House Standing Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs

Welcome, everyone. This is the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. We are in Conference Room 325. It's Thursday, January 30, 2025 at 2:00pm thanks, everybody, everyone, for being here. And thank you to the Members for being here as well. Appreciate that.

And other Members who aren't here are either watching from their office or they'll join us presently. And thanks to everyone online for watching as well. At today's hearing, I would request that you limit your testimony to about two minutes.

I know that for the first Bill, I'd like to provide some additional time to the Judiciary to explain their budget. So I welcome the more expansive description in your testimony for the first bill. For the rest of the bills, if I could ask you to testify two minutes or so, and then I'll ask you to wrap up.

And if you're testifying via Zoom, please keep yourself muted and your video off until you're called, and then turn your video off and mute yourself after your testimony is complete. If you have a technical issue, you can use your chat function on Zoom to communicate with our technical staff.

Don't try to send me a message on that because I won't get it. But if we're. If you are disconnected unexpectedly, don't panic. Just try to rejoin us and then it will let us know when you're back on. And I'll try to fit you in to finish up your testimony.

If power goes out because of the storm or anything and we have to reschedule, we will post appropriate notice so everyone knows. If you're testifying via Zoom, please do not use any trademarked or copyrighted images because that kicks us off of YouTube. And please conduct yourself with aloha for each other. No profanity or uncivil behavior.

As I always say, it's okay to disagree, but let's not be disagreeable. You know, I think we're all here to help Hawaii be a better place and appreciate your help to make sure we hear from you and your testimony so we can pass better legislation.

Okay, first up on House Bill 400, House Bill 400, relating to the judiciary. This is the Judiciary budget. This Bill appropriates funds for the judiciary for fiscal year biennium beginning July 1, 2025 ending June 30, 2027. First up, we have Brandon Kimura with the Judiciary. Welcome, sir. Floor is yours. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Brandon Kimura, the Director of the Judiciary's Policy and Planning Department. With me today is Dalen Heather, Deputy Administrative Director of the court.

An emergency has been reported in this building.

We're going to have to recess while this happens.

Please excuse me.

Reconvening the hearing of the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. And we will get back to the first item on the agenda Today, House Bill 400 relating to the Judiciary. Thank you. So first testimony we have on HB 400 is Brandon Kimura. If you could start again, sir.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Brandon Kimura, Director of the Judiciary's Policy and Planning Department. With me today is Deputy Administrative Director of the Court Stalen Heather.

And many of our administrators on Oahu and from across the state, including retired Chief Judge Bob Kim, who's now serving as our Chief Court Administrator on the Third Circuit on the Big Island. We testify in strong support of HB 1400, the judiciary's biennium budget.

In total, the Judiciary requests operating funds of 6.17 million in FY26, 6.25 million in FY27, 17 permanent positions, one temporary position. This is an increase of less than 3% of our FY25 operating budget. We further request 9.9 million for capital improvements.

I'd also like to acknowledge the uncertainty regarding federal funding at this point and the potential impacts on the state budget. And we look forward to continuing to the discussion with the Chair and others regarding the budget going forward. Broken down our operating requests into several categories. The first category pertains to specialty courts.

Here we're requesting 1.13 million in eight positions in both years of biennium to make permanent the Women's Court pilot program in the First Circuit. Make permanent the driving while impaired court in the First Circuit and significantly expand truancy court and the Early Education Intervention Program also in the First Circuit.

The next category pertains to remaining cost items in preparation for opening of the Wahiawa District Court in the spring of 2026. Requesting here 936,000 for FY26, 1.1 million in FY27, and one permanent position. The next category pertains to an additional district court judge and associated staff for Kona who handle an enormous caseload.

This is 368,000 in FY26, 360,000 in FY27 and four permanent positions. The next category is 1.63 million in both years of the biennium for cybersecurity, including restored funding for four redescribed positions for a cybersecurity unit. Tools and upgrading the Judiciary's email to a suite of advanced threat and Information Protection and Device management.

Next category of requests pertains to the Criminal Justice Research Institute. And for this we request 583,000 in year 1648,000 in year 21 permanent and one temporary position, and is all to continue the work and the resources of Act 147. Next category of operating requests is 918,767,000.

Three permanent positions for key priorities statewide, including funding for the Judiciary's risk management share that we owe to dags, restoring a position in our Financial Services Department, adding three social service assistance and in the Office of the Public Guardian and replacing end of life switches to maintain our IT infrastructure.

The last category of requests on the operating side pertain to restored funding for 11 essential staff positions in the amount of 607,000 in each fiscal year.

These range from a judicial assistant at the Intermediate Court of Appeals to hybrid clerks and bailiffs in the First Circuit, Juvenile social worker in Kona, District Court Clerk in Lahaina and several others. For capital improvements, we request a total of 9.9 million.

This breaks down to 4 million for the design of a new district court in South Kohala, 900,000 to replace an AC chiller on Kauai, and 5 million for lump sum bond funds to address continuing and emergent facility issues statewide.

On the last portion of the lump sum, I will add that during the 2023 session, we received from the Legislature $6 million relocation of the Children's justice center, which we deeply appreciate. And since then, we've been working to identify a site and spec out the cost of moving forward.

Since then, our latest estimate from Dags is that it looks like it may be about 8 million or so, which is the latest estimate. And so because there's that difference of about 2 million, we respectfully request at this point the Committee's consideration of an additional 2 million for the lump sum.

So that would bring our lump sum to a total of 7 million. With that, I'm available for questions and appreciate the opportunity to testify.

Thank you very much. Thank you. Next, we have testimony from Volunteer Legal Services of Hawaii, Rachel Figueroa Online. No, Figueroa. Next, we have testimony and support from David Copper, Legal Aid Society of Hawaii. No, not in line. Testimony from Amy Agbayani online. Nope. Okay. And testimony support from two individuals, Patricia Blair and Mihoko Ito. Welcome.

Please join us.

Good afternoon. Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, Mihoko Ito. I actually am working on behalf of the. The legal service providers who are actually funded in the judiciary budget. We do strongly support the judiciary and all it does and their budget requests.

We'd just like to call your attention to one line item which is, I think it's 3,000,001, which pertains to funding for civil legal service providers. We are asking that the amount that's provided to them be increased by $1 million. Currently they're receiving 1.2 million, but an.

Emergency has been reported in this building utilizing the nearest exit.

We're going to need to recess.

Recess.

Reconvening the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian affairs for the purposes of hearing testimony on House Bill 4400. And we'll go back to Ms. Ito.

Thank you. Thank you very much. So we are respectfully requesting that the amount be increased by $1 million. This has been a long, long journey to get permanent funding for legal service providers somewhere in the budget. And we're really grateful to the Legislature for approving that in 2021.

The issue really is that over the years as we've dealt with this funding, that piece was when we were able to get pots of money. It was typically for the purchase of General civil legal services statewide.

But the judiciary run program now is opened up to all civil legal service providers, which we don't oppose, but it really has diluted the amount that can go to each provider. So again, this is really critical for the legal service providers.

They're oftentimes the last line of defense against foreclosures, evictions, family separation, deportations, you know, all of these things that keep our community together. So we respectfully ask for your consideration of that request. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And if I could just mention, also David Copper from Legal Aid Academy. I was just going to invite Mr. Copper. Thank you. Thank you very much. Mihoko. Next up, David Copper with the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii.

Thanks. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. So I am David Copper, Executive Director of the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii, and we're in support of HB 400. I am testifying in support of that specific civil legal services line item.

But we also support the judiciary's overall budget and priorities and definitely recognize their leadership and partnership in making access to justice a reality here. And of course, we're incredibly grateful for the funding that we are getting for civil legal services and are asking for an increase based on the needs that we're seeing in our community.

Just a little bit about the use of the funding, real briefly for us goes to our services. We're on every island. We have 105 staff, all doing really important work. And this past year we closed 7,100 cases. We got 1.8 million in public benefits for our clients.

We impacted the lives of 20,000 residents, and we even did 1500 outreaches because we love doing work with our community. And of course, we are a resource for your constituents. And our services are free to highlight the need for the supplement that we're asking for.

You know, the context is if you have an attorney in your civil legal matter, you could be up to six times more likely to win your case. But you know, in Hawaii, 92% of the legal issues our families face just don't get any or enough legal help.

And also, 71% of our households experience a civil legal issue every year. So these are the kind of things that this funding could really go towards. It is an order of magnitude problem. One study says we need nine times the amount of attorneys and advocates to really meet all the needs.

But that's where we have room to innovate and partner, you know, and work among each other as organizations. And I do want to comment that I think this week was a really unfortunately vivid example of, of what we're looking at coming down the pipeline.

So when the temporary funding freeze happened this week, critical funds for victims of crime, housing, work and outreach that we do were all made inaccessible. That's 20% of our funding.

And then the last time this Administration was on board, for each of the four years in a row, there were attempts to zero out federal funds for legal services. And another recent thing that happened is in Congress's Concurrent Resolution, over 100 million for disaster legal services across the country were removed.

And that includes over a million that was earmarked for Hawaii. So these are the things that we're just preparing for. Of course, understand tough choices need to be made and really appreciate the support that has been shown for this work and know that these funds are going into the community. And we really appreciate, appreciate that support.

So mahalo.

Sure. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else here wishing to testify? Please come on up. Michael, introduce yourself, please.

