously
covered by the family abuse statute. Before, the way the law was if you had never been
married and you did not have kids together and you did not live together you were not
going to be covered by domestic violence legislation, even if you had been in a dating
relationship for twenty-five (25) years with the person. You could get a Temporary
Restraining Order (TRO) against the person, you could get a Restraining Order (RO) but if
there was violence or abuse in the relationship the enhanced penalties of the Domestic
Violence (DV) law did not apply. So now we have been able to extend those protections to
folks that just do not happen to have kids together maybe or never lived together. Also
folks in same sex relationships are now able to enjoy the protections of our HRS 709-906
family abuse statutes. So that was a proud accomplishment for us.
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
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FY 14 goals and objectives in terms of community oriented prosecution. We were
able to accomplish the goal of continuing and strengthening community outreach and
networking efforts by participating in community and neighborhood group meetings.
Whenever we can we get out there in the community. We take the temperature of folks.
See what their concerns are. See what is happening. A lot of times they are going to tell us
things that we have not heard about before. They are going to tell us things that maybe
law enforcement has not heard about before ant they are going to know that we are out
there listening to their concerns, and also responding to inquiries for services and
information. We have a lot of constituents contacting the office. They have questions about
is this legal? Is this not legal? What is happening with this? What is not happening with
this? And whenever possible we get back to them in a timely fashion and answer their
question. Sometime the answer might be we do not have anything to tell you but we at
least get back to them and let them know that we are out there and we are responsive. We
set a goal last year to attend forty (40) community meetings in 2013. I do not think we got
quite to forty (40) but whenever possible we are out there in the community touching base.
FY 14 goals and objectives for the Property Crime Unit, we were able to accomplish
some huge strides this past fiscal year. In terms of the time it takes to repeat offenders
through the court system. Expanding the career criminal and property crime prosecution
unit in terms of the funding from the department of the Attorney General and expand the
number of attorneys handling property crimes from two (2) deputies to three (3) including a
career criminal attorney, Ms. Mendes. As well as eliminating the screening backlog, we no
longer have a backlog of property crime cases of the nature in which it has happened in the
past and the way this happens is we have good communications with the detectives and
investigative services on the Kaua`i Police Department side. Assistant Chief Asher and
now Assistant Chief Quibilan have been extremely supportive in terms of making thing
easy for us to communicate with the detectives over there and be able to get follow-up done
quickly and expeditiously, get cases to grand jury, get cases through info charging,
whatever it might be, but to make sure that these cases are not sitting out there in limbo
for months and months and months while the folks who commit these crimes are out there
committing additional crimes. The folks who commit the properties in the community, as
you know, I am not telling you anything you do not know, primarily motivated by drugs and
when they do it they do not do it just once. They commit essentially sprees so early
intervention in that process makes a difference. Get the cases from the police, get them
charged immediately, get folks picked up and off the streets and initiate that intervention
to protect the community.
For our Cold Case Unit, this is another thing we are very happy about and very
proud of. In the past fiscal year we were able to review and prioritize all of the unsolved
homicide cases going back to the late 1970s, approximately eighteen (18) of them and
undertake a review of suspicious missing persons cases. As a result of this review and a
result of these efforts we have actually expanded our review of cold cases from eighteen (18)
cases to its current level where it is at twenty-four (24) cases. Also we were able to get a
continuation of the cold case grant and make good use of those grant funds to engage in
sophisticated forensic testing. Things that was not available when a lot of these cases
happened. Twenty (20) years ago or thirty (30) years ago they just could not do the same
kinds of things that they can do now. Some of these laboratories what they can accomplish,
it is not quite like CSI, CSI is a television show and it is science fiction but we can do some
pretty remarkable things with science these days.
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
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Now our goals for the coming year in terms of case management and workflow, this
is a major, major thing. We are going to keep pushing forward to interface with KPD's
RMS to work on streamlining. That workflow and work towards the paperless as well as
the continue working on the mobile solutions. The way this is going to happen primarily is
going to be by working through the Hawai`i Criminal Justice Data Center (HCJDC) to
streamline the information exchanges. Not just between agencies here on Kaua`i but
agencies statewide. Even if we have a problem here in the County level with a particular
system or particular information exchange the AG's office is really putting tremendous
resources and has made a significant commitment to helping us achieve those exchanges on
a statewide basis. So if somebody walks in to the police station on Kaua`i and wants to
register a firearm we will be able to go into the system and find out if this person has
firearms in another county without picking up the phone and having to call three (3)
separate police departments in different islands. Little things like that are going to save so
much time. Working right now on constructing several different information exchanges
between our case management system and the State databases like the Criminal Justice
Information System (CJIS), the Juvenile Justice Information System (JJIS), Judiciary
Information Management System (JIMS), the Judiciary Electronic Filing System as well as
the Sex Offender Registry and what this is so important for is to minimize the number of
keystrokes that our clerks need to enter data. If you have ever worked in an office
environment doing a repetitive data entry task you know that if you can make a function
simpler that you do not have to enter the same piece of information into a system three (3)
times you are going to be able to get two (2) or three (3) times as much work done in the
office. So if we can have our case management system electronically generate complaints
and electronically file them at the same time with the judiciary that is going to save us from
having to print things out or walk to the courthouse or print things our then rescan them in
and submit them via the judiciary's electronic filing portal. Very excited to have that
initiative moving forward, our Administrative Officer, Art Williams is enmeshed in a daily
basis on making that project happen. He is fortunate to have had some experience working
at the Criminal Justice Data Center so again the relationships are there, the energy is
there and more importantly the resources and the commitment to get it done are there.
