City attorneys
oppose mergingA Council committee considers placing
civil and criminal legal staffs under one roof
The city prosecutor and corporation counsel told the City Council yesterday that they oppose a proposed City Charter change to combine their offices into one legal department to handle both civil and criminal cases.
"We both agree that's not a good idea," said Corporation Counsel David Arakawa, the city's attorney handling civil suits.
Both Arakawa and Prosecutor Peter Carlisle also said that if the Council was looking to achieve savings from the move, it might end up costing more.
"Is it fiscally going to be a good idea? Are there going to be cost savings? I would suggest to you that all you would end up having is exactly the same number of staff people with one person at the top and two people split off on the side," Carlisle said.
The City Council's Executive Matters Committee, made up of all nine Council members, deferred action on the plan but suggested that some of the ideas that came out of yesterday's discussion might be worth looking into further -- such as an elected corporation counsel.
Councilman Charles Djou, who introduced the measure, said he proposed the Charter change to organize a legal office similar to the state attorney general's and the U.S. attorney's offices, which handle civil and criminal cases.
Djou, an attorney and Army reservist, said that as an attorney with the Judge Advocate General Corps, he is assigned both administrative and criminal cases.
Arakawa and Carlisle said each office has a different function.
"We have different mind-sets. Ours is advisory; ours is training; ours is trying to help the city and its administration, its legislative branch and its agencies in the most efficient and cost-effective manner," Arakawa said. "Their job is public safety."
Arakawa also said potential conflicts of interest would end up costing the city more money in special outside counsel.
"The prosecutors might be doing an investigation and it involves city employees, and ... corporation counsel needs to advise city employees, provide counsel to city employees in the course of that investigation. That would be very hard to do under one office," he said.
Carlisle said there are also logistical problems of where to house a legal department of 350 employees. Currently, the prosecutor's office is in a downtown office building, while the Corporation Council office is housed in Honolulu Hale.
The idea of merging the two departments is not new.
In 1952 a similar proposal to combine the offices of the city attorney and public prosecutor was rejected by a committee of the Board of Supervisors, the predecessor of the City Council.
That proposal came 20 years after the two offices became separate entities due to legal reforms after the Massie case -- the accusation by Navy wife Thalia Massie in 1931 that she had been raped and beaten by four local men.
There was a mistrial, and shortly after, one of the defendants was murdered. Four men, including Massie's husband, were convicted of killing the man but had their 10-year sentences commuted to one hour. Thalia Massie left the islands, and the charges against the other defendants were dropped.
A bill signed by Territorial Gov. Lawrence Judd in 1932 created the position of public prosecutor and also made the city attorney, the predecessor to the corporation counsel, an appointed instead of elected position. In 1980 the city prosecuting attorney became an elected position instead of an appointment by the mayor.
The idea of an elected city attorney would need more discussion that is better suited for a charter commission, Arakawa said.
Carlisle, however, said there is more accountability with elected officials.
"I would endorse that proposition for the corporation counsel as well."