Afternoon. Chair Mike Yosua on behalf of the Hawaii State Bar Association, apologize if we didn't get our testimony in on time, but just wanted to express our support for the judiciary's fiscal bills. As you know, HSBA is the trade Association for all the licensed attorneys in Hawaii.

And I noticed that we had at least have one Member of the bar up here on your Committee. So it's a well functioning judiciary, is important to our industry and important to the well functioning government. Of the State of Hawaii. So we wholeheartedly support their requests. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Iosua, if you would please provide your name and the name of your organization to Vice Chair staffs over at the table on the side. That'd be great. And if you want to submit written testimony by the end of the day today, you can. We'll be able to make it part of the official testimony packet.

Is there anyone else here in the room or online that wishes to testify In House Bill 400? If not questions? Members? Yes.

Just for Mr. Kimura.

Represent Belatti.

And I think all of these requests need to be funded, but I wanted to specifically understand Criminal Justice Research Institute's request is this request for people who are doing the work for us to understand who's circulating in and out of pretrial diversion programs, post booking diversion programs, as well as maybe individuals who might be kind of jumping between the streets, jails, state hospital and back.

Possibly in time. Thank you, representative. The CGRI's initial mission is to get a database up under the statute, because that under the statute, that's their primary responsibility.

An emergency has been reported in this building.

Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit, stairway, recession here.

Reconvening the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. It's Thursday, January 30th still. We're at 2:35. We're going to try to keep going here and hopefully we won't have more false alarms to disrupt the hearing. But we're back into questions on House Bill 400 and we just had a question. Could you repeat your question, Chair Belatti?

The question is the work of the CGRI helping us to understand the movement of pretrial detainees throughout the system between jails, prisons, state hospital, and community?

Thank you representative, for the question. In time, yes. The CGRI's primary mission under the statute is to establish a database that focuses on pretrial reporting and collect that data so that they can conduct analysis and research and others can also conduct, you know, similar analysis and research so they can for policymakers.

The Institute is making significant progress in that area, has collected 15 years of data from the three primary agencies: the Judiciary, the Attorney General and the DCR, and they're focusing on moving that forward.

That said, they are also working on other projects here and there and one example is working on working with our probation administrators on how to improve probation. They're also focused; they have an interest in the mental health area and mental health space and they're looking at that as well.

That said, these are at this point, secondary to their primary mission under the statute of getting that database up and running.

Thank you, Mr. Kimura. Thank you, Chair.

Certainly. Other questions? Yes. Representative Perruso.

So, you mentioned a potential shortfall in federal funding and I'm wondering if you've done an analysis of the potential impact of - I'm just wondering about the risk. Yeah.

So, thank you, Representative, for the question. We have done a preliminary analysis of our federal funds - of the direct funds that we receive. It's primarily through grants. We have about two and a quarter million or so across the judiciary.

These include things such as building capacity for virtual training for reporters of child abuse mediation, child abuse and neglect cases, legal services for court appointed special advocates, men's and women's housing for some of our probationers, substance use screening and treatment for youth and parent groups, alcohol monitoring equipment and services for our driving while impaired court.

We also have some federal funding for a secondary data center for the judiciary, emergency data center and a variety of other things. These are just a few examples.

In addition to this direct funding that we receive, we're also trying to get a better sense of the indirect impacts that the federal funds are going to have because we know that for partners like Legal Aid or Volunteer Legal Services and other partners that we work with, both in the legal services side and the social services providers that help and work with our clients.

An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building. Utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit stairway. Do not use elevators. Repeat: do not use elevators.

Let me give it 20 seconds. Okay. Please proceed.

Thank you, Chair and Representative. To continue, we're very mindful of the impact of the indirect impact that's going to have.

Well, indirect to the judiciary, but direct for the service providers, the partners that we work with and how that will, you know, change not only the individuals who are our clients or other court users, but how it will impact their ability to continue to move forward in ways that we work with them and partner with them.

And we are contemplating how to collectively move forward and support where we can.

So, the analysis that you're in the preliminary stages of conducting, could you - is there any kind of written report or documentation that you could share with the legislature would help us in our budgeting?

Sure. Yes, Representative.

False alarm. This is the false alarm. Mahalo.

Yes, Representative. The most concrete area we have is another direct funding that we receive, and we're continuing to work on that, but we expect to wrap it up within the next week, if not sooner. And we'll share that with the Chair.

Yes, please provide that information to our committee as well as the House Finance Committee so that we can be better prepared as we go forward. Thank you. Other questions, members? I have a couple questions for your capital improvement project funding.

I know in your finance briefing you were urged to work with budget and finance because your CIP is within the bond capacity of the state. You know...that everything else is also included.

So, we need to make sure that Budget and Finance knows what you're asking for, and especially if you're asking for now an additional 2 million, that I would - I would like to get that information, but I would urge you to make sure that you do talk to BNF. Have you had any conversations so far?

Thank you, Chair. We have communicated with BNF. We send them that notice that I shared in the finance briefing on November 1st of each year, which is before their bond sale, so that they have that information. But no, I have not communicated with them more recently about this additional 2 million, and I will do so.

Yeah, I think it's just, we all want to be on the same page. It's going to - there's a lot of competition for those bond proceeds because there's so many needs in the state. But I do want to make sure that judiciary gets what they need.

But we need to make sure the Department of Budget and Finance has that information as soon as possible.

Absolutely. Thank you, Chair.

Great. And regarding the request from the Legal Aid Society of Hawaii and the others that are requesting the legal clinic, volunteer legal services, they are all saying we need more money. Have you had conversations with, I think you've got four organizations, that you're currently funding.

Have you had conversations with them about the unmet need and gathered data so that you know what that unmet need is and how you can plan for it so you can advise us? Because obviously we're hearing from testimony that they're just ballparking they need another million dollars.

Thank you, Chair. We do not have our own independent analysis of the unmet need. We appreciate the four providers that currently receive funds through the RFP and other providers in this space.

We work with them on a variety of projects and initiatives in the broader sense of how to increase access to justice across our state and in specific high need areas. And so, we, we have no reason to disagree with any of their assessments of the unmet need.

Civil legal services and increasing access to justice is absolutely a priority of the Judiciary and a priority of the Chief Justice. And so, we absolutely support their request so long as it does not supplant the, the resource requirements in the judiciary as well.

But we understand and appreciate the concern and support the efforts to enhance funding for access to justice.

Did you have more organizations respond to the RFP than the four that you funded?

No. This year there were four that requested, and we provided funding for all four.

Okay. Okay. That's all the questions I have for you. Thanks very much. Mr. Copper, could I ask you to come up. Appreciate you, the work that you do and your recommendation. I wonder, I realize that you're basing it on your Justice Gap report back in 2022.

I wonder, do you have data in terms of the numbers of requests that you get, or the other three agencies get that you are not able to fulfill? And is that a part of, I mean, that is where people are reaching out. They're asking for assistance, and you just don't have the capacity to do it.

Do you have those numbers? Do the other agencies that are providing this sort of service have those numbers?

So, speaking for Legal Aid, and thank you for your question, we received in the past year 15,000 calls and we were able to provide legal services to only 7,100. Now, I don't have specific data on what is related to eligibility or not. But definitely we've had to make tough calls.

And even for the cases that we do take, it's also based on level of service. Decisions are also based on our capacity.

And so unfortunately, and I could definitely provide these numbers, we do take a lot of brief services or limited scope of representation because we simply just cannot provide the full level of having an attorney in court for every matter for everyone who calls us, because we just don't have that.

As far as the Justice Gap report and study, that's through the Legal Services Corporation, who is pass through for the majority or for a large portion of our federal funds. And so that's something that they do look at. And really.

An emergency has been reported in this building.

You just pause for a moment. We'll see if this turns off. Okay, please continue.

And their metric is similar to what you suggested, which is funding legal services in a way that people do not get turned away due to lack of resources. And so, I definitely can drill down on those specific numbers and provide that.

We're in a tough spot at this time because the state may have to make up the difference if the federal dollars are frozen and not released to the state programs.

We're also very sensitive that you're providing services that, you know, if you have a shortfall because you're not getting the federal funds that you usually get directly; that that affects your ability to do it, to do your work.

So, we may have to spend what limited state dollars we have in order to fill the gap if the federal money isn't there. So, I would urge you to make sure you keep the judiciary informed about what shortfalls that you are experiencing.

Because you're not able to access the federal grant funding that you've been awarded. And in turn, they're going to have to do the same. Judiciary is going to have to do the same thing with their own programs to getting federal funding.

And we may have to make do some emergency measures here at the legislature to meet that, you know, to fill that gap.

Completely understood.

I would really urge you to work very closely with the judiciary to keep us informed.

Will do.

Okay, any other questions members? Represent Bellotti.

Quick question for Mihoko. I keep hearing four organizations and I understand it's LASH, VLSH. Who are the other two organizations? And then in light of this week's events, did any of them get shut off access to any federal fundings that was provided at any moment in this week's chaos.

So, I think other folks know better than me who the other two are. But my understanding is its Legal Aid, VLSH, the Legal Clinic and DVAC. Oh, and Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation. That's right. There's five organizations. That's right.

Four.

Four: DVAC in the past. Right. So currently there's four this time. Yeah. And as with respect to whether or not any of the rest of them have been - are under the threat of losing federal funding or got funding shut off, I'm not aware, but I'm happy to poll them and find out.

Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Ito.

And we will aggregate that information and also share it with the judiciary.

