House Standing Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs

Welcome everyone to the information briefing of the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. My name is David Tarnas, I'm the Chair of the Committee and I'm very fortunate to have Vice Chair Mahina Poepoe here. Other Members are watching remotely and, and this is being recorded so that everyone can watch this at their leisure. Today.

Our info briefing is specifically about in general expungement and record clearance.

The Legislature has been working on this for several years now and we'll get an update on some of our efforts here in the state and then also hear from some national experts about best practices so that we can look at what else can we do to move forward.

You know, I'm a firm believer in second chances and redemption and that expungement and record clearance is a part of that.

You know, the Legislature over the last couple of years has passed important legislation in for example, in 2024 we passed a bill, it became Act 62 that enabled Hawaii's first ever state initiated pilot project for expungement of non convictions of low level possession of cannabis and other charges.

The Attorney General's Office has successfully expunged the records of hundreds of Hawaii island residents who otherwise, otherwise would not receive the relief. And this is a, this is a major achievement and we can do more.

Phil Higdon with the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data center and the Department of Attorney General will give us an update on where we are with that important legislation. In 2023 we passed a bill that became Act 159.

And that law required that the court automatically seal or remove from the judiciary's publicly accessible database any information relevant to the arrest or case of a person for whom an expungement order has been entered and transmitted to the court by July 1, 2025. This in Hawaii we have a two step process.

You know, we've got expungement, which is one step, but then we have record clearance which is another step. And they're in two different agencies. And so for people who are trying to do this by filling out a petition and sending it, it's very onerous and this two step process gets in the way.

So we have very few people that actually go through the process themselves initiating it through a petition. So that's why we're trying to in the Legislature begin this process of a state initiated process for both expungement and record clearance.

In 2024, the Legislature created through Act 241 the Clean Slate Task Force and it's currently meeting monthly chaired by Judge Park Hoapili, thank you so much for being here today, Judge. And thanks for your leadership in running that task force.

The Clean Slate Task Force is composed of prosecutors, public defenders and other concerned Members of the community. And they are working to recommend a pathway forward for record clearance efforts. And this briefing is is in alignment with that goal.

In that law, Act 241, there are two organizations that are specifically mentioned as being national experts that we could rely on and ask for help. And the two of them are the Clean Slate Initiative, which we may refer to as csi, and then also Code for America.

And we'll be hearing from both the Clean Slate Initiative and Code for America today. Both of the organizations have worked throughout the country, Clean Slate Initiative and Code for America. They worked formally with 12 states and the District of Columbia to advance their goals of bringing record clearance relief to more people.

And doing this through a state initiated process as I described, rather than a petition. They've demonstrated through their work they've got strong technical skills that can really help us improve our systems to conduct these functions that really are part of the state government.

But we can improve the way we do things and we can look to Clean Slate Initiative and Code for America for help. And so today we'll be hearing first an update on where we are with the legislation that we've passed in recent years.

And then we'll be hearing from the representatives from the Clean Slate Initiative and Code for America to learn more about what's being done in other states and what we can do here. So that's where we are.

So first up, we'll be hearing an update from the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center Department of the Attorney General, their administrator, Phil Higdon, about implementation of Act 62 that we passed back in 2024. And we have Phil joining us remotely. So I will ask Phil if you could join us now and give us your presentation.

Thank you, Representative Tarnas. I appreciate it. Let me share you my screen real quick. Are you able to see it?

Yes, thank you.

Okay, just quick overview of the pilot project to expunge certain arrest records. It's an overview of the expungement pilot project, Act 62 and 2024, and then Act 005 and 2025. So as you had mentioned earlier, Act 62, Inconnection Laws of Hawaii, 2024.

It was enacted June 21, 2024 and it established a pilot project within the Attorney General's Office to expunge certain arrest records under HRS 712-1249. Specifically possession of less than one ounce of Marijuana. It was implemented using existing funds and resources of the Hawaii Criminal Justice Center. So no funds were allocated to initiate this project.

So the criteria for the project was expungement application and fee weren't required by individuals. The arrest occurred before January 11, 2020 and the result and the arrest resulted in a single charge under 712-1249. So the individual could only be arrested for that single charge. No multiple charges within that arrest. That specific arrest.

The arrest would occur in a county with a population of 200,000 to 500,000. So that was Hawaii county was identified and as well, case terminated. Cases terminate with a final disposition other than conviction. So if the individual is convicted, they didn't qualify for this pilot project.

So then in April 2025, Act 005 was enacted and that expanded the eligibility of all arrests under 712-1249 qualifying for an expungement. So no drug type no longer was required for review to determine eligibility. So within 712-1249, they talk about Marijuana, but also scheduled five substances which would be such as codeine.

So it didn't matter what the drug type was. If it was a single charge, they qualified. So we identified the Data center identified 2,268 records that were potentially eligible for expungement and that came from Hawaii Police Department as well as the sheriff's Department who made arrest within the County of Hawaii.

Currently, 1072 records have been processed for expungement, 989 expungements have been granted, 83 expungements have been denied. And that was due to research finding out there was a conviction, there was an Undetermined disposition, or a warrant issued, or acquittal by reason of insanity.

The resources and timeline, it took approximately 872 staff hours, and this included four staff Members. So when we, when the project started, we met as a group. So anytime we meet to discuss how it's going to, we're having issues, concerns, or want clarification, we add that time in there.

So the average amount of time per expungement is approximately 45 days. And that includes the time we the data center sends an order to the law enforcement agencies informing them that arrest qualifies for an expungement. And it takes about 45 days for them to return verification, return verification that they've removed it from their system.

And of course, if they have fingerprints or mug photos of that arrest, they send them back to us as well. So since the project was launched in 2024, we identified just a little bit of information, 101 individuals who qualified for the project but were rearrested, a total of 428 charges.

So out of those 101, they may have been arrested for multiple offenses. Out of that, there was 165 felonies, 95 misdemeanors, 102 petty misdemeanors, 66 other charges, which is violations or traffic offenses. I should note that five were rearrested for under 712-1249. And that's all I have for you, Representative Tarnas.

Thank you very much, Mr. Higdon. I've got a question or two, but I want to offer Vice Chair, if you had any question. So, Phil, if I could just ask you a question. Since the change that we made to include all the substances within 712-1249 have those numbers of those who qualify changed substantially?

No, we identified that 2200. It didn't change once Act 005 was enacted.

It did not change.

Did not change? No, sir.

So everyone who you had identified previously. So. Okay, because I think that we passed that just to make it easier for you so you wouldn't have to go back and identify the substance. Has that made a difference?

