Sec. 8. Grants and Contracts
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/bill/116/hr/3741/ih/section-8·A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.
The Executive Director of the Center is authorized to make grants and enter into contracts under this Act. The Center shall make grants to State or local governments and public defense systems that supplement, not supplant, other available resources for the purpose of improving or establishing public defense systems. The term of a grant under this section shall be 2 or 3 years, as determined by the Center. A grant recipient under this Act may renew such grant by submitting an application to the Executive Director of the Center at such time, in such manner, and containing such information as the Executive Director may reasonably require, including an assessment of such recipient’s compliance with or progress toward achieving the quality standards that the Center develops under subsection (e).
The Center shall monitor and evaluate and provide for independent evaluations of programs supported in whole or in part under this Act to ensure that the provisions of this Act and the bylaws of the Center and applicable rules, regulations, and guidelines promulgated pursuant to this Act are carried out. Not later than 30 days prior to the approval of any grant application or prior to entering into a contract or prior to the initiation of any other project, the Center shall announce publicly, and shall notify the Governor, the State bar association of any State, and the principal local bar associations (if there be any) of any community, where public defense services will thereby be initiated, of such grant, contract, or project.
Notification shall include a reasonable description of the grant application or proposed contract or project and request comments and recommendations. The Center shall develop and make publicly available standards for the quality of public defense services, which the Center shall use to assess the success of a recipient in improving a public defense system. The Center shall establish and maintain a database that shall be publicly available online, and shall include the contact information for all public defense systems in every State.
The Center shall establish regional backup service centers to assist public defense systems. The services provided at such centers shall include— providing attorneys engaged in public defense services with access to qualified investigators and sentencing mitigation specialists; providing information to public defense systems about grants that are available to them, and providing assistance and guidance to public defense systems that apply for such grants; and other services that the Center determines are appropriate.
The Center shall determine the locations of the regional backup service centers, and the geographic region that each center is responsible for serving. With respect to grants or contracts in connection with the provision of public defense services under this Act, the following shall apply: The Center shall ensure the maintenance of the highest quality of service and professional standards, the preservation of attorney-client relationships, and the protection of the integrity of the adversary process from any impairment in furnishing public defense services.
The Center shall ensure that grants and contracts are made so as to provide the most economical and effective delivery of public defense services to persons in both urban and rural areas. The Center shall ensure that attorneys employed full time in public defense services activities supported in major part by the Center refrain from— any compensated outside practice of law; and any uncompensated outside practice of law except as authorized in guidelines promulgate by the Center.
The Center may provide interim funding necessary to maintain current level of activities for any grantee, contractor, or person or entity receiving financial assistance under this Act that files with the Center a timely application for refunding until— the application for refunding has been approved and funds pursuant thereto received; or the application for refunding has been denied in accordance with section 11.