Yeah. And I would urge those four organizations, as well as any other nonprofit organization that is out there that is not receiving the federal funds that they have been awarded to contact the Hawaii Association of Nonprofit Organizations, because they're compiling information on Hawaii's nonprofits that are affected by this situation with the freeze by the White House -

And I understand they're having a group meeting, a webinar tomorrow.

Oh, great.

- about this. So that the four organizations that are affected here, as well as anyone else that's listening with the nonprofits that are affected by this. I think we're trying to learn what's going on in terms of the state and how we're affected by this freeze.

But the nonprofit organizations that are out in the state that are getting money directly from the federal government, not through the state, we don't know that information. So, the only way we're going to find out is if you report directly to us or through HANO, through the Hawaii Association Nonprofit Organization.

So, okay, great. We're happy to reach out to them. Sure. Okay. Thank you.

Great. Questions? Yes, Representative Garcia.

Thank you, Chair for - Brandon, Mr. Kimura, thank you. I hear the conversation is being talked about the concern of the freeze in federal funding. Are you aware of any federal funding as of right now that hasn't come through to, to your judiciary and or something that is on this temporary pause as of right now.

Are you aware of any direct cut from the feds?

We receive notifications from our local throughput. So, some of it, as an example, goes through the Hawaii Department of Transportation. So, we receive notices from them, for example, to pause all activities in the last, I guess, 36 or 48 hours or so. They initially said pause and then they said you may resume.

There's a little bit of confusion. You've also heard a little bit from our other granting agencies about that. So, at this point, we're moving forward, but we're very tentatively so and with an eye towards the future. We're hopeful that this uncertainty doesn't in itself have an impact, but that's one thing that we're looking at. Thank you, Representative.

Thank you.

And I appreciate your question Representative, because this is a new administration in Washington. They're figuring out how they can do and implement their - the agenda that they have. And we don't want to be presumptuous or, you know, cast, you know, aspersions when it's not merited.

So, we're just trying to be aware of what's going on, being able to respond, and here at the state legislature, we're just trying to make sure that we understand what the real impacts are, not just the imagined impacts. Yeah. So, I appreciate that. Okay. Other questions for Judiciary on House Bill 400?

If not, I think that's it. Thanks very much. Let's move on to the next measure: House Bill 395 relating to jury duty. This measure increases the amount each juror or prospective juror is paid for each day of actual attendance at court and appropriates funds. First up, we have Michelle Acosta with the Judiciary.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee; my name is Michelle Acosta, Deputy Chief Court Administrator for the First Circuit here on behalf of the Judiciary. This bill is part of the Judiciary's legislative package, and we are in strong support of its passage. The jury compensation rate has not been increased since 1989.

It's at currently at $30 per day.

Attention: an emergency has been reported -

If you would just pause for a moment. We won't recess; it seems to be short.

- or fire exit stairway, do not use.

Thank you. Please proceed.

Thank you. The current rate is $30 per day, flat rate, and we're looking to increase it to $50 per day. We understand that the jury compensation doesn't compensate for lost wages, but this is an acknowledgment of the civic duty that we ask of our citizens in the State of Hawaii. Jury service is very important to the judicial system.

And so, we ask for the support. Mindful of the fiscal discussions that we're having, there is an appropriations request with this bill, and we ask that any additional funding not supplant the judiciary's other existing funding and budget requests. So, I ask for your support. I'm available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Acosta. Next, we have testimony support from the Office of Public Defender.

Good morning, Chair, Vice Chair. My Name is Haley Chang. I'm the -

Attention staff: this is a false alarm. Be advised. False alarm. Thank you.

Thank you. Please proceed.

Thank you again. My name is Haley Chang. I'm the First Deputy from the Office of the Public Defender. And we submitted brief written testimony in support of this measure. Our office alone, in collaboration with the prosecuting agencies, probably encounters thousands of jurors every year. It is already challenging to get people to show up for jury duty.

And as a result of the jury selection process, we are privy to the concerns that they consistently convey. And one of those concerns is definitely financial. The increase is nominal, but anything would help, I think.

Oftentimes people are not aware that even if you get summoned for jury duty and you may not even have a job, so you're not losing out on pay, you might have to arrange for childcare. There are transportation costs associated with people who do not have their own car. The bus service is unpredictable.

Jurors have expressed concerns about needing to take a ride share or a taxi because of the unpredictability of the bus to ensure that they're on time to not delay the jury process. We also have people who are employed who significantly suffer when they are called to jury duty.

People who work on tips, people who do not have vacation. So, any nominal increase, any increase, we would encourage a higher one, but for now, we support any increase that will help facilitate jurors attending court and serving out their civic duty. I'll be available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Chang. Next, we have written testimony support from the Department of Prosecuting Attorney and from the Hawaii State Bar Association.

Mr. Yasua, please proceed.

Afternoon, Chair. Thank you. Mike Yasua, on behalf of the HSBA; just like to echo the testimony of the previous testifiers, recognizing that jury duty can be burdensome sometimes. And this doesn't really replace the income that they lose by serving on the jury, but it does recognize from their service. So, any increase is helpful. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else here or online wishing to testify on this measure? HB 395. If not, questions members? Just one question to confirm that this, Ms. Acosta, this is a separate funding request that is not in the judiciary budget.

That's correct.

Okay, so this is an add on. Okay. Just want to make clear because I need to make sure that we handle it that way as we move forward into negotiations with House Finance Committee. Okay, thank you very much. Any questions? Any further questions? If not, thank you. We'll move on.

Next bill: House Bill 396, relating to compensation for court appointed counsel. This measure increases the rate of compensation and maximum allowable amounts per case for court appointed counsel in criminal proceedings and it appropriates money. First up, Ronald Johnson with the Judiciary. Ah, not Ronald.

Good afternoon. Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. I am not Judge Ronald Johnson. My name is Jennifer Awong. I'm the Staff Attorney for the Criminal Administrative Division at the First Circuit Court. He was unable to be here today, so I am testifying on his behalf. So, our this the judiciary strongly supports this bill.

It is part of our judiciary package. We've laid out very specifically why in our testimony just want to hit a couple high points. Indigent criminal defendants have a constitutional right to representation by competent court appointed counsel. These defendants are usually represented by the Office of the Public defender.

However, when conflicts arise, the court then has to step in and appoint private counsel on their behalf. These private counsels are appointed from a list that is maintained by the court.

Over the last decade there has been a dramatic decrease in the amount of qualified court appointed counsel that are even willing to take these types of cases and willing to get their names on our list. On Oahu, we maintain separate lists for each level of offense.

Right now, we only have 13 people on our A-felony murder list, and we only have 11 on our sex assault list. There just are simply not enough qualified attorneys willing and able to take indigent defendant cases.

This situation is even more dire on the Big Island where due to their own budget constraints, the Office of the Public Defender's Office has been unable to take DUI and A-felony cases in the Kona district.

So, a lot of times we're getting requests from the Kona and Hilo district judges or court judges asking for people on our list and they're having to hire or appoint people from our list, pay for their travel and enable, in order to get these defendants competent representation.

It's currently taking them between 3 and 4 weeks to find counsel willing to accept appointments and on the corner side. And as of October, there were 35 defendants waiting court appointed counsel for their cases. The current rate of pay is $90 per hour, and it has not been adjusted in over 20 years.

The last increase went into effect in 2006. In that same time the federal rate has increased every year, and they are now at 175. That also is outlined in our testimony. I'll leave it at that. If you have any questions, I'm available.

Thank you very much, Mr. Awong. Next, we have Office of the Public Defender or Haley Chang. Thank you. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon again. This. Obviously, the Office of the Public Defender strongly supports this bill. And I want to not only echo everything that Ms. Awong said but really convey to the committee that we are at a critical stage in needing to bolster and supplement and maintain the court appointed attorneys willing to do this type of work. All of the individuals who receive a court appointed attorney would financially qualify for the services of the Office of the Public Defender.

But as this committee knows, the Office of the Public Defender cannot represent every criminal defendant for a variety of reasons. If there's a codefendant matter, the Office of the Public Defender can only represent one individual, and the rest must be conflicted out.

If we represent a complaining witness or a victim, then the subsequent defendant who's charged with that offense will need a conflict attorney. You can imagine that sometimes people release the public defenders from duty or fire us if they're not happy with the level of representation or if there is a conflict with the attorney.

All of those scenarios require court appointed conflict counsel to be appointed. And our office shares in the responsibility with the judiciary of trying to obtain court appointed counsel. And again, we echo everything that Ms. Awong said.

It has become increasingly difficult to keep people on the list and $90 an hour, something that has not changed in almost 20 years is simply not acceptable. I just want to highlight, which is in the bill, for a petty misdemeanor offense; a DUI, for example, is a petty misdemeanor offense.

The current cap for court appointed attorneys is $900. As someone familiar with the system and the attorneys who do privately retained DUI cases, they charge anywhere from 2,500.

Attention. An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building utilizing the near.

Please proceed.

Thank you. The private DUI attorneys charge anywhere from $2,500, which I would say is on the low end, to up to $5,000 for every single case.

So, this is just simply not commensurate with what the attorney should be compensated for, and it is affecting our ability to find effective representation. Our mission is of course, to make sure every defendant has effective representation, and the Office of the Public Defender cannot do it alone.

I also want to convey and echo the concerns that Ms. Awong said. She is correct. The third circuit is in a crisis. Our Office of the Public Defender is down to three attorneys out of six positions. And that is why we are simply not able to take on cases the way that we want to.