The number didn't change. We identified that there was potentially 2,200 plus individuals, but at that time it was just under that Statute 712-1249. So that's when it was first enacted in 2024. That's when we had a really.

We had to reach out to the Police Department and the sheriff's Department and determine was the IRS marijuana or was it for Schedule 5? So once the Act 005, we didn't have to ask what drug type. We didn't have to determine that.

So it made it easier as far as not having to rely on the law enforcement agency to provide us the information whether it was Marijuana or Schedule 5. Got it. I hope that clarifies.

So, okay, so in that respect is your. You gave an estimate as to how long it took and how many staff hours it takes. Did we simplify things by changing the in the, with the last Bill that we just included all the substances within 712-1249.

I mean, it made it simpler. We didn't have to identify the drug, but we still took the time to research as we found out that there was in our system there, there was the disposition, the final disposition wasn't listed.

And by research and we found some were convicted and then, and then some were rearrested or they were there was a warrant out for their arrest. So we still had to research each individual case.

Okay, yeah. Yes. And then one last question. Have you found through this process things that you wish were in the database that aren't, that maybe going forward those would be things that we could try to include?

Well, the information that the law enforcement. The information within the system of cgis, Hawaii always starts with the law enforcement agency making the arrest. And, you know, they do their best to provide as much information as possible.

That information in CJIs not only lists the individual's names and aliases and the charges, General victim information, no names, nothing to that extent. But as the individual goes through this, the process of going from the arresting agency to the courts, probation and so forth, it's.

It's incumbent upon the agencies to update and input as much information as they have. So the system is. I mean, we only are able to see what we see, and we rely upon those agencies to give us as much information. So, you know, some.

Some agencies and some officers, when they're making an arrest, they put in more information than others. So it just kind of depends by the agency.

Okay. And I guess I do have one other question that is about your staffing. I know that you are trying to hire more people. Do you have positions that are still vacant that you're looking for to fill.

For expungements? No, sir. We have one vacancy left that is assigned to our delinquent disposition research. They actually go in and check our systems to see if. To update records.

So right now we wanted to see how the pilot project was going just to make a determination of how many more staff, how many more expungers would we need if more legislation was passed so that other individuals may qualify for an expungement? I think I've thrown out. I provided that number before.

Rough estimate with no research being done. But we've identified almost 412,000 people that could potentially qualify. Potentially qualify for an expungement. But that's without doing any research on our end.

Yeah. So if the Legislature were contemplating moving from a pilot project, which is just one county, and we were to look at expanding it statewide, I think the Legislature would need your input as to what capacity you would need to add to your organization so you could accomplish that.

So that is something I'd like to ask of you, if you could help guide me so that, you know, we. We want to support you, we want you to succeed, and we don't want to add too much on your plate that's not doable. So I'm very cognizant of that. We're your allies.

And so we're trying to figure out what, you know, ask a lot, but not too much.

No, I, I appreciate that, Representative Tarnas, I really do. And like I said, we were just trying to assess the pro. The project because, you know, we couldn't solely focus on the pilot project and put everybody that actually submits an application and submits a fee. We couldn't put them on hold.

So we kind of split up the day on what we worked on. And, and we're just trying to make a determination. I think it's a little bit premature to say I need 10 more expungers or I need two more because we're not at the end of the project yet. And internally we're still discussing as well.

Okay, well, very good. Well, I appreciate your good work on this. You've made great progress. I know that we want to, you know, expand things, but we want to do it in a, in a measured way. So.

Absolutely, sir.

Let me, let me turn over to Vice Chair Poepoe.

Thank you for your presentation. I was just curious if there's any information, data points being collected that are more qualitative on the outcomes after expungement, like personal stories of how lives are positively impacted after the records are expunged.

I think the data point of re arrests is important to understand as you presented, but I'm just curious about more qualitative follow up data.

Yeah, we're not in a position to follow up on that. Our responsibility is the collection of arrest information, adult criminal arrest records. So the recidivism and so forth, that's not in our wheelhouse. We're not responsible for that. So unfortunately, I can't answer it. Answer that question.

Okay. I just think that those kinds of personal follow ups on how lives are positively impacted by this program, which I know that they are, is a really important part of making the case for growing the program. So thank you.

Thanks, Vice Chair. You know, I think we should figure out who might be able to do that sort of follow up, because it would be very helpful and that provides the compelling stories that we need in order to get support for expanding it. So let's, let's. So.

So anyone who's listening out there in the wide world, if you have suggestions on who might be able to help us find that information for follow up on the personal stories of those who are affected by this, we're open to your suggestions. So let's move on.

Okay, well, let's now move to an update on the status of Act 159.

I mentioned this earlier, passed in 2023, which requires the court to automatically seal or remove from the judiciary's publicly accessible database any information relevant to the arrest of a case or case of a person for whom an expungent order has been entered and transmitted to the court by July 1, 2025.

We're very fortunate to have Michelle Acosta, First Circuit Deputy Chief Court Administrator here from the Judiciary. Thank you so much for being here. And I know you are assisted a great deal by your Information Technology Division Chief, Dana Nakasato. But today we're blessed to have you here, Ms. Acosta.

And if I could ask you just for an update on where we are with implementation of Act 159.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me here. Ms. Nakasato is online with us, joining us from another state.

Could I ask you to move the mic right up next to you? That'd be great. Just kind of eat your mic. That's.

Is that better close? Yep. There you go. So thank you. Ms. Nakasato is joining us online. So she is available for any questions. Thank you. I'm going to start my sharing my screen. Chair, as you stated, this is an update on the status of Act 159.

But I also will touch on Act 3 which came into effect in 2025. So. So Act 159 does made amendments to HRS 831-3.2 subsection F and wanted to show this slide here that just shows a comparison of the procedure and the process prior to July 1, 2025.

So that process was an individual Member of the public would submit an application to Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center. And based on the review that Mr. Higdon just explained, if they are qualified for an expungement for any arrest records, they would issue an expungement certificate to the applicant to the individual prior to July 1st.

The applicant, as he mentioned, Chair, is a two step process. They would get the application and submit the physical application, a copy of that to the court for the court to review and either seal or remove the court record from Ecourt Kukua.

Ecourt Kukua, for those who are not familiar, is the public facing portal database for the judiciary where anybody Member of the public can search a court record using that online tool.

Once the court received the application and the written request to seal or remove their record, court record, the court conducts this review and again to see if they're eligible under HRS 831-3.2 once the court renders a decision that the applicant is eligible, the court will issue an order to seal the associated record as filed.