Completing the transition to paperless record archiving, with our case management system
now everything that happens is scanned into the system and maintained in an electronic
format. What that means is that we do not have to have rooms full of paper files sitting
around, getting moldy and more importantly taking up workspace. Once they are archived
in electronic format we are free to use our space in different ways and that is important
because we are almost out of space. As well as continue the portable computing usage,
including the tables, laptops, while increasing work and communication efficiencies. Again
the technology is pretty amazing. We have go programs now that enable us to do a
PowerPoint presentation straight off of our Ipads. You can see right here a program called
Keynote, it is an app, you can put your presentation right on there and draw on it. You can
move the slides so you do not need to have a bulky laptop with you in court necessarily.
You can work straight off of this. Or if you are out on the community doing a presentation
you can work straight off of this rather than having to lug a laptop around and power cords,
all of those different things and more importantly an app that might cost fifteen dollars
($15) can help us replace a suite of software that might cost eight hundred dollars ($800).
That makes a difference when we are trying to roll something out to fourteen (14) different
attorneys or to forty-two (42) different employees inside an office.
This year's legislative initiatives we talked a little about this already. House Bill
No. 1993, they just appointed the Senate conferees today. Continuing to support the
Constitutional Amendment establishing the Crime Victims Rights. That was Senate Bill
No. 509, companion Bill No. HB 1085 this year. It does not look like it is going to happen
this year but we will maintain support of that in the future as well as working closely again
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 12
with our HPAA and Law Enforcement Coalition (LEC) partners to support a coherent
legislative agenda. HPAA, again is the Hawaii Prosecuting Attorneys Association, that is
myself, Keith Kanashiro, Mitch Roth on the Big Island, J.D. Kim from Maui, Chris Young
from the AG's office, a small organization. Law Enforcement Coalition is a larger coalition
made up of police and prosecutors so that would include all of the police agencies, the law
enforcement criminal justice investigative agencies in Hawai`i.
We will talk about a little bit of nuts and bolts inside the office. What we are doing
with our workspace. For those of you who have been over and have seen the inside of the
office it is cramped and we are running out of space so what we have to do is economize,
maximize and be efficient. This year, the photo on the right is a little dark but basically
what that shows is new modular type furniture we were able to purchase and install in our
administrator's offices. Art and Jamie have been sharing an office for quite some time and
by upgrading their furniture we were able make it almost like they had each got their own
office. They have enough space to store their items, it is ergonomically arranged, the way it
needs to be, and we are basically able to build out and maximize the work envelope. On the
left hand side you see our new victim witness office there with two (2) cubicles for
counselors and advocates as well as a table with some chairs there. It may seem like a
small thing but now we have a place inside our office other than the conference room where
we can bring victims and witnesses in, sit down, close a door, and have a conversation in
private. Before this happened that was not an option.
Cold Case Unit goal and objectives for fiscal 2015. To execute a contract with a
deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) and forensic laboratory. That is nearly completed already. We
have been through the procurement process. We have made a selection, moving forward
with executing the contract right now. What this will help us do is make sure we encumber
and spend down the old funds in the grant before we get ahead and use the now funds and
the continuation of the grant. And to make an effective use of social media and web
initiatives to gather tips and leads and keep cases in the public's eye. That is important.
We will spend a little more time talking about that in a few minutes.
Successes and achievements, I am always happy to have the opportunity to come up
and brag about my wonderful staff. I could not be happier to work with a team of people
like I have right now. We have managed to reduce the turnover in the office. This photo
you see right now, happy, smiling faces there, that is when our Congresswomen Tulsi
Gabbard came to visit us at the OPA. I like pictures where people are smiling because it
means that they are happy. We have been able to reduce turnover and retain staff by just
making sure that we have ongoing training and educational opportunities for the Deputies,
for the managers and for the administrators and to keep them engaged in ongoing
developments in there subject matter areas and what that means is if we have a prosecutor
that prosecutes vehicular homicide cases, have them participate in the larger, statewide
community of vehicular homicide prosecutors. Keep them up to date on the latest
techniques and practices in that subject matter area so that they can be effective when they
go to court. When you do that you retain staff as well. Retaining staff is probably the most
important part and the hardest part of the prosecutor's job. For the past thirty (30) years
on Kaua`i what the prosecutor's office has done has been a really great place to train our
opposition. Every defense attorney on this island practically and most of the judges are
folks who use to be prosecutors but for whatever reason moved on, became defense
attorneys, public defenders, whatever the case may be and then they spend twenty (20)
years out there in the legal community making our lives more difficult while we are trying
to bring newer attorneys up to speed. Really holding on the attorneys and supporting them
it just pays so many dividends and I do want to acknowledge we have the County's
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 13
appreciation banquet coming up. We have got some attorneys that are going to be
recognized there for their service with the office as well as some other employees. Kevin
Takata, for example, is making his twenty-five (25) years as a prosecutor this year.
Melinda Mendes, making here twenty (20) years and several support staff employees, Renie
Judd celebrating her.twenty-five (25) years of service, Peggy Salba-Honnet, her twenty-five
(25) years, and Anne Soriano celebrating her fifteen (15) years of service with the County.
When you have that kind of experience team, they just bring so much institutional
knowledge, resources and experience to bare on the people that they are dealing with and
the public, I think appreciates that.
Other successes and achievements we have enjoyed include improved
communication with Drug Court and Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement
(HOPE) probation staff. Joey Savino over at Drug Court, he knows that we are making as
many referrals as we can into Drug Court. Making sure that they have no shortage of work
over there as we have no shortage of potential clients for them as well as the HOPE
probation staff. Streamlined attorney time and resources by using information charging.