Because if we did, we would not be able to provide effective representation to our existing clients. As a result, hundreds of defendants over the last year or so have had to secure court appointed counsel. And for all of the reasons that we've articulated, it's become increasingly difficult.

And as a result, people are sort of languishing in the system. The judiciary is looking for other ways to resolve.

But the solution, as we supported last year, is to finally get on board with the increase of the rates so that our court appointed counsel will be willing to continue to do this work and that our criminal defendants are afforded and receive adequate and effective representation. And I will remain available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, we have written testimony and support from the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney, also from the Kauai Prosecuting Attorney. And we have testimony support from the Hawaii County Bar Association, William Heflin. Is he online? Not present. Okay. Testimony in support from the Hawaii State Bar Association.

Mr. Yosua.

Thank you, Chair. Mike Yosua on behalf of HSBA, again, in support; echoing the previous testifiers. Just like to point out one other thing is, you know, right now, sometimes the reimbursable rate is as low as $60 an hour. So, it's not, you know, I think 90 is the cap and we're requesting be raised to 150.

But also, as any attorney or sometimes other professionals know, you're not always reimbursed for the amount of time that you actually work. So could be $60 an hour and you could be getting reimbursed for less than half the work. So, it's critical to be able to have some additional attorneys on staff to represent the criminal defendants.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. We have testimony support from Aaron Wills. Please proceed, Mr. Wills.

Thank you, Chair. I would just, on my written testimony, I will be available for any questions, but I would just like to piggytail off of all of my colleagues who have shared their concerns. I am one of the court-appointed attorneys who actually is appointed in the First Circuit and Third Circuit.

And I can attest to everything that's going on. There's so many requests that I have to constantly tell the divisions that I am - I just have too many cases, and I cannot take any further cases. At the same time, as soon as I'm done, they're constantly calling me and I'm always taking cases.

So, the need is there for us to raise the hourly wage for this, for the main reason to attract back some of the top defense attorneys who have left to go and practice over at the federal circuit and haven't returned and it's critical. Thank you, and I'll be available for questions.

Thank you. Mr. Wills, and Mr. James Tabe on zoom: please proceed.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and members of the committee. My name is James Tabe. I just recently retired from the Office of the Public Defender, and I've been practicing as a solo practitioner for the past year on a part time basis. I am now seeing the - now experiencing the demand for court appointed attorneys.

I just want to highlight in addition, in my testimony I mentioned the Kapolei courthouse and the juvenile cases there. There are only three attorneys that regularly accept, and one is part time. That's me. And the youngest is 62 and that's me. There's a critical shortage because of the distance.

We don't get court appoint attorneys don't get paid for travel time or mileage. So, they often are very difficult to find attorneys to travel over there. The girls' court: we got clients that have to go to go to girls' court. Obviously, they have, they prefer women attorneys to represent them.

Unfortunately, when the public defender's office had the conflict on women, on the girls or the female juveniles, they can't find any. There are no attorneys, they can't find any. So, the public defender has to almost bend the rules and represent them even though there's a conflict. So, there is - it's crucial there.

I do also pellet work part time. There is very few attorneys that would do that work and I know I've been called several times on the same case and I always.

It's hard for me to say no all the time, but I do, I do accept a couple or few at a time, but there's plenty of work available, but there's just not enough attorneys to do them. I am available for any questions later on. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much. And in addition, we received written testimony and support from nine other individuals. Is there anyone else here or online wishing to testify? Please come on up and introduce yourself.

Hi, good afternoon, Mr. Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. I'm Richard Singh. I'm the Vice President of the Hawaii Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It's members of our organization that largely do this kind of work and do this kind of business and we are in very strong support of this.

Court appointed work is close to the heart of many people in our organization and we want to do this kind of work. And a raise not only in the hourly wage but in the cap is critical to drawing experienced people who can handle the more difficult cases in our community.

The other major impact is, as you've heard, is the outer Islands. The outer Islands have a severe problem.

If you could just pause for a moment, please. Please proceed.

I could tell this committee that I haven't taken a court appointed case in about 15 years. But I get a call about every month, every other month from an outer Island desperate court staff trying to find somebody for a serious matter.

And not having these kinds of enough attorneys to do this kind of work hampers the system as a whole and creates a lot of risk for injustice from all directions, as you can see. You know, the prosecutor's office from various counties is supporting this.

Our system is good, and it works well when there are good and effective and knowledgeable people willing to take it. And you know what's really hard is the people that can take some of the more difficult cases in our state are the older ones, the ones who've been doing this for a while.

And those are the people that are less likely to take it at a rate that's so far under market. Even if you have that in your heart, that indigent defense is so important, sometimes you just can't do it because you have to manage your time. You can only work so much in a week. So, I'm -

Attention staff, be advised. This is a false alarm. This is a false alarm.

Thank you. Please proceed.

So, I would urge your support. We're getting to critical mass on this issue, and we definitely need the support here. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Anyone else wishing to testify on this matter? If not, questions members? Yes, Representative Shimizu.

I have a question for, was it Miss Chang? Besides the increase in the hourly, you gave an example of a DUI case; private case was 2,500 to 5,000, and I heard you mention something like and it's capped at 900.

Currently under the current statutory scheme, a petty misdemeanor, all petty misdemeanors, and OVUI or DUI as a first offense is a petty misdemeanor. So, the cap is $900, which is the maximum that a court appointed attorney could bill for that amount.

And if I just may, the increase in the caps is just as critical as an increase in the court appointed rate because I think those of us who do this work regularly, the amount that you would bill, for example, in a jury trial or a case where there are lengthy pretrial motions, or in a case where there is a voluminous amount of discovery or a lot of investigation, it is very hard to get all of that work done with the caps set across the board.

Right. Point taken. That's why I wanted to clarify. If we raise the rate, if the cap is still there, then that needs to be adjusted also?

Just to be clear, Representative: this bill does do that.

Oh, okay. I'm sorry.

Thank you.

Thank you. Further questions? Representative? No? Okay. Over on this side, Represent Perruso.

So, in other testimony, there was concern that because people are not being granted adequate representation within a, you know, within 180 days, let's say, that then cases can be dismissed for lack of capacity to prosecute or lack of prosecution. Can you talk a little bit about the impact on public safety?

We have yet to see that, but I definitely think that's a concern. Where we - I don't think yet that we are seeing that in some of our more serious cases. I can speak to a situation that is currently going on in Kona. As Ms. Awong and I've shared, our office is not accepting DUI cases and that was an incredibly difficult choice that we had to make it. We want to, as the Office of the Public Defender, assist and represent as many people as possible. But with three attorneys for our entire Kona office, we do not have the capacity.

As a result, and with the judiciary's collaboration and their understanding of the critical situation that we're in, they have agreed that this will be the practice and have agreed to court appoint all DUI cases. I understand right now the backlog is extreme and continuing to grow.

It is reaching a stage, where as of right now, it is true that generally there is a 180-day time frame in which to bring cases to trial. But these delays in as a result of not being able to find court appointed counsel have been attributed to the defendants.

So, it is not counted against that 180-day deadline. So, defendants have been coming back to court multiple times waiting for the court to find them counsel.

It is getting to a place that I believe other things may need to be done, whether the court is going to start dismissing matters or the prosecution may need to start resolving those cases in a way by way of a plea agreement or something.

But to your point, it may not be absolutely responsive on the issue of public safety, but it definitely will impact the resolution and representation and efficiency of the criminal system. And we are definitely seeing that, I think, even in the First Circuit, where it's not as critical as our neighbor islands.

But we have clients languishing in custody on very serious Class B and Class A offenses sometimes because we are having difficulty securing court appointed counsel. I will just share one brief story. I represented a client on a Class A felony. Our office discovered a conflict. We had to go through our available class a list as Ms. Awong referenced. There are so few of them, Mr. Wills being one of them, who you heard from earlier. We had to cycle through the list almost three times and had to ask people over and over, please.

And it finally took me personally calling somebody, almost as a favor, and begging them to take the case because this individual had been in custody for two weeks without an attorney. So, this is - that is just one story I could tell you hundreds. So again, just to emphasize the critical stage at which we are at.

We are definitely grateful for the committee's consideration of this ill. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Representative. Any other questions? Yes, Vice Chair.

Sorry, Ms. Chang, for you as well.

Attention. An emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease operations and leave the building utilized.

Please proceed.

Okay, thanks. Just relating to the maximum allowable fee schedule proposed changes: of the six categories, all of them double, propose to double the amount except for appeals, which goes from 5,000 to 9,000. I was just wondering if there was a reason why that one didn't double to 10,000?

I can't speak to specifically why. Appellate work is obviously incredibly important, and we would love to see it doubled in all of the ranges. I also, you know, I think there's room to even increase the caps even further.

I think if you asked any private attorney, Mr. Singh being here in the room for, a Class A felony, I don't know a private attorney who would take a Class A felony for $12,000 or even maybe a Class B. For appeals, there are people that - the work is a little bit different. You're writing. You know, it's not court really, unless -

Attention staff and visitors. Be advised you're experiencing some malfunctions to the fire panel. Please disregard. This is a false alarm.

Thank you. I think it might take into account that there it's not courtroom work. And when I say that it's not physically being in the present in the courtroom, unless a matter is set for oral argument, that may be the difference. But I don't know specifically why that amount was not exactly double.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions, members? Representative Shimizu.

Sorry, Ms. Chang, again. So, if you can't find a court appointed attorney, the person might be held in jail?

