A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT to increase the efficiency of the office of indigent defense services by appropriating funds to establish a system of automated kiosks in certain local confinement facilities to allow attorneys representing indigent defendants to consult with their clients remotely.
The General Assembly of North Carolina enacts:
SECTION 1.  There is appropriated from the General Fund to the Office of Indigent Defense Services the sum of one million six hundred thousand dollars ($1,600,000) for the 2015‑2016 fiscal year to establish a system of fully automated kiosks in certain local confinement facilities to allow attorneys representing indigent defendants to consult with their clients remotely, thereby saving the time and expense of traveling to and from those facilities. The system shall incorporate technology through which meetings between attorneys, their clients, and authorized third parties at a separate location cannot be monitored or recorded, thereby preserving confidentiality. No later than July 31, 2015, the Office of Indigent Defense Services shall issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) from vendors who can provide the kiosks described in this section. The vendor will be chosen for an initial two‑year period, will continue to own the kiosks, and will oversee access to the kiosks by attorneys assigned to represent indigent clients. In the initial two‑year period, attorneys assigned to represent indigent clients shall bear no direct cost for use of the kiosks to meet with their indigent clients.
SECTION 2.  The savings realized through the use of this system shall be used at the discretion of the Commission on Indigent Defense Services to (i) continue funding for the use of the kiosk system or (ii) reduce the carry‑forward debt incurred through payments to private assigned counsel during the 2013‑2015 fiscal biennium and, to the extent there are additional savings, increase the rates paid by the Office of Indigent Defense Services to private assigned counsel during the 2015‑2017 fiscal biennium and provide comparable increases for contract attorneys during the 2015‑2017 fiscal biennium.
SECTION 3.  The Office of Indigent Defense Services shall report on the establishment and use of the kiosk system provided for in this act and the corresponding cost‑savings to the Chairs of the Senate Appropriations Committee on Justice and Public Safety, the Chairs of the House Appropriations Committee on Justice and Public Safety, and the Chairs of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Justice and Public Safety by February 1 of each year.
SECTION 4.  This act becomes effective July 1, 2015.