The associated court record is then removed from eCourt Kokua and so is therefore not searchable on eCourt Kokua. A filed copy of the order is then provided to the applicant. So the applicant does get confirmation that an order and action has been taken on their case.

So with the implementation or since July 1, 2025 when Act 159 came into became law, the same process where the application still goes to hcjdc, they go through their process to review the records and determine eligibility. Again, the expungement certificate is issued for those who are eligible.

The change that occurred with Act 159 is that HCJDC digitally transmits the expungement certificate to the court and, and therefore the applicant is no longer required to do that.

As a second step, HCJDC and the judiciary, where Ms. Nakazato's team comes into play, have worked together figuring out how to do this and implement Act 159 so that the applicant does not have to take that second step. So it's been several months of working together, putting our heads together and, and figuring this out.

There is still manual processing, but for all intents and purposes for the applicant, they're not seeing any of these steps on their end. Again, the court conducts the court review.

If the court decide determines that they are eligible, an order to remove the associated court case from Ecourt koa is then issued and then the court does its process and removes it from ECORT Cocoon no longer is searchable. Again, a filed order of the copy is provided to the applicant.

So they are aware that this action has taken place since that time. So we've had about two full months under our belt in a couple weeks. But this data is showing you the two months of this. The courts for all the four circuits within the state judiciary received certificates of 125 in July, 87 in August.

And the court's court orders were filed 17 in July and 100 in August. So as you can see, we kind of got into the process and were able to process several more in August. The table to the right is showing how many orders were filed based on each circuit.

So in the first circuit sitting County of Honolulu, we filed 81 orders. Maui County 14, third circuit for Hawaii County is seven and fifth circuit had 15. So these, again, we're, we're ongoing, we're two weeks into September. So the data we'll we'll, we'll see what where the data is coming in.

But the process is moving along thanks to a good partnership with HCJDC. In August 2025, August 4, the Supreme Court filed its opinion in State v. Rogan. So this particular opinion did had an impact on HRS 832-3.1. I keep saying that and I keep messing it up and apologies.

So State v. Rogan did have some procedural impact with State v. Rogan. It does require us for any of the certificates that we receive from HCJDC. We will remove it if it's eligible under the statute from eCourt Kokua for anything that and the records will be available to be viewed by Members of the public at the courthouse.

So while it's not viewable in eCourt Kokua, it is available at the courthouse. There is a different step now for sealing court records under State v. Rogan. This is required under the opinion that a written request or motion needs to be filed with the court. The parties have an opportunity and the public.

The the parties and the public have an opportunity to be heard and then there would be written findings entered by the court. So this is something that we have also been working to implement since August and we're also looking forward to the Hawaii Supreme Court rules to be coming out shortly for public comment.

So that's where we are in terms of The Implementation Act 159 and Act 3, which was implemented in 2025, recognizes the limitation of the system currently that court records where there is multi, multi charge or multiple defendants, those would not be removed or sealed. So that's where we are open.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I've got some questions but I'd ask Vice Chair anything first. So thank you for your update on this. And it sounds like you are making progress. I wanted to get a sense of you know it you're, you're accomplishing it. But is it getting any easier?

It's because it's still a manual search similar to what Mr. Higdon explained in the searching and making sure that we are clearing, expunging the correct record and sealing the correct record. We there is still a manual review of a lot of the records making sure that they're eligible.

We what is easier which Act 159 and this effort has made it easier because now there's a case ID that's shown on the certificates which makes the research easier. We have worked with HCJDC to give us some other information that helps with the court search. So in that respect. Yes.

It's gotten easier if you have you decided have you determined whether or not there are changes needed in statute or in rules to make your job easier.

In statute? Not at this time. We are awaiting the Supreme Court rules to come out. And so looking forward to the opportunity for the public comment.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And those could come out anytime.

Correct.

And no one knows for sure.

I do not have an estimated timeline.

I'm sorry, Chair, I didn't think you would. That's. I understand. But it is something that everyone's watching for and waiting for. And then and there will be a public comment period. And agencies will also be asked for their input as well. So I think that'll be an opportunity for everyone to chime in on about it. And.

Oh. So were the records that were removed under the Cannabis Pilot project, were they. Sealed right after July? After July.

I am. I would defer. I don't know if my colleague from the third circuit is here. Maybe Mr. Higdon might be able to.

Just, you know, because we're working in parallel on these two different projects, I wanted to see if there was a nexus there and whether. Whether the records that were removed in the Cannabis Pilot project were actually sealed.

I think we are in the process of looking at how that procedure goes or how that workflow. So. So I can't speak to whether. I don't. Well, let me know later. Yeah, we'll do.

Come back and let me know later because I think part of this is that we're figuring out new systems here, and I'm eager to help you build capacity so you can do this more easily, remove barriers. If there are any, you know, please let us know what they are.

But I appreciate your success that you've made it so far, you know, with the work that you know and the. And the constraints that you currently have. I appreciate that, and I would urge you to, as you learn more before session starts, if there's things that it'd be good for us to know. Before session starts, let's talk.

You know, we don't have to wait for an info briefing or whatever. Just. Just, you know, let's talk beforehand so that we're prepared for next session. Because I think there's a keen interest in the Legislature to advance this effort of record clearance and expungement both sides and just try to make the system work better.

Appreciate that, Chair. I'm sure we will have many, many more discussions as we continue to work with. With our partners.

Okay, great. And I appreciate you being here in person today.

I think what I'd like to do next is to hear from the Clean Slate Initiative folks and the Code for America folks about what advice they may have for us and what kind of technical assistance they might be able to provide for us and how we might move forward, because the judiciary and the Attorney General's Office have the responsibility here.

But if there's any way we can help support both those agencies, I'd like to do that. So let's now move. We're going to hear first from the Clean Slate Initiative, and we've got a couple people who are going to be speaking with us.

Caitlin Dunklee, campaign strategist with the Clean Slate Initiative, and Eric Altieri, Director of campaigns with Clean Slate Initiative. And I understand, Caitlin, you may be speaking to us first.

And I'd like to welcome you and look forward to your presentation so you can tell us about the work that you're doing across the country and what you might be able to do for us here in Hawaii.

Terrific. Thanks so much. Good afternoon. Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poipoi, Members of the House Committee on the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. My name is Caitlin Dunklee and I'm a campaign strategist with with the Clean Slate Initiative. It's a pleasure to present to you here today about clean slate policy and records relief in Hawaii.

I'm going to take you through the beginning of our presentation, then pass to my colleague Eric. Next slide Eric. Today I'm going to introduce our organization, the Clean Slate Initiative and discuss Clean Slate policies. I'll review the national landscape and key research related to State initiated records relief.