Absolutely. The courts will not - I don't want to give a definitive answer for every single case. But for example, if an individual has been charged with a felony offense and the public defender's office is not able to represent them due to a conflict, the inability to locate a court appointed attorney will not then equate to their release.

That consideration is based on their prior history. It oftentimes will need to be facilitated by a motion for release or a motion for a reduction of bail, which is something that an attorney would need to do. So yes, we do have people who sit in custody much longer than they need to simply because we cannot find them counsel.

Chair, can I ask a follow up question?

Of course.

So, when attorney hits the cap, did he just walk off or what happens then?

No, and I will say that I think as we've been pushing to have the cap and the rates increase, especially, you know, last year and with the numbers dwindling on the court appointed list, I think the judiciary has been better about signing off on, you know, when they go over, when the attorneys go over.

I have not yet - I think historically, maybe 10, 15 years ago, the judiciary was very strict and used to actually be pretty diligent about cutting bills or making sure that we stayed under the caps.

But I think they've been more flexible, and I think if you can demonstrate the work was done, and I don't want to speak for everybody, but I think if the work is documented and done, I haven't heard recently of the judiciary slashing a bill because you've exceeded the cap.

All right, thank you. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much. Any other questions? If not, thank you very much, Members. Thank you to our testifiers. Okay, let's move on to the next Bill. House Bill 397 relating to the examination of criminal defendants.

This measure establishes the amount of compensation for private sector examiners who evaluate a criminal defendant's penal responsibility or fitness to proceed in a legal case and appropriates monies. First up, Jennifer Awong.

Good afternoon again, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee again, this is another Bill that is part of the judiciary package. We strongly support this measure.

Just to give you a little bit of background, Chapter 704 of the Hawaii Revised Statute requires the court in felony cases to appoint three examiners in a multitude of situations whenever a defendant's fitness to proceed or penal responsibility become an issue in the case.

Those three examiners are, we appoint two private examiners from a list that is maintained by the Department of Health. And then the third examiner is a Doctor that comes from the Adult Mental Health Division, their CEB branch, and they pay for that one. So the two private doctors are paid out of the judiciary budget.

They're appointed as experts by the court. What has become critical again lately or in the last 10 years is that we have been reduced, at least on Oahu, to only six examiners. In 2010, we had 15. In that same period of time, we have more than doubled the amount of three panels that we have ordered.

And it is basically become a serious issue with all, right now, six of our examiners having to split 28 examinations per month. That is actually double. So it's I don't do math very well. That's why I became a lawyer. But 28 times two for all six of them.

So they're averaging about nine examinations per month for these individuals. This is again because of also CEB's. CEB also has an issue with court evaluations Branch.

Thank you.

The Adult Mental Health Division, they are also having issues with getting psychiatrists and psychologists to do these types of examination.

So compounding that with collectively the three examiners, we're having to extend the time that they need in order to conduct these examinations, which is then rolling into keeping these individuals either in the custody of DCR, when they would be better served in the custody of the Department of Health, or they're still in the Department of Health's custody, but they are now fit to proceed.

So we could have them in DCR custody as opposed to being keeping in a bed at the Hawaii State Hospital. Right now. It is not codified anywhere the amount of money that we pay these individuals. So we are asking in this Bill that we codify it.

Make it clear that the judiciary is the one that is paying and make it clear that the amount of money that we're paying is not only for the examination, but for the report, the written report and any testimony that they may have to come in on any kind of contested case.

We would ask that any money appropriated in this Bill not.

Adversely affect the requested budget from the judiciary.

Thank you, Chair Tarnas. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Awong. Next, Office of the Public Defender. Ms. Cheng, thank you.

Again, we support this measure. Our clients are make up the majority of the individuals who need these examinations. And the consequence of not having enough examiners again leads to prolonged time in custody.

Oftentimes these individuals who are the subject of three panels, I would say the vast majority of them, the examinations are conducted while they remain in custody because those that do suffer from severe mental health, making them the subject of these examinations, often don't have stable family or are suffering from other conditions that make release or bail not an option.

So we routinely, I think it's almost, I would say it's pretty routine that we order a three panel examination and we do not have all three letters at the first return date because the doctors are overburdened or overworked and simply do not have enough time.

That will then mean that the matter gets postponed and our clients who are often need of hospital level care. But is it. It is dependent on the results of the exam, languish in jail. So we again support this measure.

We need more examiners and I know that the, the situation is critical again on the neighbor islands who lack the examiners and often rely on the First Circuit or Oahu base examiners to conduct their three panel examination. So we strongly support. We strongly support this. And I will remain available for questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, we have testimony and support from the Hawaii State Department of Health, Behavioral Health Administration. Please proceed on zoom.

Hi, good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair and Members of the Committee. I'm Brenda Bauer-Smith and I'm representing the Department of Health. I do apologize for having to testify via phone. I have electrical outages and I'm having some difficulties. But the Department of Health Court Evaluation branch supports the bill and stands on its written testimony. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And thanks for being so diligent to call in when you couldn't use your computer. Thank you. We have supportive testimony from the Department of Prosecuting Attorney, County Honolulu. Supportive testimony from the Hawaii State Bar Association. Mr. Iosua.

Thank you Chair. Mike Iosua on behalf of the Hawaii State Bar Association. Again, just in support of this bill. Compensation is low, kind of across the board and we support raising it for court appointed.

Thank you very much. And next we have testimony support from the Hawaii Psychological Association.

Ms. Pavlicek, please proceed.

Aloha, Chair Tarnas and Members of the Committee. My name is Melissa Pavlicek. I'm here today on behalf of the Hawaii Psychological Association. We're also in strong support of this measure. And as you've heard, we're most concerned about the critical shortage of private examiners.

And I understand that there are only six on Oahu covering 900 cases which can delay treatment times or assessment times, pardon me, from six weeks to up to 16 weeks. So we- we strongly appreciate this measure and support it. Thank you.

Thank you Ms. Pavlicek. Is there anyone else here wishing to testify on House Bill 397? If not, questions, Members? Yes, Representative Belatti?

One question for the judiciary. And- And just to clarify, the monies have always been paid by the judiciary.

Yes.

For this and then the- the CEB has been paid out of the AMHD out of the Department of Health.

Okay. And then one other question.

Yeah, that's correct.

And if I may, everyone here doesn't understand all the acronyms, so I really try not to use them. If we can do that.

Sure.

And AMHD is an Ault Mental Health Division psychiatrist. That's the third.

Please proceed.

It's an opportunity for all of us to learn. Yes, thank you. Please proceed, Chair.

You know, this question of a worker shortage is very difficult to get around that. I 100% support the increase in pay because I think that that's a, that's going to be a big step in making sure that there's enough providers.

Has- But has there ever been a thought to expand the body of providers to include APRN with psychiatrists psychiatric training? Because I think that could also help open up the pool.

Yes, I believe we are. We are. The judiciary is on the judiciary side. So we would work with our DoH partners, Department of Health partners, in order to determine whether those individuals would be able to conduct the examinations and provide us with the information that we need.

If they're- If they're qualified, then yes, we would be supportive for doing that. But we would have to have the Department of Health, Dr. Brenda Bauer-Smith, who was on earlier, just kind of let us know that that is somebody that- that or a group of individuals that they would like to include.

Maybe you can pursue both pathways and then that opens up the opportunity and then help- will help reduce the backlog. Yes. Thank you, Chair.

Thank you very much. Other questions Members? Representative Perruso.

May I call Mr. Kimura up, please? Sorry, you might have been packed up to go, but I just wanted to ask, you know, these questions around compensation for court appointed attorneys, juror compensation and examiners.

I try to watch all of the FIN and WHAM hearings and I confess that I did not and have not recently watched the judiciary's presentation to those bodies.

And I'm wondering when you're having your conversation about the judiciary's budget, are they aware of the situation that's been emerging over the past 20 years around these compensation issues and the impact on our justice system?

Thank you, Representative, for the question. We have not covered it in this year's info briefings because it's focused on our primary judiciary budget. But we have discussed with them pre session and leading into the session, not only our budget but also our judiciary package.

And so because these bills are part of the package, we have been conveying to the Finance Committee chair, the Ways and Means Committee chair and others legislators around some of the compelling arguments that we're sharing here today about our other package bills. So last year it included court interpreters as an example.

We deeply appreciate the funding and the appropriation by the Legislature. This year our package bills include the private examiners, jurors and court appointed and criminal matters and court appointed in family matters.

Okay, great. I just want to make sure this is part of a larger conversation that we're all having. Thank you.

Thank you, Chair.

Yes.

Thank you.

And I would say that we, I think as we move forward with these measures, it will be incumbent upon this chair and our Vice Chair and I would urge all the Members to carry forward in our advocacy with our colleagues on Finance Committee because we do need to make sure that everyone understands the critical situation we're in.

Thank you. Rep. Perruso. Other questions and we need to move on. So please. Rep. Shimizu.

Thank you for the comment, Rep. Perruso. I- I second the motion on that. I- I am deeply moved and touched by this testimony and the- the need for our judiciary to be supported.

Thanks.

Okay, any other questions? If not, thank you very much for all the questions and the testifiers. Let's move on to the next measure, House Bill 398 relating to compensation for court appointed representation. This increases the rate of compensation and maximum allowable amounts per case for court appointed counsel and guardians ad litem in family court proceedings.

First up, we have the Judiciary.

Good afternoon. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair, Honorable Members of the Committee, I'm Andrew Park. I'm a Family Court Judge in Kapolei. And we're going to stand on our written testimony and strong support of this Bill, which was a part of the Judiciary's package.