Moving away from the process of trying cases by grand jury and moving charging them by
information charging whenever possible. This process enables us to basically support
charges with paper declarations and let the judge make a determination of probable cause
in chambers rather than scheduling a grand jury presentation which requires the calling of
live witnesses, the using of victim witness staff and court resources as well as grand juror
time so we have gone to one (1) grand jury per month rather than two (2). It saves a lot of
time, saves a lot of money when you can charge a case in fifteen (15) minutes versus
charging a case in an hour and a half. When you are dealing with hundreds per year it just
makes sense. There are certain categories of cases you do need to go via grand jury.
Primarily crimes against persons, violent assaults, homicides, things of that nature but for
the majority of cases it is simpler and more humane on the people involved to do it via
information charging. One of the things I am most proud about and I mentioned Tim
Tobin's name earlier and this is a cryptic item here but keeping Simon reliable and alive.
Simon is KPD's narcotic enforcements dog, basically. He goes out and when they are doing
a narcotics enforcement effort that requires the use of a canine, bring the dog out, they alert
to certain indicators of illicit narcotics and assist the police with developing probable cause
to initiate an investigation or an arrest. There was an issue that came up with a court case
a couple of years ago that called into question the viability of the program. There were
certain indicators that we might need to look at bringing in a whole new dog or overhauling
the program, doing away with it altogether but Tim Tobin said, "I think I can beat this, I
think I can fix this." We had a case that came up. The dog was challenged. We were able to
go to court. Called in an expert witness from Honolulu who has got decades of experience
training these dogs and really explained to the judge this is what the dog does, this is how
it was trained, this is how they use it in the field, this is the indicators that it gives and low
and behold we were able to successfully rehabilitate the integrity of that program to the
point now where we can again make cases for the feds, we can again make cases for our
State courts and not have to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours and hundreds and
thousands of dollars overhauling the program. Effective global settlement of cases among
Deputies using JustWare, again, now the Deputies can look at the system and say, "okay, I
have this defendant. I am working on resolving his case. Does he have other cases with
our office?" It is common knowledge that folks who have one (1) case often have more than
one (1) case and in the past it would fall on the attorney to make a use of their personal
memories or send out broadcast e-mails and hope that they get the responses. Now we
know who has what cases. We can wrap them all up at the same time and deal with them.
Of course, implementing the CMS in the first place, we consider it to be a success.
Consulting and assisting with homicide cases in other jurisdictions. Having somebody like
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 14
Kevin on staff means that when you have a tricky homicide case they call Kaua`i. What
that is for our office, it is wonderful because when we have a kind of case that they
specialize in we can pick up the phone, call them and know that we are going to get the help
with them. We are going to have that kind of political and social capital with our partners
in the law enforcement system statewide. A very efficient plea offer approval system
between the First Deputy and the other Deputy Prosecutors done electronically, done with
a quick turn-around. The Deputies are going to court, they are going to the pre-trial
conferences knowing what the limits of their authority to resolve or settle their cases. It
saves time, saves continuances, saves further pre-trials, keeps the judges happy, keeps
things moving. Timely plea offers have resulted in reduced court continuances. Nothing
kills productivity like having to go to court eleven (11) times on the same case so by
reducing those repeated appearances we are able to save our resources as well as judicial
resources and of course to reduce or eliminate the screening backlog via the use of our
technological tools and via the use of the extremely skilled human resources we have
working on those cases.
The Cold Case Unit, one (1) accomplishment that I am extremely pleased with is the
identification of the remains of Nancy Baugh in Hanalei. In 1979 her boyfriend, Sonny
Featherman was brutally murdered and Nancy Baugh was never heard from again.
Rumored to disappear on a particular area, low and behold last year somebody is out doing
some weed whacking in a particular area and find some bones. KPD sends them for DNA
testing and it comes back to meet the demographics of this particular individual. Our
investigators on staff, OPA, KPD, because they have been doing this type of cases for
twenty-five/thirty (25/30) years a piece, one of them thinks, "Hey, this person was reported
to have gone missing in this area." Contact the surviving family members, get DNA
samples from them, compare it, it is her. So thirty-four (34) years later we are able to give
this family some not satisfaction, I am sure but at least some closure in terms of knowing
what happened to their loved one.
That is why we do what we do. Ensuring the grant continuity, getting additional
funds to keep doing that work, the addition of experienced staff who have experience
handling unsolved homicides and murder cases, having Joe Adric joining our team of
special investigators, having Paul Kanoho join our team, folks who have been around and
know the ropes to get things done. The forensic analysis contract and social media
initiatives I will talk about now and collaboration with KPD. I mentioned our drug dog
earlier. That is not our dog, but some stock art I found on the internet. But it is good that
working together with those folks we can achieve what people might think is unachievable.
So just a quick recap of things that were accomplished the case management, victim-
witness program reorganization and continuation of efforts to investigate and clear the cold
cases utilizing grant, continuance of efforts to work with KPD, U.S. Marshalls, and the
Attorney General (AG) to bring non-compliant registered sex offenders into compliance and
prosecute where appropriate the violators. We were awarded grant funds through the
State to work on the non-compliant registered sex offender unit that we have in our Office.
We are the only County Statewide that does our own non-compliance sex offender
prosecutions on a consistent basis. So we are extremely pleased to be able to continue those
efforts and I have to thank the folks at the AG, Lisa Arin in our Office, and AJ Morita at
the Kaua`i Police Department for his efforts and working those cases and seeing that these
folks are held to their obligations. As I showed you earlier, implementing the mobile
devices, the tablets into the courtroom environment and giving the Deputy Prosecuting
Attorneys the technical training that they know how to do a PowerPoint presentation.
With our collaboration with the Big Island Prosecutors, they were able to send over
someone with decades of experience, who did the presentation for the Xerox shooting that
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 15
happened in Honolulu. He came over and was able to give our Deputies some very practical
training, very low-cost training on how to put together winning presentations in the
courtroom.