I'll talk about how clean slate might benefit Hawaii and we'll share how we can support your state. Next slide. Before we get started, I want to say a word about terminology. We say seal in this presentation. What we mean is limiting public access to a record. Every state defines that differently and many states use different terms.

We use the term seal in most of our materials, but each state has the opportunity to use their own term and define what it means. The Clean Slate Initiative is a national bipartisan advocacy organization working to pass and implement state initiated records relief policies for people with eligible records across the country.

Like you said, so far 12 states and the District of Columbia have passed clean slate laws. That means that approximately 16 million people in the United States are eligible for full or partial record sealing across those Clean Slate states. We have a multi pronged strategy.

At CSI we advocate for clean slate policies, we partner with states to implement those policies and we engage in narrative change work around individuals with records to promote a humanizing narrative. Next slide. So what is a Clean Slate law?

A Clean Slate law requires a state initiated process to limit public access to non convictions, arrests and certain conviction records for individuals who've completed their sentences and remained crime free for a specified period of time.

So to qualify as a Clean Slate state, a policy must limit public access to both non convictions and certain convictions and make the process by which these records are restricted a state initiated process that in General does not involve manual review of individual records. Next slide.

Clean Slate laws provide second chances for people who have completed their sentences and remain crime free. Any effective Clean Slate policy should one, be government initiated, thus not requiring a petition or lengthy paperwork.

Two, use a streamlined process that harnesses technology to identify eligible records and limit public access to them. And three, apply to non conviction and certain conviction records. I really want to stress this point. Each state is unique. Hawaii is positioned to tailor policy to meet its unique needs.

For example, Hawaii could determine the length of time an individual would have to wait after a conviction to have their record limited from public access. Hawaii can also determine who retains access to records. For example, Hawaii can design the policy so that law enforcement agencies retain access to all records. Next slide.

Clean Slate has three key identifying eligible records, notifying relevant agencies, and restricting access to those records. I am here to share the good news that Hawaii is actually quite well positioned to implement Clean Slate and here's why. You have centralized data in both the state repository and the courts, allowing for more streamlined processes.

You have good data quality in both the repository and the courts, allowing agencies to identify eligible records through through technology. And you have systems for automated electronic data transfer that are already functioning well, providing excellent infrastructure for Clean Slate to use.

Following our presentation, our partners at Code for America, who are in person with you, will dive more into this next slide. Let's turn for a moment to the national landscape and recent research. Next slide. Here are the 12 states + DC who have passed Clean Slate.

Like I said at the top, over 16 million people are now on a path to seeing relief from the many barriers to housing, employment and education that are caused by old records. Next slide. We are proud to share that Clean Slate has bipartisan support across the country.

The majority of Clean Slate bills that have passed to date included both Republican and Democratic co sponsors. We have also gained support from law enforcement in many states. We are actively working in over half the country and in Congress supporting Clean Slate campaigns and implementation efforts.

We offer our services and partnerships free of cost to states, governments and agencies. To discuss in more detail the barriers that records create and the benefits of Clean Slate, I'm going to turn to my colleague Eric Altieri, Director of State Campaigns at the Clean Slate Initiative. Thanks for letting me present today.

Thank you, Caitlin. Eric, the floor is yours.

All right.

All right. Well, thanks, Caitlin, and thank you all for giving us some time to talk about what we love to talk about, which is second chances and Clean Slate policy and how we can help you pursue that in Hawaii. So we're going to do this in a couple parts.

First, we're going to look at some of the impacts to the individuals and then the impact this has in communities that move forward with Queen State policy and then how we can ideally, you know, be a resource that's Valuable to you and your work.

So initially here, looking at what do we know about the barriers and the kind of collateral consequences having a records has on an individual. You know, in national research we've seen 94% of all employers and 90% of landlords conduct background checks for new employees, people applying for apartment or other housing.

So this already, if you are coming out of prison, even if you remain crime free for any number of years, a decade, even if you have that record, you're really going to face some really massive hurdles when it comes to finding gainful employment, finding housing for your family and getting back on a good pudding.

And we've seen that having that criminal record, even if you do apply for that job, it greatly reduces the chance that you're even going to get that first interview, much less a callback.

You know, 50% of those that have an arrested conviction on their record, they get 50% less callbacks regardless of their qualification, experience or the very nature of their offense. So it could be something as a very minor, small, nonviolent misdemeanor. They're getting that same decrease in callbacks as almost any other higher level charge as well.

And it has a real economic impact broadly. An estimated 78 to 87 billion are lost from our US GDP every year as a result of shutting individuals with records out of the workforce. Not only is that having an impact on the individual, it's created issues with workforce development.

We work with a lot of businesses in the states that are very big advocates of this that really see it as an avenue to bringing talented people back into the workforce and really stimulating economic development. And the total lost earnings for Americans impacted by a conviction or incarceration is currently around 372.3 billion annually.

And this next slide I'll have to freely admit, I added because of the comment made by the wonderful Vice Chair here. What is the impact on the individuals and the positive side that get this type of relief?

So this is not from Hawaii, from your own unique experience so far, but this is a survey we conducted through YouGov where we surveyed individuals with records in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Utah, three states that have implemented clean slate policies and have begun to clear those records.

And what we saw is pretty stark, that this has a pretty large impact positively on the well being and economic standing of these individuals in these states. We saw 42% of those surveyed who had this relief reported improvement in work, employment, personal finances or their ability to gain public assistance.

35% reported improvement in personal and family relationships, which is ultimately good mental well being of themselves or families and communities. You know, 34% similar health, mental and self esteem improvements. 28% reported improvement in community and political involvement. They really re engage as a Member of the community.

They feel like they're back as a full citizen and aren't being, you know, judged severely for one mistake. Potentially on their record. 24% reported improvement in housing and 22% reported improvement in education. This is three states and you know, this is a relatively younger policy, so we're continuing to learn.

But this is our initial finding that we think are overwhelmingly positive for the results. And I'll be sure that we share this with the Committee Members afterwards so they have the full, the full report and results that we received there. But ideally we've seen this across these states.

There's not many reasons to expect we wouldn't see similar positive impact on individuals in Hawaii should you move forward.

So that brings us to, you know, there is rightfully, you know, folks want to make sure that we're doing things in pursuit of not only helping individuals, but making sure we maintain public safety and aren't having negative impacts by these actions.

So we also reviewed research in these states that have moved forward with clean state policies and these are results we really have on that impact. We do see that overall, anyone who is been qualified and had their records sealed from public view under these policies have a low recidivism rate and a low risk of being repeat offenders.

