ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Talofa!

Welcome to the web site of the American Samoa Bar Association. We hope you will enjoy browsing our site which includes information about American Samoa's legal system, our organization and its members.

Be sure and visit the Legal Resources section. It is the heart of our web site. This comprehensive compilation of reference materials represents the first time most of them have been available on the internet. Through this resource it is hoped the user will gain access to practically all of the substantive and procedural laws of the Territory of American Samoa. We would like to take this opportunity to thank and acknowledge all those who have contributed to this project.

For years lawyers, scholars, and others interested in the law of American Samoa have been frustrated by the disorganized state of the law. Because of chronic budgetary shortfalls the publication of court decisions, statutes and regulations issued by the various executive agencies has often been irregular and long in coming. What law was published was done at the government printing office in Utulei in limited quantities. Commercial legal publishing companies seemed to have little or no interest in publishing the laws of America's most remote possession. As a consequence, laying one's hands on a complete collection of the laws of the territory was a most challenging proposition involving many visits to numerous offices and agencies on island. For the average lay person it was an almost insurmountable task. With the exception of some PDF files of the basic organic territorial documents and key congressional legislation on Congressman Eni Faleomaveaga's web site, none of the law of the territory was available over the internet. The situation in American Samoa stood in stark contrast to that of most U.S. states where those state's statutes, case law, court rules and administrative regulations were available to the general public over the internet.

In March of 2001at its annual meeting the American Samoa Bar Association turned its attention to the problem. The establishment of a web site for the association was approved. An Internet Committee was formed. Assistant Public Defender Curtis Sherwood, the bar's new vice president and leading proponent of an informational web site, was appointed as chair of the committee. Members Jennifer Joneson, Jeff Waller, Tala Uiagalelei and Marie Lafaele lent their considerable talents and energies to the project when they agreed to serve as members of the committee. As the newly elected president of the bar I eagerly committed my support and assistance to the project. Our enthusiasm might not have been so great had we realized the daunting task facing us.

Nonetheless, the progress on the web site project has been impressive. This has been due mainly to the efforts of Curtis Sherwood. Curtis poured over every book he could get from the Feleti Barstow Library on web site construction. A mild mannered assistant public defender by day, by night he became "web man" learning the intricacies of strange concepts like HTML coding. His commitment has been an inspiration to all of those associated with the project. Largely as a result of Curt's efforts the bar's web site homepage appeared on the internet in August of 2001.

Much of the credit for the law compilation project must go to the American Samoa Criminal Justice Planning Agency which is the territorial agency which administers United States Department of Justice grant funds. The bar association made an application for grant funding in the last half of 2001 from the agency and the grant was approved and funding received in the first part of 2002. The Criminal Justice Planning Agency purchased the bar a new computer with a C.D. burner, flat bed and feed scanners, a laser printer, software and supplies. This equipment greatly increased our ability to complete the compilation in a timely manner. The bar association’s most sincere thanks is extended to HTC Ala’alamua La’auli, Executive Director, and Leonard Seumanutafa, Program Coordinator, both of whom were instrumental in bringing about the grant funding.

A prime objective of the bar was the posting to the site of the published opinions of the High Court of American Samoa. Most of those opinions, beginning in l901, are contained in the American Samoa Reports (1^st and 2^nd series). The four volumes of the 1^st series of the reports consist of some four hard bound books. These volumes are relatively rare but with some sincere begging the committee was able to borrow a complete set. The bar association is particularly grateful to bar member Jim McGuire for his loan of Volume 1 of the 1^st Series, a very rare book indeed. The 2^nd series of the reports consists of some 31 volumes of soft bound books. Of the reports only the last three volumes of the 2^nd series are available in a digital format. The bar association is grateful to American Samoa High Court Chief Justice Michael Kruse and Associate Justice Lyle Richmond for allowing us access to the computerized records of the reports which were available. Curtis was able to obtain a set of the 2^nd series books which could be taken apart and scanned directly. It was found the elimination of the photocopying stage significantly enhanced the accuracy of the scanned images. However, all scans had to be corrected, edited and re-formatted by hand. At a meeting of the committee in August, 2001, it was decided to hire Ms. Marilyn Miller to assist with the scanning and proofing of the cases. Ms. Julie McElroy, a secondary education teacher from the U.K. who was temporarily living and working in the territory, also helped with this aspect of the project. Bar member Afoa Lutu with the Legislative Reference Bureau of the Fono generously loaned the bar association the use of one of his staff, Ed Tautolo, to help with copying, scanning and editing. Ed has been a real workhorse. In addition, committee members Jeff Waller, Tala Uigalelei and I have contributed our time and efforts to this tedious process. The work on the reports was completed in November of 2002 and was updated in the Spring of 2003 with the addition of the newly released volumes 29 and 30 of the American Samoa Reports, 2^nd Series.