Plans and initiatives for Fiscal Year 2015, continue to customize and implement the
CMS, roll it out to the tablets, and continuance of our efforts to clear the cold cases and
non-compliant sexual offender and continue Victim-Witness expansion using the VOCA
grant funds. To just stay the course and focus on executing that initiative of doing the right
thing for the right reason for the right person at the right time. That is the Prosecutor's
mission. I will show you our internet web-based initiatives and social media initiatives.
This is our OPA section of the County's kauai.gov website. We have added a slideshow on
there, where you can see photos and get information pertaining to our unsolved homicide
cases. On the left you can see a list of the cases along with the year in which they
happened. You can click on them and get a brief synopsis of what the case was and the
information we are able to release out to the public, a low-cost initiative. Something that
was already there and the County has a website. Let us put the information on it and get
the eyeballs focused on it and get people to share the information about these cases.
Because the information is out there. When the information came out about the
Baugh/Featherman case some months ago, there was media coverage, we got many phone
calls, many E-mails, many people who wanted to talk about that case afterwards. That is
what we are hoping to accomplish with these initiatives that people see the photos, see a
friend or loved one and remember that I know something about it and enough time has
passed that we were comfortable in talking about that. That right there, on the screen for
example, that is Margarita Agbayani and Carlos Mangayayam, who were murdered in the
Russian Fort area down on the west side many years ago. This is our County of Kaua`i,
Office of the Prosecuting Attorney Facebook page. Again social media is just the way that
people communicate in this day and age. It is the way that young people communicate in
this day and age. This is a...a lot of times you see the media covering things that has
already been on social media for a couple of days. So the way information is transmitted
among groups of people, it enables us to disseminate information to a large number of
people very quickly and again, people can see these photos and share the photos and they
can contact us with information that they may have about these photos. So that is on
Facebook. If you go on there and search for County of Kaua`i, Office of the Prosecuting
Attorney, you will be able to see that. Like it and follow it and as time goes on, we can put
additional information where we are looking for the public to give us their manao. Here is
for example the Kauai OPA cold case photo album. You can see Paul Featherman and
Nancy Baugh there and John and Michelle Klein, murdered on the Kuilau Trail many
years ago. Keith Williams who was murdered in 1978. Stacey Kelekoma who disappeared
when she was fourteen years old. Joyce Fox, who was murdered in 1992 in Kapa`a. Emilia
Baron, Daren Singer, Lisa Bissell, Fig Mitchell, Daniel Bonnano. Some of cases that we are
working on. Instagram is another popular information-sharing tool and again this is Joyce
Fox and we can put it out here for anybody who wants to see it, July 25, 1992, the body of
45-year-old Joyce Fox was found dead with stab wounds in a ditch next to the cane haul
road near what is now the Kapa'a Roundabout. So if folks have information on these cases
and things have jogged their memory, they can call us easily.
Challenges for the coming year, being in law enforcement and criminal justice there
are always challenges, but we do our best to meet them, hit them head-on and move
forward. That is top of the list integrating the ever changing State and Federal systems
and interfaces so we can effectively share information across the jurisdictions. If Kaua`i
Police Department arrests somebody who happens to be a wanted fugitive from the Big
Island, they can quickly find that information and know there is a warrant and hold them
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 16
on the warrant and get that person back to where they need to be. Information-sharing is
key to law enforcement. Another challenge is the moving goal posts in terms of the shifting
laws and decisions that come down from our Appellate Courts telling us oh, we cannot do
this, we can do this, we need to go out and educate our Cops and Deputies as far as this is
the new standard. We are always looking out for those decisions and being prepared to
address them. Mobile citation tickets, that is a very specific challenge. Those who were
here on the Council when we passed our mobile device, cell phone while driving Ordinance
know that you can deal with that ticket by writing a check, putting it in an envelope, and
mailing it in to the court. Now you cannot do that. Everyone who gets one of these tickets
has to come to court, requiring court time, judge time, clerk's staff time, and Prosecutor
time. So last year KPD wrote about a thousand of these mobile citation tickets, a thousand
new cases for our District Court staff to deal with. So that is a challenge. You folks, I am
sure have seen that people still talk on their cell phones while driving. We are going to get
a lot more of these cases moving forward in the future. The State gives us grant funds for
enforcement and all of these cases that have come to court require human intervention and
attention to deal with. HOPE cases in the mental health calendar. Our courts more and
more are being looked at as the way to deal with folks who have mental health issues. I
know it is something that is a big item on the judiciary's radar screen for dealing with. Five
years ago we had a certain amount of time and energy to devote to mental health cases and
now that has mushroomed to take a much larger part of our time. The mental health
infrastructure and services on the State and Federal levels have been decimated to the
point that so many more of these people are ending up in the criminal justice system. We
become the social workers of last resort which we cannot be doing. It ties up a lot of
resources and requires specialized training from our Attorneys, requires them to spend a lot
of time working with Kaua`i Community Mental Health and court staff. This is one of our
challenges last year as well, when you are dealing with this number of County, State, and
Federal bureaucracies and agencies and entities on an ongoing basis as we are, sometimes
it can be difficult to point folks in a new direction and get them to move forward. It is true
with us, it is true with everybody. But we work on it and again, we just keep moving
forward. Our long term is strategic planning item that the community might...I am hoping
that the community has a conversation about in the coming years and not asking for
resources at the moment, but I have a vision for a Kaua`i Family Justice Center and what
this is, it is a co-location of a multi-disciplinary team of professionals who work together
under one roof to provide coordinated services to victims of family violence. They are
specifically defined under Federal law referred to the co-location of staff members from
multiple agencies on one roof including Police Officers, Prosecutors, Victim-Witness
advocates and community-based support service providers. The closest thing we have to
this is the YWCA's amazing beautiful new building on Hardy Street, which fortunately they
allow us to go and conduct interviews over there and they are luxuriously...compared to
what has happened in the past, conference rooms. We are able to give folks a much more
comfortable environment to talk to the service providers, but really a Family Justice Center
would enable a victim or a survivor to go in, get all of these services at once without having
to go to ten different agencies without having to come to the Police Department to interview
with Detectives, minimizing the trauma inflicted on these folks who have been through
traumatic situations. Nationally there are currently 80 in operation and another 100 in the
planning process. There are several phases to developing one of these Centers, including
understanding of the history and fundamental principles involved. Going through an
orientation process and going through an assessment, implementation and support process
as well that includes doing a community assessment, strategic planning and
implementation and sustainability and support analysis. So this is something that I think
again I want to emphasize it is a long-term project. It is not going to happen tomorrow or
April 14, 2014
Prosecuting Attorney (lm)
Page 17
next year, but in the grand scheme of things would support the community and we will
start the conversation with stakeholders in the community.