I wanted to highlight that the Senate Companions, Senate Bill 265 was passed out of the Judiciary Committee a couple of days ago. And I want to affirm and appreciate Mr. James Tabe, who is indeed almost half of the court appointed counsel available for proceedings that would be impacted by this Bill.

The juvenile proceedings in Kapolei fall under Chapter 571 and favorable consideration of this Bill would go a long way towards solving that issue as well. I appreciate your consideration. I'll remain available for any questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Judge Park. Next, we have testimony support from Office of the Public Defender, Ms. Cheng. Thank you.

And I, I think the Committee is very familiar with the issues. They are duplicative of what I've already testified to previously. And again, this also impacts guardian ad litems, which for our juvenile clients, we do have those as part of our juvenile justice proceedings at times.

So again, overall I echo what Representative Shimizu said and the compensation issue is getting is critical and across the board we need it. So stand in support and on our written submission. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And we have received written testimony and support from the Department of Human Services, Prosecuting Attorneys, Hawai'i Coalition for Child Protective Reform, Legal Aid Society and two individuals. And we have also received written testimony and support from the Hawai'i State Bar Association. Mr. Iwasua, who has left. Mr. Copper has left.

Is there anyone else wishing to testify on House Bill398? If not. Questions, Members? I have one quick question. Maybe Judge Park, you might be the person to ask as the representative of the Judiciary.

One of the comments that came in from the Hawai'I Coalition and the testimony from the Hawai'i Coalition for Child Protective Reform says, "Recent reports have revealed that federal funding has been available from 2022 to support legal services for both parents and children."

"However, both the Department of Human Services and the judiciary have failed to follow through with the application process for this critical funding." Would you be able to help us out to understand what the Judiciary does to try to access any available federal funding?

So I no longer sit in the Juvenile Division that handles child welfare proceedings. But what, when I did for three years I was regularly participating in program improvement plan meetings with federal partners. The Department of Human Services in child welfare proceedings, for example, has access to funds under the Social Security Act under Title IV E.

But those need to be for Title IV E: Eligible Families or Title IV E: Eligible Cases.

And when they're eligible for that, they draw down from those in their provision of services for families going through a child welfare case. In terms of compensating court appointed attorneys as parent counsel or in terms of providing for payments for guardians at litem, I'm not aware of what the testifier was referring to in that specific regard.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Chair Tarnas.

Okay. Any other questions? If not, thanks very much. Let's move on to the next measure. This is House Bill 399 relating to district court judges. And this particular measure establishes one additional district court judgeship in the First Circuit. And we have the Judiciary first. Thank you, Ms. Acosta. Please proceed.

Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee, this is a part of the Judiciary's legislative package. We are requesting for the authorization of a 15th district court judge for the First Circuit. An appropriation was made funding for this position in 2023 by the Legislature. So we appreciate that.

However, we do need the position to be authorized to make full use of the funding. So we would very much appreciate your support passing this Bill. I am available for any questions you may have.

Thank you very much. And just for Members, so they understand. We have to do two things to support a new judge being, judgeship being established. We have to provide the funding and we have to provide statutory authorization for that judgeship.

And so, as Ms. Acosta just said, we provided funding but we did not successfully pass the legislation authorizing the judgeship. This measure would authorize that judgeship. Okay. Next we have testimony support from the Office of Public Defender.

Afternoon again, just briefly, we of course support the expansion of the judiciary. It does facilitate [Announcement over intercom]. It does effectuate efficiency for our clients. But just with a caveat. With a caveat. Anytime there's a new courtroom that is opened, that usually means that we need another public defender to be available. We.

And that is an issue for another date, but we just ask that the Committee be mindful of that as well. Thank you.

Thank you. We have testimony and support from the Hawaii State Bar Association, the Hawaii Financial Services Association and from the Collection Law section of the Hawaii State Bar Association. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on House Bill 399? questions, Members? Representative Shimizu.

I just wanted to comment. Ms. Cheng, you mentioned that you probably would need another public defender and I think related back to Rep. Perruso's comment that it would be maybe beneficial for the judiciary to front load their requests to be ahead of the game, I think so that you will be properly staffed and funded.

Thank you. Any other questions? If not, let's move on to the next measure. House Bill 401 relating to district court judges. This measure establishes one additional district court judgeship in the Third Circuit. That's Hawaii Island. So first up we have Judge Kim. You've been very patient.

A lot of work to be done. I'm sorry for the little shakeup, but Third Circuit, Kona and Waimea had to close because of power outage and so we were trying to solve that. We're asking for the same thing. We have one, we're asking for the Bill to be passed.

We're also asking for the funds to be awarded for fiscal year two years. The bottom line is that we have two courtrooms in Kona. One has a district court judge. The other is not. The testimony provided indicates that they're running about 16,000 cases a year and that is maxing us out and people have to wait.

We have International Day where we have interpretive cases where they have to be interpreted and we just can't keep up and we're afraid we're going to lose staff. People are waiting. The public is not getting served because we need this additional judge.

You don't need to appropriate anything further as far as the court, we have the room available. It's been available since the construction of the new Kona Courthouse. And so we would ask your kind consideration. As I stated in the testimony, the last time we had a district court judge in Kona was 40 years ago.

And so we're expanding. Crime is up, cases are up. We just need the help. I can answer any questions if you have it.

Thank you. Thank you, Judge Kim. Next we have testimony support from the Office of Public Defender.

Thank you. Again, same comments, but I do have some additional, I guess information to share with the Committee about the Third Circuit, even more so than I represented for the First Circuit. If we are going to expand the courthouses, which we generally support. We currently do not have the bodies to staff them.

We have an Oahu public defender flying over to Waimea District Court every Tuesday because Kona, the Kona office cannot handle the caseload and is not able to send someone out to Waimea every week. We have a Oahu public defender flying over once a month to cover the Kona District Court because our Kona office is overburdened.

So again, just highlighting that commiserate with expansion of the court, which is to accommodate, as I agree with Judge Kim, the growing caseload, the Office of the Public Defender, in order to best represent all of these individuals, we will need additional support and help as well. So thank you.

Thank you very much. And we've received written testimony from, in support from the Hawaii State Fire Association, Hawaii Financial Services Association, the Collection Law Section of the Hawaii State Bar Association, and three individuals. Is there anyone else here or online wishing to testify on House Bill 401? If not, questions, Members? If not, we'll move on.

Thank you very much. Appreciate Judge Kim being here. Oh, and I should just mention that the Judiciary budget includes the funding for this position. This measure is the statutory authorization, so it will go hand in hand. Okay, thanks. Let's move on. Next measure, House Bill 402 relating to prospective jurors.

This measure authorizes the Judiciary to determine the format of the Juror Qualification form and the means of its delivery and return and removes the requirement that the form be mailed. First up, do we have the Judiciary?

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe and Committee Members. My name is Dana Nakasato. I'm with the Judiciary ITSD Applications Division. Also here with Deputy Chief Court Administrator, First Judicial Circuit, Michelle Acosta.

And could you tell us what ITSD means?

Information Technology Support and Systems Department. Thank you, Representatives.

We're all learning. Yes.

Yes. I myself work there and I use the acronym.

Thank you. Please proceed.

House Bill 402 is a judiciary package bill and we strongly support its passage. In addition to the written testimony submitted, I would like to add that in this bill, we are only focused on adding flexibility to the delivery and return of the Juror Qualification form. That's sometimes called the questionnaire.

This is what's mailed out to prospective jurors and they mail the completed questionnaire form back to us. Judiciary would like the flexibility to possibly add more options using modern technology. Mailing the forms will continue and we currently do not have set plans on adding other options.

We are not proposing any substantive changes to the forms nor are we talking about the summons. We acknowledge concerns about the digital divide and judiciary.

An emergency.

Please proceed.

And judiciary is committed to planning with external stakeholders-

Utilizing the nearest exit or fire exit stairway.

Try again.

We- We are committed to planning with external stakeholders and the public prior to any implementation. Ms. Acosta and I are available for questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Nakasato. Next we have testimony with comments from the Office of Public Defender. Ms. Chang.

Thank you. We- I- In our written testimony expressed some concerns. We appreciate what the judiciary is attempting to do.

I understand that there is aye towards efficiency but digitizing things, while we may not eventually be opposed to it, we are concerned about codifying something that would essentially give the judiciary the ability to make any changes without our input.

It is difficult enough, as we discussed earlier today, to get jurors to come to court under the current system. I understand that they're saying they currently not going to change the mail option, but if we change the statutory authority in a year from now, if they did change that, we would not have any input on it.

I know that they're saying that they're going to be a collaborative with the stakeholders, but I believe this bill is a little bit premature if they're saying they are not going to change it and they are going to work with other stakeholders. And I think that should be happening.

And we can articulate some very specific changes that may eventually take place. But just changing it in anticipation of changes that we are unsure of right now, that is really the concern that we have.

And the goal is to make sure that we are able to reach jurors across the board from all sectors of the community, whether they have access to technology or not. We have jurors in remote locations. We have an elderly population of jurors, a big retired community of jurors.

Jurors who do not necessarily speak English as a first language but are proficient enough to serve as jurors. So for all of these reasons, we just have some concerns about the breadth of the authority it will give them to change the current procedure without information and collaboration with the litigants.

Excuse me, with the litigators and the court's input on- on that measure. So thank you.

