LIHU‘E — While the Hawai‘i State Judiciary is immune from worker furloughs beginning next month for many other state workers, the Office of the Public Defender, in the Department of Budget and Finance, is being made to close three days
LIHU‘E — While the Hawai‘i State Judiciary is immune from worker furloughs beginning next month for many other state workers, the Office of the Public Defender, in the Department of Budget and Finance, is being made to close three days per month, usually on Fridays.
The program begins Friday, July 10, according to a furlough schedule released Thursday by Gov. Linda Lingle. The other July furlough days are Fridays, July 17 and 24.
Kaua‘i Public Defender Edmund Acoba said he could not comment on the furloughs, referring questions to state Public Defender John Tonaki on O‘ahu. Tonaki did not return a telephone call Thursday afternoon.
Acoba’s voice-mail message indicates Fridays as his office day, where he schedules meetings for clients and prospective clients from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. in his office at the State Building Room 206 in Lihu‘e.
Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho, a county employee not subjected to furlough, said without public defenders there would be very few cases for her office to prosecute in court, because public defenders provide legal advice to an estimated 80 percent of all defendants on the island.
“I think it’s going to have a negative impact all around,” she said, adding that the court may already be stretched thin with the possibility of a single long jury trial — one of the James Pflueger civil or criminal matters, for example — could tie up one Circuit Court judge for as long as three months, including Fridays.
The furloughs of state public defenders — Kaua‘i has three — will have an impact on constitutional rights of defendants who are guaranteed the right to a speedy trial, she said.
As the Kaua‘i judges are already scheduling cases for October, any long trial could push several other cases further back on the calendar, with the potential of exceeding a six-month rule guaranteeing quick trials, she said.
The six-month clock runs from the date of arrest, re-arrest or mistrial to the date of commencement of a trial or new trial, according to Rule 48 of the Hawai‘i Rules of Penal Procedure. A violation of Rule 48 allows the court to dismiss a case without prejudice — meaning a total dismissal without provision for any retrial.
One of the judges at the Kaua‘i courthouse was unsure how the furloughs would affect court efficiency.
“That’s an unknown situation,” 5th Circuit Chief Judge Randal Valenciano said earlier this month during proceedings involving the manslaughter trial of Pflueger stemming from his alleged culpability for the Ka Loko Reservoir Dam disaster.
In rescheduling a hearing on a motion to disqualify state Attorney General Mark Bennett from the proceedings, Valenciano said he didn’t even know then if the courthouse is going to be open on Fridays. With the Judiciary — judges and other court personnel — to be unimpacted by the furlough plan detailed by Lingle Thursday, it appears the court will stay open for business.
There are no public defenders involved in the Pflueger cases, but there are lawyers from the state Office of the Attorney General who are subject to furlough days under the Lingle plan, including Friday, July 10, which could be a factor if the hearing runs over to a second day from July 9.
In Lingle’s emergency economic address, she said state workers would be forced to take three unpaid days off each month, to cut the costs of state government to help balance the state budget in light of depressed revenues.
Officially, the Judiciary issued the following statement regarding employee furloughs, through spokesperson Marsha Kitagawa:
“Regarding the economic posture of the state, the Judiciary is carefully observing the statements and actions of the various state governmental entities and will move at the appropriate time to implement the actions deemed to be in the best interest of the Judiciary, as an independent branch of state government.”
Further, Iseri-Carvalho said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the fate of three grants for attorney positions in her office is also in the hands of the statewide Governor’s Committee on Crime, a 12-member panel.
The positions are recommended for funding approval, pending the committee vote. Iseri-Carvalho is a committee member. The committee is next scheduled to meet today, she said.
For detailed coverage of how Lingle’s furlough plan will impact Kaua‘i’s economy, see an upcoming edition of The Garden Island.