As far as our budget overview, not a lot of difference between Fiscal 2014 and Fiscal
2015. Not asking for new positions and not asking for new initiatives and not asking
for...no big-asks essentially. The increase you see under "salaries" from $2.07 million to
$2.17 million, primarily made up of Collective Bargaining required pay increases. Not
much we can do about that. Benefits is actually decreased somewhat from past years $1.27
million to $1.22 million. Training, stable. Equipment and lease costs stable. Operations
cost has increased slightly. What that increase reflects is the software maintenance and
licensing agreements for the JustWare system, but the efficiencies that that system creates
in our Office more than justifies that expenditure there. So really what you see is a very
stable continuation from the past years and kind of is what it is. Graph on the next page,
again shows the percentage breakdowns for our costs, salaries and wages, 63%. 34% is
benefits. So you can see that 97% of our budget is salaries and benefits. Very small,
nominal line item for utilities. Operations, and then vehicles and equipment leases. The
equipment leases primarily the RICOH copiers and we are looking at moving those in a
more efficient direction once those leases expire as well. So I would be happy at this time to
accept any questions or concerns or conversations that members of the Council would like
to have.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you for the presentation.
Mr. Kollar: Thank you, Chair.
Chair Furfaro: I am glad you are happy to accept questions.
Maybe Art and Jamie can come up and join us. I will ask a few questions and open it up to
members. You do have one dollar funded attorney in your budget?
Mr. Kollar: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: That dollar-funded, if you wanted to fill that
position, you would be coming to the Council, I assume, for $90,000 plus, plus?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: That is nothing that you have the current
understanding of after six months, you would be able to fill, right?
Mr. Kollar: Correct. We continue to look for outside sources
of funding for that position in terms of grants. We have applied for several and working
with the Administration we would tie any requests for funds to fill that position at an
appropriate juncture.
Chair Furfaro: Even if we pursued grants you would have to
come in front of the Council to accept it?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: Jamie, the payroll and salaries that I am looking
at, there are no shared grants in the Prosecutor's Office that are made up of some County
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funds and Federal money? Some County funds and State money? All the grant money that
you currently have for salaries, PT&E is purely for those positions?
JAMIE CHONG, Grants Coordinator: Jamie Chong, Grant Coordinator. There
are two positions that are being partially funded with County funds and with grant funds.
That is position 9091, and 9087.
Chair Furfaro: On those grant funds is there any possibility that
indicates that they may be phased out from the Feds or the State?
Ms. Chong: No, those are two positions that are...well, with
grants that are formula funding. So we have had them since the early 1980s and anticipate
them continuing.
Chair Furfaro: Your Post Employment Benefits, credit of
$111,000. This is related to the underfunding? Is that...I see the gentlemen shaking their
heads. That is the 27% is the $111,000? Okay. Your auto assigned, tell me a little bit
about the auto assignments? How are they handled? I saw a $7,000 line for leases.
Mr. Kollar: The lease payments...Jamie, those are the
copiers, correct?
Ms. Chong: Yes.
Mr. Kollar: The vehicles are paid for.
Ms. Chong: We do not have any vehicle payments.
Chair Furfaro: You have no vehicle payments?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: Thank you.
Mr. Kollar: We are looking at picking up some surplus
vehicles that the Police Department is finished with and phasing out some of our older
ones.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. I hope you folks do understand that any
vehicles you pick up are subject to being approved by the Mayor. That is by HRS. No one
other than the Fire Chief, the Police Chief, and the Mayor are to have a vehicle unless it
has been signed off by the Mayor.
Mr. Kollar: Yes, sir.
Chair Furfaro: Okay. Who did your space planning and was
there a fee attached to it?
ART WILLIAMS, Administrative Officer: Art Williams, Administrative
Officer. We did it in concert with Office Max and also with System Center, who had done
previous installations in our offices. So they along with a third-party vendor, I cannot
remember the third one, all participated and gave back feedback on the different space
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planning. So we have had good feedback from both of them, but the Office Max folks have
been most forthcoming with suggestions. They have been on-site and measure out the
spaces and they work with a lot of the Counties across the State, County facilities across
the State and have given us the good suggestion. So they have been very helpful and that
is who we have currently worked with.
Chair Furfaro: Are they the same individuals that are doing
work for the Planning Department and others? Or was this a separate contract?
Mr. Williams: Separate contract, but the same individuals...we
went to Planning and got recommendations from them, yes.
Chair Furfaro: Going around the table for...let me ask you on
your DNA forensic contract, the services, what is that amount and specifically where does it
appear in your line items?