Thank you very much. That's all the testimony we received on this. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? If not questions, Members? Yes. Representative Garcia.

Thank you Chair. For the Judiciary or the spokesperson. Have you folks looked at, when I guess talking about this idea, looked at other best practices from other jurisdictions or states on their communications for jury selection?

Thank you for the question. We have been looking at other jurisdictions that are leveraging technology. I believe there are several, at least eight that I can think of off the top of my head that have moved to leveraging technology for a response of the juror questionnaire.

Illinois is one of the, I'm sorry, Illinois or Ohio is one of the jurisdictions that currently uses the technology. They do make use of both an online portal to respond to the questionnaire, but also send out the conventional, the hard copy using us-

Through mail.

Through mail. Yeah.

So I'm, and I- I guess it's my own opinion, but I'm thinking for all, all federal communication, all state communication, it's always done through mail. Right. But the return process could be a lot easier perhaps if there was a QR code or something for those to take that questionnaire but still have the option for mail.

Correct. So that- that is a format that a QR code be used on the mail out. In other jurisdictions, they send in a postcard with a QR code and URL code for an option to respond. And if you cannot or not- or not able to use technology to do that, other jurisdictions will mail out the hard copy questionnaire.

Thank you.

Thank you. Other questions. I have a question, if I may ask. How would you address the concern of the public defender that in terms of the digital divide, in terms of stakeholders being involved in this process, do you have language that you might be willing to consider in the language of the bill to appease their- their concerns?

It is a single referral. We do have some time. Is this something perhaps that you and the public defender could meet and talk about and see if we can come back with some language?

Absolutely. And we recognize that this bill was- the House version was, I'm sorry, the Senate version was heard earlier this week and had the opportunity to also hear the concerns from the public defenders.

And we're open to discussing that further as this bill progresses to make sure that their concerns are- are recognized and acknowledged as the bill moves forward. As far as the digital divide, we are very conscious of that and- and I think that's where the commitment is, that we do not want to do away with the mail outs.

We do have populations that we currently service through the court system that do not have access to technology. For example, we also use Zoom for court hearings, and that's accessible to some and not to all. So that's something that we are mindful of. But to your question, Chair, we're open to those discussions.

Thank you very much. Appreciate that. Any other questions, Members? Yes. Representative Perruso.

I actually have a question for Deputy Director Kimura. If he is still here. Okay.

So it really has to do with the relationship between the judiciary's budget and the rest of your package and the costing of the rest of the bills. So I was wondering if you folks have done a fiscal analysis of the estimated costs of these various true up measures. So I have four in total.

Just from my calculation, HB 395 is $684,000. HB 396 is $2.89 million. HB 397 is $975,000.

And then there was a gals.

That's an increase in compensation rate, not an appropriation. No appropriation. Correct.

But won't it, won't someone have to pay for that increase in compensation?

Because of that, we're appreciative of the Legislature's funding. They increased funding a couple of years ago. And so we, we believe that we can continue to fund it internally, for now. There is some fluctuation in the area. We're receiving decreases in referrals.

That said, we still need, we're still requesting an increase in the rate so that we can ensure that there's adequate representation. But the. Because there's fluctuating circumstances in that area and we want to have prudent requests, we're not requesting an appropriation in that area at this time.

Great. Thank you. Thank you so much, Chair.

That's. That's a very good question. I appreciate that we have to keep this in mind as we go forward and not only the judiciary budget, but also these additional asks. Any other questions, Members? If not, thank you very much, Brandon. Thank you. And thank you to the other testifiers.

Let's move on to House Bill 114 relating to the judiciary. This establishes positions and appropriates funds for adult services probation of the First Circuit. And first up, we have the Judiciary.

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poy and the Committee Members. My name is Saifoloi Aganon and I'm the Acting Probation Administrator for Adult Client Services Branch, ACSB, another acronym of the First Circuit. The Judiciary stands in support of the written testimony and I have a few points to go over.

The goal of probation is to help facilitate rehabilitation of the individual as a whole, not just the person in relation to the crime for which they are sentenced to probation.

An overwhelming number of clients that are placed on probation have long standing and ongoing challenges which include substance use, mental health concerns, sexual deviance, anger management, and many more issues and challenges. Often these issues may not be associated with the current crime.

However, they are the issues that the clients often struggle with which affect their poor coping skills, criminal thinking and behavior. Probation is charged with rehabilitating the whole person, which includes addressing unresolved trauma and lived experiences since childhood.

Probation is not solely to ensure compliance, but also ensure that evidence based practices are used by staff to help the client resolve long lasting issues to help facilitate healthy and productive lives for themselves, their family and the community.

These practices include assisting clients in navigating and obtaining a multitude of different services from assessments to, you know, ongoing counseling and so forth. This approach encourages clients through evidence based practices to engage with the court services, all the while creating pathways for success and better client outcomes. As Chief Rickenwald. All right.

As the CJ emphasized in his State of the address to the Judiciary, the judiciary must evolve to meet society's changing needs.

With the addition of these positions, Adult Client Services Branch will be able to distribute caseloads to align with national standards of community supervision and will afford clients that are in the highest need and risk level to have staff ensuring that individuals have access to services in a way that is accessible, equitable and responsive to their unique challenges.

Again, we stand on the written testimony as well with these viewpoints and thank you for the opportunity to testify. I'll be available for questions.

Thank you very much. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? Not questions, Members? I have a question. And just to note for Members, this Bill is introduced by a colleague, another Member and not part of the judiciary package while they are supporting it. If I could ask a question, Mr. Aganon.

The proper name for this is Adult Client Services Branch, right?

Yes.

Okay. So we would have to modify the words in the Bill because it talks about adult services probation. So that's not accurate. We would have to change it to make it accurate.

Correct.

Okay, great. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Okay, Any other questions? If not, let's move on. Thank you very much. Next measure, House Bill 132 relating to expungement.

This measure makes an amendment to the Department of the Attorney General's pilot project for a state initiated expungement process of arrest records concerning promoting a detrimental drug in the third degree to include the possession of any Schedule 5 substance and any amount. And on this measure we have the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission, testifying in support.

Office of Public Defender, testifying in support. Community alliance on Prisons in support. Is Ms. Brady online? Not present. Testifying in support. Tai Cheng Aloha Green Apothecary testifying in support. See online. Yes, please proceed. Mr. Cheng.

Good afternoon. Chair, Vice Chair. Hope everyone's staying dry. It's pretty crazy out here today. I just wanted to voice my support. For House Bill 132 on expungement. We supported this measure previously for the pilot project on the Big Island.

And we think that it's about time that Hawaii takes a look at this seriously and right some of the wrongs that have been done in the past. Thank you very much. We stand on our testimony and have a good day.

Thank you very much. Next, we have testimony support from the Last Prisoner Project, Adrian Rocca, and testimony support from the League of Women Voters, ACLU of Hawaii and two individuals. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? If not, thanks. We'll move on to the next measure, House Bill 145.

And this measure is relating to expungement. Also, this authorizes the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center to transmit all expungement orders to the Judiciary to effectuate the purposes of Act 159, Session Laws of Hawaii 2023. First up, we have Phil Higdon with the Attorney General's Office, Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. Please proceed, sir.

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas and Committee Members. My name is Phil Higdon, Administrator with the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. The Department has submitted written testimony in support of this bill, but if I may quickly summarize our testimony.

The purpose of this bill is to amend HRS Section 831-3.2 to grant the Data Center, Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center, the authority to transmit all expungement orders to the Judiciary. Currently, the Data Center lacks the authority to do so. The Department also recommends revising the bill to specify the only expungement orders include the wording with a case number be transmitted. Without the clarification, the Judiciary will receive all expungement orders from the Data Center, which will increase its workload. And I'm willing to, available for questions. Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Higdon. Next, we have testimony support from the Judiciary.

Good afternoon again, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Jennifer Awong. I'm the Staff Attorney for the Criminal Divisions of the First Circuit Court. We, I stand generally on our testimony. We just wanted to... We appreciate the amendments that are currently being proposed to permit us to get the orders from the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. We are prepared to implement the updates to our JIMS Management Program, our Judiciary Information Management System.

We are prepared to implement the updates of the program to go live on July 1, 2020, and that will seal an entire court case from the public view upon the filing of an expungement order from the AG. We are asking for some amendments to Act 159 due to some system limitations in our JIMS program, specifically for multi-offense and multi-defendant cases. We are unable to carve out only the offenses or only the defendants for which the expungement order applies.

So, for example, if a defendant has multiple offenses, and they have some of which resulted in convictions, but they received an expungement order on the ones that they did not get convicted on, we do not have the ability to seal out, take out those offenses that were the subject of the expungement order and leave the convictions, similar with the co-defendant cases. So we're asking for some amendments that are placed in our testimony. I'll be here to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Next, we have testimony in support from the Office of the Public Defender. Next. Oh, please.

Just briefly. Stand on our written testimony. I'm, I apologize for, that I'm up here so much this afternoon. I feel like I've taken over this whole hearing, but I just want to really convey the necessity of being able to clear the public's access to the online records. The expungement order alone, it really does nothing if the public can still access it online. So we support the measure and will, of course, be willing to work with the Judiciary to help with the JIMS issue if we can be of any assistance. Thank you.

Thank you very much. And we have testimony support from the Community Alliance on Prisons and from the League of Women Voters, from ACLU of Hawaii, and two individuals. Anyone else wishing to testify in House Bill 145? If not, questions, Members? And just for Members, this fix will allow us to move forward on something where, basically allows the Attorney General to communicate with the Judiciary. And you go to one to get things expunged, but you have to take the expungement over to the other to get your records cleared.