For instance, in Michigan, research has shown that people with expunged and sealed records are less likely to recidivate after five years than the General public. So having gone through that, served their time, gone five years without committing a crime, having their records heard and all that, they are less likely to recidivate than the General.

In California and other clean State, only 2% who received this record relief are expected to be convicted of a new disqualifying offense within the next five years.

And then when you look at Studying criminology for 2009, after you get past the four to seven years period without any further criminal activity, most individuals that have a record pose no more threat to public safety than the General population. And those numbers are important because we like to guide our policy based on research and actual data.

And that is where we derive our recommendations on waiting periods. So a lot of the research shows that is the sweet spot around four to seven years. If an individual with the record is out of jail, is back in community and does not recommit.

We have seen through research that they are no more likely to pose any greater threat to public safety than anyone else in the General population. And of this giant pool of folks across this country who have records, most people with a conviction only have one.

And 75% of people with a first conviction do not have a second one with an in the next 10 years. That's just a broad look at the population from the RAND Corporation.

So what does it say about some other aspects we have, as noted in the survey findings, but also other research has shown that there is improvement in employment, housing opportunities, and that ultimately keeps people safer.

So limiting access to records helps people earn a second chance by removing those barriers to employment, housing stability that are all noted as key factors to preventing future crime and recidivism. If people can have stable employment, stable housing, and feel stable in their personal lives, they're naturally less likely to recidivate.

And in Michigan, we saw that really result in a great increase in individuals who had relief by increased wages, who most people who had an expungement saw 22% increase in their wages in just one year after that ceiling.

Also, support for law enforcement across the country, it varies in every state, but we are proud to say that a lot of our states there was support for law enforcement through the process. And that's in a lot of ways because on one end it also reduces the administrative burden on courts and prosecutors.

It frees up resources that in other ways would be spent on these hearings, these petition processing, all these things you're hearing about, you know, the onerousness of your current system.

And this allows those prosecutors offices and others to really focus on prosecuting current crime and concern and address the present threats to public safety than continuing down the road that we're on by having these collateral consequences on people who may have committed a misdemeanor a long time ago.

So that brings us to Clean Fleet and Hawaii, which was ultimately why we're all here and how we can assist you through that process.

So it's important that we believe two things really strongly at csi, and one is that we strongly believe in second chances and the impact, the positive impact that these laws have on individuals in their communities.

But we also firmly believe that the state itself and the residents and stakeholders in that state are the best to decide what these policies look like. There's no one size fits all approach to this.

This is as long as the end goal of relief is achieved, that and you get those benefits, it's really up to you in your state to decide what the, what the guardrails and parameters look like. So while they share that common foundation. They're shaped by your own priorities, your mores and your values in your state.

And you're free to really look at other states but make a decision for what your policy will look like based on your priorities and the policy to prime design process. You can consider things from who qualifies for leave and which records are included. You can decide which charges is it misdemeanors, does it include some nonviolent felonies?

You can lose specific charges and things like that. You can determine what waiting periods make sense for your state. As I noted, a lot of the research generally shows around four to seven years, especially on misdemeanors is generally the ideal waiting period. Based on data we've seen that do nonviolent felonies sometimes that's eight years, 10 years.

But that's really in your purview and we are here to help you with the data to make an informed decision about what makes sense there. But also importantly, who can still use and view this limited access record. As Caitlin pointed out, this is ceiling expungement is defined in all different places, but primarily in Hawaii.

We're talking about shielding from public view so people can get those jobs that housing. You can retain access where you choose to. We've seen states do some of these, all of these depending on their decision making process. In many states, law enforcement and prosecutors retain access to those records. In the instance of future investigations or prosecutions.

We've seen access retained by courts and judicial officials, certain employers and licensing bodies, and very sensitive positions, particularly ones having to do with children and child welfare agencies. Some states remain with the access for firearms licensing.

That's something that does change from state to state, but that's something that you can work through and really decide what policy is best for Hawaii and what can CSI do to help you through that process. We really have a multimodal approach. As Caitlin said earlier, we're here to help with policy development.

We have a whole team that does policy and implementation.

So whether that's assisting in building out eligibility, event type, helping design the automated process itself with your system built in mind, working with lawmakers on a draft model Bill, mapping end to end data flows in your systems for how this works, designing any system that is required to match, deduplicate or other deal with other data challenges you may have.

We have teams within PSI that have those specialties, have worked in other states and can bring that help to Hawaii. We also bring that, you know this implementation, implementation management which is important as I'm sure many of you lawmakers that are listening know passing a law is one thing.

Getting it implemented into practice is a whole other animal entirely. We have specific information and sessions and resources we can connect you to help you avoid common pitfalls that we've seen in other states and really plan for a sustainable policy that could stand the test of time and deliver consistently and effectively for Hawaii.

So that really covers policy, tech support, implementation support, any and all those things, including our. We have a fantastic research and Data Department that pulled together the research I presented today as well as conducted that YouGov survey I discussed that can really fill out the picture for you and answer a lot of the questions you have.

And we're happy to help them. And that is the end of our presentation. Thanks again for your time. Thanks to your commitment to really looking into this important issue that we really would love to help assist in bringing to Hawaii. And you can follow up with us.

Many of you have already talked to my wonderful colleague Caitlin, and if you haven't, we'll make sure the email and our contacts are provided after this presentation so you can feel free to reach out with any questions, concerns, or areas of interest that we might be able to assist.

Very good. Well, thank you very much, Eric, and thank you to Kaitlyn as well. This has been a great overview of what's happening across the country and with your work, but also laying out what you could do to assist us here. You know, we do have Judge Park Hoapili as chairing the Clean Slate Task Force here.

And I think that, you know, we look to the judge for. And the task force for guidance as we move forward here. And I know that you have, you know, begun your conversations with Clean Slate Initiative, and so we'll look forward to continuing to work with the task force as we go forward.

But I think before launching into any questions, I'd like let's just go ahead and go straight into a presentation by Mr. Crawford from Code for America, and then we can have some discussion after that, if that's okay with you. Okay, so let's go ahead. David Crawford, Senior Program Manager, clear my record.

Code for America, the floor is yours. Please proceed.

Great. Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you, Chair and Vice Chair, for having us today. Oh, Eat the mic, eat the mic. How's that? Is that better? Yeah. Okay. Well, thanks again. I really appreciate everyone welcoming in- welcoming me to the Legislature today. As the Chair said, my name is David Crawford.