Ms. Chong: For the DNA contract that is 100% coming from
grants.
Chair Furfaro: Oh, 100%.
Ms. Chong: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Because I did not see it there and I do not see
your grants. So that is all grant money?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Chair Furfaro: Federal grant money?
Ms. Chong: Yes.
Mr. Kollar: Cold Case grant, yes.
Chair Furfaro: Congratulations. Questions? Around the table.
Mr. Kagawa, you have the floor.
Mr. Kagawa: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Justin for your
presentation. From time to time I bump into some of your workers and they tell me that
they are happy under your leadership. So I think a happy office is a good office.
Mr. Kollar: Thank you.
Mr. Kagawa: A couple of questions. If you can briefly explain,
because I know in Honolulu, I have seen a couple of news articles where I guess there is
some frustration with reoccurring criminals and they are saying that they have a charge,
but they are still on the loose and committing more crimes and they are almost blaming the
court system that there is a big backlog and takes time and I think overcrowded prisons. If
you could explain some of that that may be happening on Kaua`i? I saw a lot of cases piled
up on some of our Attorneys and is that some of what is happening?
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Mr. Kollar: Any time we are dealing with outside agencies to
get the work done, there is the potential for breakdowns happening at some point along
that line or I should say "not breakdowns," but clogs. So we can make sure if we know if
somebody of the community that is a problem, a recurring offender, someone creating a lot
of havoc and strife, we work with the Police to make sure that the investigations are done
and concluded quickly and get that case to the courts. Once it happens, when it is in court
we have input into it, but it is not up to us necessarily. The judges make the decision as far
as bail. We may request that somebody be subject to a higher bail, so we can keep them in
custody and off the streets. The judge may give a lower bail. The person may even be able
to post a higher bail from a family member or have resources, so sometimes they are able to
get back on the streets that way. There is a certainly a problem with overcrowding in our
correctional facilities. Even someone sentenced to 5-year, 10-year term, what that means
they will be sentenced to the open five, go in front of the parole authority who fixes their
minimum amount of time to serve to be eligible for parole and that could be anywhere from
a one year and eight months up to the full five. On top of that you have work release
programs and furlough programs and we are in fact alarmed by the speed that this people
return to the community.
Mr. Kagawa: How is the relationship going with KPD? What I
have heard is that sometimes Officers are frustrated because they did the Police report and
have a good case and when they re-arrest them, they are like "wow."
Mr. Kollar: Our relationship with the Kaua`i Police
Department is very good. We have good lines of communications with the Chief and
Assistant Chiefs and Officers in the field. We have made it very clear if they need help, any
time of day or night, pick up the phone and call and somebody will be there to answer your
questions. Like any...we have got a brother / brother relationship between us and the
Police in terms yes, siblings there will be a spark over a particular issue and we will go
head-to-head and argue for an hour or two and then come to a mutual understanding and
move forward. So that is what happens. I am very satisfied with the level of trust and
openness that we have with the Police Department at this time.
Mr. Kagawa: Thank you. So basically if you can answer this,
is plea bargains frustrating sometimes for the Police? When they find out instead of going
the distance, I guess we plea bargain? But there is a reason sometimes we plea bargain,
right?
Mr. Kollar: Almost all cases at any level do resolve via plea
bargaining because the court system is simply not designed to take every case to trial. In
cases where somebody has a question about oh, why was a particular agreement reached?
We have a conversation with that Officer of that Detective, or whoever has the concern and
say this is what happened. This is the reality of the situation. This is what was provable
and this is what was not provable and take it from there. I think most folks understand
that plea bargaining is part of the process in most cases. Sometimes the results are not
what we wanted. Sometimes the results are not what the defense wanted but in all of those
cases we do our best to get the most favorable terms we can to protect the community and
keep the community safe.
Mr. Kagawa: Understood. Good answer. Thank you, Chair.
Thank you for your presentation. I will support your budget. It is basically status quo
budget and I think a lot of other Departments are facing the same.
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Mr. Kollar: Thank you, Councilmember.
Chair Furfaro: JoAnn.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Thank you Justin for your very
informative and substantive report and congratulations on your many advancements in
your first year in Office. It is quite impressive. I appreciate your cost consciousness where
you are using technology to be more efficient and using strategic thinking like with the
grand jury frequency and also using relationships, like you are in getting training help from
other offices.
Mr. Kollar: Thank you.
Ms. Yukimura: Excuse me my ignorance what is our HOPE
cases?
Mr. Kollar: Hawai`i Opportunity for Probation with
Enforcement. It is a program that Judge Alm started on O`ahu and has been emulated in
many other places. What HOPE seeks to accomplish is for offenders that require more
close supervision than your average probation case. If it is somebody who kind of requires
that extra little attention, they go into that program. In a normal probation case a person
might violate a few times before consequences and I know they are constantly faced with
the struggle in that area, but with HOPE, as soon as you violate, you come in and see the
judge and get consequences right away. The first time might be two days in jail and going
up, could mean your probation revoked and open prison term.
Ms. Yukimura: So it actually . tries to address the prison
overcrowding situation by not just revoking probation immediately and sending them back
for a long time?
Mr. Kollar: Right. The theory is, I believe, is to save prison
for those folks who really need to protect the community from and if it is folks who can be
adequately supervised on probation to go that route.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. What is the Justice Reinvestment
Initiative working group?