The second major part of the legal resource section is the American Samoa Code Annotated. This consists of the statutes passed by the Fono, the legislative body of American Samoa. Fortunately for us, the code, with the numerous revisions and annotations prepared by Mr. Lutu and his staff, was obtainable already converted to computer readable format. Much of this work was done at the LRB in l999 and 2000 by bar member Christa Lin who is now an Administrative Law Judge with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Chicago. Credit also is due to Ardie Roque who is employed as a computer consultant at the High Court of American Samoa. Ardie took the LRB’s work and completed the installation of hyperlinks down to the sections thereby making the code much easier to browse and search. The orginal collection was current through 2000. In 2003 the LRB again stepped in and provided us with the 2002 and 2003 updates to the code which we cut and pasted into the version contained on the site. The bar association also wishes to extend its sincere thanks to Mr. Bill Mahn for his extensive work installing hyperlinks to the code.

The third component of the legal resource section consists of the Administrative Code. It is comprised of the rules and regulations of the various territorial agencies. Many of the regulations were available in a single hard bound volume entitled "American Samoa Administrative Code". This volume was last published in the mid l980’s. The lack of a published revision of the rules and regulations promulgated since that time has been a matter of considerable concern to the membership of the bar. Curtis and I spent considerable time scanning and editing the existing published rules. Curtis concluded his work at the Public Defender’s Office in February of 2003 and departed the territory. He has been sorely missed. However, his work on the regulations has been continued. Most of the day to day work has been done by Ed Tautolo and me. However, the work has been greatly expedited by members like Gwen Tauiliili Langkildge and Martin McCarthy who provided us with electronic copies of chapters of the regulations which they had in their possession and which were not in our copy of the published regulations. The work on the regulations is progressing steadily and it is anticipated this collection will be complete by the end of the year. That work would not be possible without the cooperation of Henry Kappel and Toetasi Tuiteleleapaga who are employed as attorneys with the Office of Counsel to the Governor. That office is responsible for keeping track of the revisions (most not officially published) to the regulations and has generously allowed us access to those materials to better insure our posted regulations are up to date.

The site also includes the American Samoa Digest. The digest is prepared and updated annually by the law clerks assigned to assist the Justices of the High Court of American Samoa. It is a subject matter summary of the various cases of the High Court. It is available on disc from the court. We hope to have this document posted in its current form with hyperlinks to the cases when the web site is complete. The bar association wishes to express its sincere appreciation to the High Court for making these materials available to us.

We frequently receive inquiries from attorneys off island seeking information about the local rules of the High Court and District Court. The site includes all rules of those courts including the Rules of Criminal and Civil Procedure and Rules of Evidence and Appellate Procedure. The bar association wishes to thank Bob Gorniak, Clerk of the District and High Courts, for his considerable assistance in making these materials available for posting to the site. We have enhanced the files by installing bookmarks and hyperlinks. Our thanks to bar member Reggie Gates who generously donated his time in preparing some of these files for uploading to the web site.

The site also includes the Constitution of American Samoa, the Letters of Cession ceding the eastern islands of the Samoa archipelago to the United States, and various Executive Orders and key congressional enactments affecting American Samoa.

Users of our web site are reminded the site is currently under construction and all of these features are not yet available. As I have indicated, we will be constantly posting new files and revisions to old ones as mistakes are discovered. Users are invited to let us know when they discover problems or errors. While we are doing our best to insure the information is accurate and up to date there will be mistakes. The information in the site is provided as a public service by the American Samoa Bar Association. It should not be relied upon as an authoritative statement of the law or a substitute for competent legal advice on any topic covered therein. Only an attorney duly admitted to practice law in the Territory of American Samoa is authorized to do that. Persons with legal problems in the territory are strongly advised to consult one of our members whose contact information is provided in the members list section of the web site. That having been said, we hope you find the American Samoa Bar Association's web site an enjoyable and useful resource.

Tofa soifua,

BENTLEY ADAMS

Webmaster and Chief Law Librarian

September, 2003