I work for Code for America. Code for America is a nonprofit civic technology organization we work with state governments around the country to deploy human centered technology to improve public services and ensure that government works well for everyone. We work in a number of different government service spheres.

One is in delivering safety net benefits in a human centered way. We also work on tax benefits. I work on the Clear My Record team and our sole goal is to help government clear eligible criminal records through state initiated record clearance.

One thing that these all have, all these systems have in common is that there is data and there is technology and there are systems out there that government can leverage to make to reduce administrative burden for people who are eligible for programs.

That's true for safety net services, that's true for tax benefits, and that's true for record clearance. To that point, my team clear My record at Code for America.

Our work is rooted in this notion that if you are able to make state initiated record clearance a routine government service, that's truly the best way to remove barriers for people who have been impacted by criminal records at scale. Code for America helps states with a few different services.

We provide pro bono policy design support in conjunction with our friends at the Clean Slate Initiative and we also provide pro bono implementation support to agencies that are responsible for implementing clean slate laws. In terms of the policy design support, in collaboration with the Clean Slate Initiative, we tailor eligibility rules to data that's available to implementing agencies.

I think one good example we heard from Phil earlier about the aspect of having to go through and review an arrest record for qualitative information about the arrest rather than that top line level. So we work with agencies to determine which data points are- don't require these manual lookup processes and can actually be used programmatically.

So if you tailor eligibility rules in a Bill, it's easier to code eligibility determination later. We also help with structuring a clear step by step implementation process. So every agency knows what it's doing and when and who has what roles and what tasks need to be completed by what points.

And we collaborate with agencies to surface implementation problems before the Bill passes. You know, if you game plan these things out, perhaps with the task force you can figure out ahead of time which kinds of bumps in the road that are embedded in bills and then actually adjust them before a Bill passes.

In terms of our pro bono implementation support, this gets a little bit more technical. We work with agencies that are responsible for identifying eligible records to build algorithms. And this goes back to the eligibility and data points I mentioned on the previous slide.

You can, as long as the eligibility criteria are written in a straightforward way, you can code eligibility algorithms to review criminal records as data rather than documents and paperwork. And it's easy to produce lists of records that are eligible as long as these eligibility criteria are claiming clearly stated and aligned with the data points.

And we've helped in Utah and other states specifically on this. You know, we always advise that agencies try to leverage the technology they have access to as much as possible. But sometimes there's things out there that agencies aren't aware of. And so we can help evaluate and prototype third party tools.

We've done this successfully in Utah as well. We can share success stories from implementation in other states, like how did an agency solve a similar problem that's showing up here? And then we can demonstrate technical solutions to common challenges. One is we heard earlier about Act 159 and linking records across agencies.

And we can also help with data transformation. So, you know, sometimes you have a court case document where somebody put in unstructured text as the outcome of the case. But there are ways that you can use technology to extract pieces of that and put it into a structured, machine readable format.

For the rest of the presentation I really want to zoom in on this concept of technical feasibility. We've talked a lot today about ensuring that any kind of clean slate or state initiated record clearance policy has to be implementable for the agency who are going to be implementing it. And so at Code for America we like to use this term technical feasibility.

And what it really means is that a policy is written in a way that takes needs and capacities of the implementing agencies into account. It has to work with the data that's available to agencies. And again, we try to advise on leveraging existing technology in new and creative ways.

So I'll be returning to this theme of technical feasibility in the context of designing a Clean Slate Bill. So the Big Code for America has worked in more than 20 states at this point advising on state initiated record clearance.

And the first thing we usually hear is that we can't do automatic or state initiated record clearance because our petition process has 5, 10, 20 manual steps. And I think that's the wrong way to be thinking about it if you're going to try to have a policy that's technically feasible and can scale.

So it's not simply automating what it currently exists. It's about imagining a new process that is technically feasible. When we say that, we're really talking about thinking in terms of three key steps.

One is identifying which records are eligible based on the data points available to that initiating agency. Sorry, electronically, notifying relevant agencies and then updating records in systems that are used for background checks. Caitlin mentioned earlier, removing public access to these records.

If you think about state initiated record clearance in terms of these three steps, you can understand very quickly that there's opportunities for automation and reduction of manual work within the context of this those three steps. So we were pretty familiar with how complicated petition processes could be. This is just a generic example.

It might look vaguely familiar, but it's not exactly how any one state does it.

But you can see here you have an applicant applying to one agency, that agency needing to share documents across to another agency, implicating other agencies that aren't sources for background checks, and all of these back and forths between agencies just for the person to get relief at the end.

And there are steps in here that can't be scaled for a state initiated process. But if you think about it in terms of those three key steps, in terms of determining which records are eligible, notifying the appropriate agencies, and updating the records in those public facing databases, it becomes a lot more simple.

So for one example, if you have a state with a criminal history repository with centralized arrest record data and good disposition reporting, very similar to Hawaii, for example, you could have a system where the criminal history repository identifies the records, notifies the appropriate agencies and, and then the appropriate agencies update their records and there's no action required on the part of an applicant.

You could also do it if you have a court with, or a state with a centralized court system that has a central source of court record database. Lots of states prefer to go this route and have the judiciary determine eligibility. As long as you have those court records in one central database.

Going back to this idea of breaking this down into three steps, if we're going to look at a technically feasible way to do this, that idea of choosing the correct initiating agency really depends on how centralized is the data and how complete is the data.

And so a state like Hawaii has very good arrest record data in the criminal justice data center and the judiciary. So theoretically there's a couple different ways it can be structured. Some states don't have that luxury.

There are states with decentralized court systems that have case management systems spread out across the state, which forces you to use the criminal record repository. And then when you have bad data at the criminal record repository, this can get hairy quickly.

The initiating agency will need to develop an algorithm like this programmatic coded approach to review data to produce a list of records that are eligible. And the key to that is just making sure that the eligibility criteria that need to be programmed are based on real world data points.

So things that don't require manual review or interagency lookups or discretion. One example here is from Utah's eligibility identification algorithm. So when we're. I like showing this slide because I feel like this actually gives a good example of what we're talking about here.

It's a little technical, but if you go through line by line here, you have a person who, they have their party ID, they have the court record ID. This is a court initiated system here. But you have the case ID and then you can see which charges are in the case.

There's only one charge in this case and it's a misdemeanor B and it has a specific violation that's tied to a statute. So the statute would say that Section 76-6-106-3B records are eligible or misdemeanor B records are eligible. And then you can see that there's an adjudication date, which is a data point that's available in court records.