Mr. Kollar: The JRI working group is well, JRI is an
initiative of Governor Abercrombie's. He worked with the folks at the Pugh Foundation
and came up with these set of principles and practice to implement in Hawai`i. Part of it is
his stated policy goal of returning Hawai`i prisoners who are housed in mainland prison
facilities and so in terms of doing that, there were concerns raised by law enforcement,
what are you going to do with these folks? If you are going to be bringing these folks back
to Hawai`i you need to give us the tools to keep on top of that situation. So for example, in
our Office we got an extra Victim-Witness advocate to keep folks in the community apprised
with what is happening with these offenders.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you for the explanation. Speaking of
Victim-Witness, I do want to thank you for restoring the program and for using it to
really...I feel like it is related to community-based prosecuting; where you are really
addressing some of the concerns of the community. Whether it is bringing prisoners back
or dealing with crimes where there is no prosecution, but there is still a victim.
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Mr. Kollar: Right.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you very much. I only see two positions in
your budget for victim-witness and you mentioned three?
Mr. Kollar: The third one is a grant-funded position that is
not on the County budget.
Ms. Yukimura: So it is totally grant-funded?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Ms. Yukimura: So you have your Director plus two counselors
now?
Mr. Kollar: Correct. Well Director plus three counselors.
The third counselor is under the grant. You are only seeing two?
Ms. Yukimura: Yes. I am only seeing one Counselor II.
Mr. Kollar: Marla and Jennifer are all grants? Jennifer is
partly on the County budget. The other two are entirely grant-funded. One is VOCA and
one is JRI.
Ms. Yukimura: Okay. So you have three Victim-Witness
Counselors, one on County money, two grant-funded and your Director?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Your Family Justice Center, I
commend you for looking ahead, and I do believe that coordination and collaboration is the
way we are going to solve problems efficiently and cost-effectively. My question is, and I
know this is just a beginning conversation. Why only would the Center...why would there
just be a Family Justice Center for victims of family violence?
Mr. Kollar: That is the model the way it is setup. I think
there is room for flexibility to include other types of crime situations. But family violence
can really encompass a lot of different types of crime. It can include interfamily property
crime or drug situation or domestic abuse situation or child abuse type of situation,
something that is maybe better handled outside of Police station environments.
Ms. Yukimura: What about juveniles, who may not be involved
in domestic violence or family violence, but may not yet be fully into the system, the
criminal justice system?
Mr. Kollar: Yes. I think those individuals would also be
appropriately serviced at this location. We work fairly closely with Office of Youth Services
in how to move forward their initiatives and they are looking at assessment centers for
juveniles who are on the edge. They are doing a pilot project in Kalihi right now. I have
been pushing them to start a neighbor island project like ourselves, but they are under
resourced. The idea if you have a juvenile who is in need of services to come to the
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assessment center and if it is something that need to go to law enforcement, it can go that
way. If it has to go to Hale Opio or Alu Like or some other program it can go that route, but
again, co-located in other location.
Ms. Yukimura: I think, because of the different centers maybe
looking at addressing them in an effective way. I read about the Waianae Center looking at
preschool education and using Head Start, Punana Leo, all-in-one building, but different
approaches because building and land is so expensive and so forth.
Mr. Kollar: That is all part of the conversation moving
ahead.
Ms. Yukimura: My last question is on page 9 of your PowerPoint
where you talk about property crime unit and your last accomplishment was partner with
community organizations and law enforcement. How do you detect trends? So I am just
curious how you track trends?
Mr. Kollar: It is primarily when it comes to the property
crimes situation, primarily anecdotal. I know the Police Department has made some pretty
good strides to be able to map out the crimes where they occur and the times of the crimes.
Right now practically speaking a concerned individual who is affiliated with a community
group will call me up and say hey we have got a real rash of stuff going on right now in this
area. Then I can go to my Deputies and to the Detectives and say are you aware of this?
What do you know? How can we move things forward? With the property crimes and
spree-type of situations that we have seen a lot of in the last couple of years, fortunately we
are small enough as a community to respond that way, but we need more mapping tools
and better analytical moving forward.
Ms. Yukimura: I have read about very sparsely about Police
Departments that have used mapping very effectively and if that is something that could be
useful here, tailored to our specific circumstances sounds like it could be very useful.
Mr. Kollar: Even in Honolulu there are apps that you can
use and will give you the crime mapping information from their Police Department and you
will see where it is happening.
Ms. Yukimura: Thank you. Something that I have reiterated
with everyone. You mentioned benefits are going down, but you understand it is just
because we are deferring our OPEB obligations?
Mr. Kollar: Clear on that.
Ms. Yukimura: So we are still going to have to pay it. Okay.
Chair Furfaro: The $111,000 that I mentioned is really an
expense. It is only being deferred. So we have ten more minutes here. I want to go to Mr.
Chock and then Mr. Rapozo, please.
Mr. Chock: Thank you, Chair. I apologize for not being here
earlier. I was at Kapa'a High School in a class teaching some students, but I did have a
chance to look at your presentation beforehand and wanted to thank for the impressive
work that you folks have been doing with the County Prosecuting Office. I think you
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answered the first question with the Chair mentioning the $111,000 in Other Post
Employment Benefits, being attributed to OPEB. The other questions that I had was in
terms of your long-term strategic plan for the Kaua`i Family Justice Center. What a great
program. Can you tell me what the budget is for that within your operations?
Mr. Kollar: That is not a budget item within our operations.
That is long-term vision-type of thing that is going to be a conversation before it is going to
be a budget.
Mr. Chock: Okay. So it is not yet related to the budget?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Mr. Chock: In terms of timing and timelines, such a big
need, what do you forecast that?
Mr. Kollar: I think we are looking at years potentially.
Mr. Chock: Oh, I see.
Mr. Kollar: A small number.
Mr. Chock: Last question without getting into any
philosophical discussions one of the challenges is institutional resistance to change and I
was wondering if there was a response to, that a program or training to address some of
that?