And we need to provide authorization for that, and that's what this bill does. I believe in redemption, and I think this is a good opportunity for us to provide that to those who qualify. So if there's no questions, then let's go ahead and move on. Thank you very much. To testify... Oh, I should ask, Mr. Higdon, before you go, if we were to adopt the recommendations, the amendments from the Judiciary, would those amendments work for you as well?

Yes. Yes, sir.

Great. Thanks for that affirmation. Appreciate it. Thanks very Much. Okay. No- No further questions. Let's move on to the next measure. House Bill 146 relating to the judiciary's Olelo Hawaii Initiatives. This appropriates funds to support the Olelo Hawaii Initiatives.

And before we go forward, I just want to mention that we do have money in the budget for this, but I wanted to hear this bill because it's such an important matter. So first up, we have the Judiciary.

Aloha.

Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, Members of the Committee, my name is Johanna Chock-Tam. On behalf of the judiciary, I am the Olelo Hawaii Program Administrator. And I just want to express my mahalo to the judiciary, to the legislature, for your support of the Olelo Hawaii program.

And it is through that support that the program received a permanent budget last session. So mahalo. So- And those funds are sufficient for us at this time. And we are ever mindful that you have difficult decisions to make regarding funding. So- And we just want to say mahalo and-

Thank you.

Mahalo.

Mahalo. Thank you. Next, we have testimony in opposition from Mr. Ken Conklin and testimony support from two individuals. Is there anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? If not, questions, Members? If not- oh, Representative Shimizu, please proceed.

My question is for you. I'm sorry. Thank you. Chair. Is- Is this the first time that money's been appropriated for this provision?

Since last year?

Yes, last year was the first year.

Last year was the first time.

The- My position, though, was appropriated a few years back. 2022.

Okay.

Yeah.

Alright. Thank you, Chair.

Okay.

Thank you, Representative. Any other questions? If not. Yes, Representative Perruso.

This is a question for Deputy Director Kimura. Sorry, I'm not picking on you. I'm not trying to pick on you.

It just occurred to me that, you know, with again, going back to a new federal administration and the focus on DEI, would this initiative make us vulnerable to more focused attention, do you think, from the federal administration? I mean, have you- have you folks considered that question?

We're mindful and being watchful. We don't believe it would because this is in support of Olelo Hawaii as the state's co official language. It's not directly in support of a diversity or equity initiative, although in Hawaii, it clearly has that sort of an impact by making our courts more inclusive.

But here we're, you know, this measure and Johanna's position in the Olelo Hawaii program is really focused on honoring and acknowledging and fulfilling the state's co official language of Olelo Hawaii.

And the constitutional mandate. So the constitutional language provides some protection.

I would hope so. Yes.

Thank you. Thank you Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions? Representative Garcia first.

Brandon, I'm sorry, since it was mentioned the DEI stuff, just to be clear, the- the money that's was given from the legislature to- to the judiciary for Olelo Hawaii is strictly state funding.

Yes.

Have you folks received any federal funding at all?

Not for the Olelo Hawaii program.

Okay. Thank you.

Yes.

Representative Shimizu.

For you also Brian. What was the question? Garner? Sorry, my mind went blank. Oh, I know what the question is. I'm sorry. Referencing Kenneth Conklin's testimony which was not in favor of it. He- He references Chief Justice's report which alluded to the fact that it might be not in support of this also.

So I was wondering if you could comment on that.

Thank you, Representative, for the question. I'm sorry I did not review Mr. Conklin's testimony. I'm happy to respond or either a moment and I can review or if you'd like to share with me the portion, I can respond or if Johanna might be able to respond if that's acceptable. Representative.

That'd be great. Thank you.

Thank you.

I just happen to know a bit about that report. So that report was based on-

And- And which report is this?

It's a 2015 report produced by the task force put together by the- at the request of the legislature to see what the feasibility of creating an Olelo Hawaii translation project. And there was a 50 page report produced by that that says that the judiciary does support the-

Attention an emergency has been reported in this building. Please cease oper-

The support- The- The revival of Olelo Hawaii and different steps that the task force came up with to to strengthen that relationship. So yes, I'll- I'll leave it at that regarding that testimony.

Thank you. Thank you very much. Any other questions?

Clarifying question?

Yes, please Representative.

I'm just confused because I- I thought I heard you say that this is already in HB400.

Yes. And in fact I think that's mentioned in the testimony that Ms. Chock-Tam had presented.

In the second page it says they respectfully note that through the legislature's support last session, the Olelo Hawaii program has a permanent operating budget that will allow the Olelo Hawaii program to fulfill its statutory responsibilities if we decide to move this forward to finance.

I suspect that my- my goal is that this would be a means by which we could affirm our support for that portion of the existing state budget and that this bill probably wouldn't move.

Okay. And I- I guess I'm just confused because in the language of the bill it has that language that says it's not our intent to supplant existing funding. So I thought that language was make- makes this an additional add on. I was just confused.

It's not.

Okay.

Thanks for that clarifying. Thank you. Any other questions, Members? If not, thank you very much. Our testifiers and let's move on. Next Bill. House Bill 151 relating to redress for wrongful conviction and imprisonment.

This measure requires the state to provide written notice to certain persons regarding the ability to file a claim for redress under applicable wrongful conviction law, requires the liberal construction of that law, provides for advance compensation for petitioners under certain circumstances, and requires report to Legislature from the Department of the Attorney General.

For this we have testimony from the Attorney General.

Yes. Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas. Is my audio okay?

Yes, we can hear you. Please proceed.

Okay, thank you. Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe and Members of the Committee. I'm Deputy Attorney General Lee Ying Kwok and I represent our Department with respect to HB 151.

While we appreciate the sentiment of the Bill, the Department of the Attorney General must oppose this Bill from a legal standpoint because it would be in violation of several statutory as well as constitutional laws.

Firstly, we note that the proposed Amendment to Section 661b would violate HRS 662-11 as payment of claims in excess of $25,000 or require legislative approval before appropriation. Preemptive distribution of $5,000 a month for a successive 12 months without any legislative oversight would be in direct conflict with that existing law.

Secondly, the proposed amendment violates HRS662-13 because monetary awards of this kind must be based in legal evidence. A preemptive distribution of $5,000 a month for 12 months without any requirement of legal evidence or review would be in direct conflict with existing law.

Thirdly, we'd like to point out that the proposed amendment would also violate Section 5, Article 7 of the Hawaii Constitution, which requires that public monies can be distributed only pursuant to the appropriations process.

A preemptive distribution of $5,000 a month, again for 12 months without going through the appropriations process would also put this amendment in direct conflict with existing law.

And lastly, our Department would point out that the proposed amendment also does not address what might happen if a petitioner is not found actually innocent by a trier of fact, and it does not address how the government would then be able to recover the preemptively distributed monies.

We note that there is already a thorough compensation scheme put in place by this Legislature under 661b, whereby petitioners can obtain monetary relief to the tune of $50,000 a year for each year of incarceration through a process that involves legal evidence review.

For all these foregoing reasons, the Department of the Attorney General respectfully opposes this Bill and asks that this Committee hold the Bill. We thank you for the opportunity to comment.

Thank you very much. Next, we have testimony and support from the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission, Testimony in support from the Office of the Public Defender. Ms. Cheng.

Thank you. We focused our written submission on, I guess, the spirit of the Bill and making sure that people have notice, which I think is critical.

We referenced the strict statute of limitations of the time limitations that the current statutory scheme outlines, and we believe providing that notice and not putting that onus on the wrongfully convicted is critical.

So we understand what the Attorney Generals are saying, but I think with the appropriate modifications to make sure that it does not contradict any other statutory authority, the spirit of the Bill and the intent behind it is very important. And I'll be available for any questions.

Thank you very much. And we have testimony, support from Community Alliance on Prisons, League of Women Voters, and two individuals. Is there anyone else wishing to testify in House Bill 151? Please come on up and introduce yourself.

Aloha, Angela Melody Young, testifying neutral. I neither support nor oppose this, so I'm in support of improving the court processes in the State of Hawaii as it relates to redress for wrongful conviction and imprisonment, but I'm not sure about the technical amendments.

So this legislation builds from Act 156 from 2016 and acted to provide monies as compensation to individuals who are wrongfully convicted and imprisoned in Hawaii's criminal justice system. This is a process of compensation and other remedies from the government when someone's been wrongfully convicted.

Okay, if you could focus on this Bill. We know what this is.

I want to talk about the societal influence.

Okay, Please, please focus on the Bill.

Okay, so the redress for wrongful conviction legislation would provide financial compensation. Right. If enacted. Should I stop?

Please proceed.

Okay, so the redress for wrongful conviction legislation, if this is successfully mandated, it will provide financial compensation for those who were wrongfully convicted and imprisoned for not being able to work a job, damages related to the time spent incarcerated, and sometimes additional support for facilitation of rehabilitation and reintegration into society.

Compensation can also be for claiming damages due to emotional distress and harm to reputation caused by wrongful incarceration. This often requires filing a lawsuit, a civil lawsuit, to prove innocence and the state's responsibility for the wrongful conviction.

And to prove innocence, an individual must demonstrate the individual is actually innocent of the crime convicted of, often through DNA evidence or other compelling proof. This could help set a standard to reduce burdensome court process for the innocent. Thank you.