So the courts will know when the case was adjudicated. And so if you program this, there are lifetime limits in Utah, so you can only have X number of misdemeanor Bs and X years have to pass since then. But if you take that approach, you can program this.

So having this eligibility code shows that this person's one case qualifies them under the lifetime limits and six years have passed since the class B misdemeanor. So this is what we mean when we're talking about automated eligibility identification, that second step, interagency notification. I was actually very pleased and impressed to hear the agencies today talk about this.

There isn't, I don't think that much that can be done in the policy design stage itself to mandate how agencies collaborate with each other. I think what bears fruit is agencies talking to each other and figuring out what needs to be shared across them to identify records in the secondary agency that needs to update records.

And we heard a little bit about that earlier today about, I believe it was including the case ID numbers helped streamline this a lot.

But that's essentially when you're structuring a policy, you want to make sure that either agencies are prompted to work together and collaborate and figure these things out, or if you have enough insight already about which data fields need to be shared across agencies to make this identification of records on the secondary agency side, both are good ways to do this.

And then finally updating records, we've heard about this today as well. Removing public access to arrest records in the repository and then court records. The key here is to not include language that triggers an unscalable process.

And in a lot of states, the existing definitions of sealing or expungement or any other term that the state inherits from the petition process can trigger all kinds of unscalable downstream processes.

So, you know, there are situations when an agency gets a petition for expungement and not only do they remove a public facing record source, but they have to go into case files with a marker and mark things out, or move a file from one room to another, or put a piece of tape over a manila folder and put it from one filing cabinet into another.

So these aren't, these kinds of things aren't required for, you know, relief at scale.

Removing barriers to jobs, housing and education under a clean slate process. So when you're crafting a clean slate process that needs to scale to the we're talking about hundreds of thousands of eligible records, you really don't want to be forcing agencies into a corner where they're doing things that aren't actually going to be leading to people being able to pass routine background checks.

Another aspect of that that is different from the petition process is that agencies that aren't sources for background checks might not actually need to proactively update their records either.

Minnesota, for example, included in their clean slate law a provision that arresting agencies simply need to confirm with the central repository upon a request from an outside party to publicly disclose a record. They need- the arresting agency needs to confirm with the central repository whether that record has been subject to clean slate relief or not.

But they don't. You don't have arresting agencies around the state going through crates and sealing and expunging lines out of old records proactively. They do it on a case by case basis, upon request.

So in summary, this idea of technical feasibility, when you're creating a Clean Slate law, it's really important that you make sure that the eligibility criteria are tailored to real world data points that are available to the initiating agency. That interagency communication is streamlined and encourages appropriate data sharing in a way that works for agencies.

And you have to ensure that the rules that agencies are following for updating records don't create implementation quagmires. They're scoped appropriately for removing records from public facing databases and allowing people to pass routine background checks.

So thank you for inviting us again and Code for America and the Clean Slate Initiative would love to continue working with agencies and the task force and the Legislature to design a clean slate policy that can work for Hawaii.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate that. David. It sounds like actually Hawaii's got some things to be proud of, that we have data, we've got cooperative agencies. Thank goodness, thank you very much to our agencies who are working together.

And I think we have, through the task force, you know, I think we've got a mechanism for bringing together everybody, including Code for America and Clean Slate Initiative, to chart a path forward, which I think is very valuable.

Could you, maybe both you, David, as well as whether it's Caitlin or Erik, could talk about what are the advantages that come from partnering with your organizations officially as opposed to unofficially where we just ask you for advice, but there's an official sort of relationship that you've had with some of these other states.

Could you walk us through that? Either you first or over to Eric.

Erik, you want to go ahead and you can go ahead and you go first, Erik.

Sure. You know, really either way works for us. If you want to formalize it, we're here to help from CSI side, pro bono. You know, our job up and what drives us is providing that assistance.

You know, we're happy to have this more, slightly more formal relationship with the task force being named as the technical advisor, but we are happy to be useful to the degree that we can be.

So whether that is a more formal relationship as you move through this process or simply as a resource to you, we really want to bring our knowledge to make bringing Clean Slate to Hawaii really as pain free as it possibly can be and that we sculpt what I think we all want, which is a workable, durable policy.

So we're happy to be a partner both in the thought process and in the implementation process, regardless of the formality of it. David can talk for a couple of minutes.

David, do you want to add to that?

I would echo everything Erik said. Yeah, we've had more formal arrangements with states.

We partnered very deeply with the Utah Administrative Office of the Courts to vet third party technology related to record linkage and de-duplicating court records to make sure that, you know, that eligibility algorithm could be run on records that were confident are the same individual.

And we've been engaged with them for a number of years at this point. But we also, similar to what Erik was saying, we were happy to keep informal pro bono support whatever level feels right for the state. You know, we don't have to go into systems directly to have an impact.

We can provide proof of concepts with a small limited data set, show what's possible. So we're here to help states however it feels right.

So if, I mean, I know there's some who would be concerned that if we have a third party come in and they're working on data sets, which really need to remain confidential, that there's requirements to establish that sort of protection. And so how do you navigate that in some of your partnerships with other states?

Yes. Yeah. Code for America has a pretty rigorous privacy and security department. We're very, we're very passionate about making sure that we're complying with all different types of regulations. Especially with data security, when you're talking about any kind of government data that they have on individuals, security is of the utmost importance.

And yeah, sometimes agencies are rightfully reluctant or cautious about sharing access outside of that. So even if that's an issue, there are ways to use anonymized data or synthetic data that's based on, for example, a data dictionary.

If you have a list of types of fields that are in a court record, or if you have an anonymized court record, we can create data based on that or there's lots of different ways we can do it.

Okay.

What you have now that you know something about Hawaii, I mean, you've seen some of our work here, I think between the two of you, Erik and David, what do you see as some of the challenges that you anticipate that we're going to be facing as we move forward with our effort to establish a, you know, pass Clean Slate Legislation, improve our systems that we already have gotten started here.

You want to go ahead if you.

Can speak to the more of the, you know, the technical impendation side, but as the kind of policy wonk and political guy, I'll say that, you know, I don't see a lot from that practical side. You're already doing so many of the right things.

As you noted, you have, you know, departments and agencies that work well together that are, you know, have an earnest desire to implement these things if the state decides to move forward.

Things like the task force already bringing together that diverse array of stakeholders from across the spectrum, from, you know, advocacy groups to the Office of Hawaiian Affairs to prosecutors, public defenders, you're already almost a step ahead by having all those folks in the room together talking. And David could dive in a little more.

But on the technical side, at least in terms of system, from TSI's perspective, Hawaii is almost better positioned than maybe any other state, at least most other states we've gone into.