Mr. Kollar: I am not sure...I did not have a specific agency in
mind when I said that. I think for folks who have been around, the worst phrase you can
hear is "you will ask a question why do we do it that way and the answer you get is that is
the way we have always done it." That is the phrase we are trying to eliminate from our
vocabulary and minimize moving forward with other agencies. I know, every agency has its
own missions and goals that they need to execute. So sometimes our goals may not line up
with their goals and they say we are going in this direction and we say can you try to move
a little in this direction? It is kind of like turning the boat around.
Mr. Chock: I hear you and understand.
Mr. Kollar: We approach it with a sense of optimism
whenever possible.
Mr. Chock: Great. Do you folks have any sort of internal
evaluative systems, offering the ability to offer feedback? I think Steve had done something
similar in his office in terms of trying to gage internal feedback in order to move us forward
and grow?
Mr. Kollar: I will talk with Steve about what exactly is he
doing. But I can tell you that in our Office, my policy is my door is open. You can come on
in and talk. We also regularly meet with different components and segments of the staff to
have conversations and get feedback and say, what are the issues that you are having?
What are the problems that you are having? What are our suggested solutions for those
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issues and how can we address it? We try to maintain really open and free lines of
communication within the Office and we do solicit feedback from staff.
Mr. Chock: I appreciate your work.
Mr. Kollar: Thank you, Councilmember.
Chair Furfaro: I also want to share with you that we have over
the last three years done upward appraisals for our staff here and would be glad to share
the format with you. We do it once a year and it is based on core values that we have
agreed on. Please let me know and I will be glad to share that with you.
Mr. Kollar: That will be great. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Mr. Rapozo.
Mr. Rapozo: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you Justin for
being here. The only question is the CMS under R&M computers page 29. You have NCIC,
the NCIC and CMS are two different things, right?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Mr. Rapozo: The CMS is your case management system?
Mr. Kollar: Correct.
Mr. Rapozo: That is an annual fee? $51,960 a year?
Mr. Kollar: That is an annual fee. We are working towards
the other islands using this system and we will be able to use the bulk licensing as a way to
leverage a better cost from JustWare. That is a recurring cost item and it is unavoidable.
Mr. Rapozo: It seems kind of high.
Mr. Kollar: It does achieve efficiencies within the Office in
terms of saving people from a lot of wasted effort.
Mr. Rapozo: So what is the bulk of the cost is the licensing or
maintenance?
Mr. Kollar: It is the licensing and maintenance fee and that
is just to ensure that we have the support, if and when we need it.
Mr. Rapozo: How many licenses do you get with that?
Mr. Kollar: Art what is the number? 42 licenses.
Mr. Rapozo: So everybody in the Office gets to use it?
Mr. Kollar: Correct. So everybody has access to the
information and knows what is going on.
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Mr. Rapozo: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Chair Furfaro: Are you good, Mel?
Mr. Rapozo: Yes.
Chair Furfaro: Do you have any other questions?
Mr. Rapozo: No.
Chair Furfaro: I will go to Mr. Kagawa.
Mr. Kagawa: Thank you. Sorry, I just have one more.
Regarding the TVRs, Joan Conrow's Abuse Chronicles. We decided to work with Planning.
I was one of the members who did not vote for the 3.17 investigation. I had faith we would
have a better solution with Planning and working it out with the Prosecutors and maybe
going after some low-hanging fruit. Have we had any progress?
Mr. Kollar: Yes, we have. I remember that conversation
from last year well and appreciate all that followed from it. Over the past year we have
spent time working with the folks at Planning and folks out in the community to help
identify cases that might be suitable for enforcement. What we have done is there are
several that we identified that if they have not been filed already, they are about to be filed.
I remember reviewing the complaint language. So there will be charges happening.
Mr. Kagawa: Are we looking at more penalties or compliance?
Mr. Kollar: Well, the goal is always compliance, but if the
person is not going to be amenable to compliance, there are consequences for that.
Mr. Kagawa: I am kind of worried that in this recent case we
have had that before the Council, I am worried that the defense will use...they will say why
are you going after us? There are hundreds more. So you are politically going after us? Is
that going to be a defense by these people who are abusing our TVR laws?
Mr. Kollar: I cannot say what their defense is going to be.
Our identification of cases is not based on political concerns in any subject matter area.
Mr. Kagawa: Okay. So we hope that whatever cases we go
after we cannot worry about that defense then?
Mr. Kollar: That is the goal.
Mr. Kagawa: Well, just be wary of that. That is one of my
concerns is that they will say well, everybody else is doing it on my street, why are you
picking on me? And then what? I guess we will see.
Mr. Kollar: We can deal with that.
Mr. Kagawa: Thank you. Thank you, Chair.
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Chair Furfaro: We will get a little bit of an update tomorrow
from Planning. They are 9 a.m. — 11:00 a.m. tomorrow. So we appreciate the work that you
are doing jointly with them but we should get some updates from them tomorrow.
Mr. Kollar: Very good, sir.
Chair Furfaro: Any other questions at this point? I guess I just
want to say thank you very much for a very precise presentation. We appreciate the
containment of costs. I do want to think that the $99,000 change in your actual payroll is
related to those that are members of the Bargaining Unit, those 14 employees. So
everything is very tight. Again, please note if you are successful in getting the grant for
that one dollar-funded Prosecutor, please be prepared to make that presentation to this
Council.
Mr. Kollar: Thank you, Chair.
Chair Furfaro: I have no call-backs for you.
Mr. Kollar: Thank you.
Chair Furfaro: We are going to go on our caption break right
now for 10 minutes and we will start with Transportation when we come back. Thank you
very much everyone who is here.
There being no objections, the Committee recessed at 11:05 a.m.