Just in terms of the digitization, decentralized nature of your records, it's really coming together to that agreement on what the policy looks like and what those guardrails would be. But I'd say by having this discussion, this hearing, the task force, you're already in a pretty good place to be positioned to move this forward on the policy side.

Thank you, Erik, appreciate that.

David, your perspective.

I don't know if I would really have very much to add. I think the agencies are already taking meaningful incremental steps on the road towards a full scale process. I think the pilot project and the lessons that Phil mentioned are things that, you know, in other states they've had to learn that the hard way.

You know, at a scale where they're, you know, staring down the barrel at 500,000 records and having to, you know, find themselves in a situation where they think they need to manually review things rather than having a policy that's scoped towards with automation in mind, or the interagency notification aspect.

There's already been work done under implementation of Act 159. So I think, yeah, I think as long as everyone is recognizing what they have at their disposal here, I think Hawaii is in a relatively good position compared to other states.

I appreciate that. That's a, that's a good vote of confidence and what we've got going here.

I'd like to circle back just to offer the opportunity for Phil, if you're still with us, Phil, to give any comments after hearing the Clean Slate Initiative folks and Code for America folks, and offer the same to Michelle if you had any commentary, any thoughts on moving forward, maybe Michelle, you go first.

I'm not sure if Phil is still online.

Sure. And I think, you know, with Judge Park-Hoapili, who's leading the task force that we are, the judiciary is engaged in the continuous conversations and opening, open to looking at technology and leveraging that and making this, the process, a lot more streamlined, both for the user, the end user, and also for all the agencies.

And, you know, we're always mindful of our resources, including our staff, so. So I think that just, it's. Thank you for this briefing. I think it's educational for all of us who've been working in this area to just continue the conversations and learn from each other. So thank you.

Thank you. I appreciate it. Ms. Acosta, Phil Higdon, any commentary from your side after hearing the presentations and having done your work? Mr. Higdon, any commentary from you?

No, I'm unable to speak to regarding Clean Slate or Code for America at this time. With all due respect.

Thank you. I appreciate that. You know, we're very fortunate to have with us today Judge Park-Hoapili. I don't know if you had any commentary, I would welcome it, but if you don't want to, that's completely appropriate. Come on. If you could come on up, everyone in TV land will want to see you. You're very appropriate.

Yes, you are. It's just fine. Thank you. This is Judge Park Hoapili, who chairs our Clean Slate Task Force. And just open it up as an opportunity if you want to say anything after having heard.

Not much to say, I think. Thank you for the opportunity. We were fortunate. We had CSI and CFA do a special presentation for our task force. So we started that discussion, and. And we have subcommittees looking at different issues with that so that we can make meaningful recommendations to the Legislature. So that's all.

Thank you for the opportunity.

You know, you saying that and giving us that update is an important thing for the public to understand and for the legislators to understand, because we look to you as the experts to guide us going forward so that it uses the best of support from CSI and Code for America, but also pays full attention to the agencies.

Yeah. And I think we have really good Members. One of our Members is here in person. I think others are watching, but they're all working together collaboratively, and we have. I mean, it's just been a great, great opportunity, and we were really fortunate when we had that special presentation for us.

So it gives us tools to work with and make recommendations.

Great. Well, you know that you have allies here at the Legislature, and we will do our best to implement what your recommendations are. But if there's things, even in the interim, you know that, you know, this next session coming up, because you are still early in your work, I know you still have a ways to go.

But if there's things that we can do, because I just want to take a measured approach so that we do things right and that it will be a positive impact in the long run.

And we're always in touch with Sean, so he's been great in giving us updates and we provide him updates as well. That's very good.

And for all Those out in TV land, that's Mr. Sean Aronson, who is the Staff Attorney to the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, sitting right behind me here, who has been very helpful in all of this. So thank you, Judge. I appreciate your commentary.

Thank you.

Any, anything from you, Vice Chair, before, before we wrap up, any final comments, maybe I can turn it back to you, David Crawford, or to Erik Altieri. Any final comments from either of you? David anything from you?

No, just to express our gratitude and our willingness to be here as a resource to all of you, including the agencies and departments, in any way we can. It's not just me and my team in the campaigns and policy side, but we have that full implementation team, our research and data team.

Any lessons or insight you want to have into other states that have already done this, whether that's the construction of the policy, the impact it's had, we're here to field and help with any and all questions and look forward to continuing to work with you all in the Legislature, the folks on the task force, you know, agencies and folks like Phil who are doing really phenomenal work on the data with, you know, some tight resources on this pilot program, but making sure that this can work.

And we're really just honored to have been brought into the process as, you know, people from the mainland largely, but want to share any knowledge we have to really bring Clean Slate and second chances to Hawaii. And thank you for your time and your commitment to this.

Thank you. Any, any final comments David?

Ditto. Okay. Yeah, No, I, yeah, like Erik said, we really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you for the warm welcome and welcoming us in and allowing us to present on what we've learned from other states and the opportunity to support you all, too.

Great. Well, we still have much more work to do. Again, you know, the Clean Slate Task Force will continue its work and Judge Park-Hoapili will continue her leadership there. So we look forward to getting more input from them. I want to say thanks to a couple of folks that have been very helpful in our efforts.

Carrie Ann Shirota, formerly with the ACLU. I want to say mahalo to you, Carrie Anne, and also Adrian Rocca with Last Prisoners Project has been very helpful and I want to say thank you there. And I want to give a plug for this. Saturday, September 20, 10 to 2 is the Kapalama Expungement and Bench Warrant Recall Clinic.

It's at the Office of the Public Defender on Nimitz Highway. And I understand there's over 100 people have already signed up to participate. Close to 200 people have already signed up to participate in this clinic. It's a free legal service to expunge qualified criminal arrests and recalled district court bench warrants in the First Circuit here on Oahu.

So there's a real market demand out there for this service, and I appreciate the efforts of the judiciary and all of your partners, the public defenders, making this happen. Hawaii Workers Center, Native Hawaiian Legal Corporation, ACLU, E4, William Richardson School of Law, Volunteer Legal Services, Hawaii. They're all helping out.

And that's it's you know, we can really do a lot by working together. So we will post this on our website, the Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee website, with the handouts and the presentation.

So if we haven't gotten your presentation already, please do forward it to Sean so we can post it on there because this is an important resource for people as we go forward.

If there's nothing more from anyone else, I want to say thank you to everyone for being here today, and I look forward to doing some more work before we start our legislative session in January. In the meantime, best wishes to everyone. Be safe. We are adjourned.