House Standing Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs

Welcome, everyone. We're here at the State Capitol in Room 325. It's Thursday, February 19th at 2pm. This is the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs. My name is David Tarnas. I'm the Chair. We have Vice Chair Poepoe, and our Member Garner Shimizu.

We are also in a joint hearing with Consumer Protection and Commerce Committee in 30 seconds. And so I'm going to recess this hearing while the committee goes next door and we have a joint committee hearing next door on one bill, do decision making, and then we'll come back, and then I'll reconvene.

So I apologize for the delay, but I appreciate your understanding. So that's unfortunately what we have to do to try to move through all these bills to meet tonight's deadline, which is an important one when all bills have to move to their final committee. So with that, I will recess this hearing and we'll will be back. Thank you for your patience and understanding. Recess.

Convening the House Committee on Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs for our hearing, our 2pm hearing on February 19th. We are here in Conference Room 325. Thank you for your patience. I apologize again for keeping you waiting. Other Members will join us as soon as they can. Let's go ahead.

And those who are giving testimony, I would request your testimony to two minutes per person. I'll ask you to wrap up. We have a new microphone sound system here, so just project, articulate, and everything should be fine. But please keep your side conversations to a minimum because that gets picked up too.

If you're testifying on Zoom, just keep yourself muted and your video off until you testify and then turn it off when your testimony is complete. Use the Zoom chat function to communicate with technical staff if you have questions. If you're disconnected, don't panic.

Join up as soon as you can, and I'll try to fit you in to finish your testimony. If power goes off here in the building, we'll reschedule probably, and I'll let you know when and where we're meeting and about what. If you're testifying on Zoom, please avoid trademarked or copyrighted images.

And everybody who's testifying, please use your best behavior so your great auntie would feel proud about how you present. So don't use profanity or any uncivil behavior. So with that, let's go ahead and start our first bill, House Bill 2494, relating to criminal justice reform.

This measure establishes factors under which officers may arrest and detain persons without a warrant for petty misdemeanors and violations and requires officers to document the justification for the arrest.

Measure amends the circumstances under which officers may issue citations in lieu of arrest and requires officers to issue citations in lieu of arrest for certain petty misdemeanors and violations unless public safety or flight risks are present or the alleged offense involves operating a vehicle under the influence of an intoxicant or the abuse of a family or household members.

It requires the judiciary to promulgate a standardized citation form and updates the required information for citations. Members, we've passed out a summary of HB 2494 prepared by the Policing Project, who has been working with us on this bill. So you just have that for your reference here as we listen to the testimony. First up, we have the Attorney General Mark Tom. Welcome.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Deputy Attorney General Mark Tom for the department. Department submits testimony in opposition to House Bill 2494. The department's position that limiting arrests to seven criteria enumerated in the amendments to Section 803-5 subsection B of the Hawaii Revised Statute would significantly impede law enforcement's ability to resolve the situations they encounter in the community.

As mentioned in our testimony, there are several petty misdemeanor type offenses, and we listed some in our testimony, that may never fall into any of the enumerated categories that were in this bill.

Additionally, there are a number of types of habitual type offenses where having proper booking information and having fingerprints are necessary to ensure when we are charging an individual with a felony type offense or a charge that requires stacking of prior convictions, that we are ensuring that it's the right person that we are charging, especially when it's dealing with, not just when it's felony, but any type of charges, we want to make sure that it's the proper person.

In regards to the Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center, as we mentioned in our testimony, just understanding how those cases come in and get processed by the HCJDC, it could cause a lot of significant issues because some of those that information that's collected in that hub is used for pre-trial bail reports, determining dangerousness when we are determining bail to be set for individuals.

So having a property database when prosecutors are determining when bail is set as well as probation when they're meeting with these individuals is super important. There are also, in our testimony we mentioned that it could also lead to a lot of litigation if in fact attorneys in court say that it wasn't proper for them to arrest. Anything that they do find on them, the individual might be suppressed, will be subject to motions to dismissal. I will be here for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. The Judiciary, Ms. Acosta.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. Michelle Acosta here on behalf of the Judiciary. We submitted testimony with comments. If this bill is passed, it requires the Judiciary to create a standardized citation form to be used for petty misdemeanors and misdemeanors for police officers.

It also requires that there is data integration for data gathering and also to connect that with data gathering for the Judiciary's electronic reminder system. We have submitted some comments for consideration. The citation format would have to be drastically changed from our current format. So we're requesting a delayed implementation date to no sooner than January 1, 2028.

And this would allow us to take a look at the formatting the citation, procuring a new citation, as well as working with the police, law enforcement, and other agencies for data gathering and what the data points are. We also made comments as to the contents of the citation.

Provision in the bill as written would require or omit the requirement of the four digits, last four digits of Social Security. That is an identifier that's required for us to be able to identify the correct individual and connect them to the case record so that we have the right person.

For example, this is important for law enforcement, Attorney General's Office, prosecutor's office, to determine if this is a repeat offender or individual offender, so that identifier is important. There is also provision and the bill as written for options to be included and the citation for petty misdemeanor and misdemeanor.

This requires a court hearing, so there are no options to resolve the fines and fees prior to coming to court. Those are what we've submitted in our testimony, and I'm available for any questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Acosta. Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Ms. Woodward.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, and Members of the Committee. McKenna Woodward on behalf of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. OHA supports this measure which will reduce unnecessary arrests for misdemeanors, petty misdemeanors, and violations by expanding the use of citations when appropriate.

We feel this is a balanced approach that preserves law enforcement discretion to arrest when necessary to preserve public safety, while reinforcing citation in lieu of arrest as the default response for low level offenses.

This promotes fairness and mitigates the outsized impacts of unnecessary pretrial detention for low level nonviolent offenses, including the loss of employment, housing instability, family disruption, and increased likelihood of deeper system involvement, especially in cases where an individual is presumed innocent and ultimately not convicted. For these reasons, we respectfully urge the committee to pass HB 2494. Mahalo for your time.

Thank you very much. Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. Welcome.

My name is Martha Torney. I'm one of the commissioners on the Oversight Commission. The commission supports this measure, as it will reduce the unnecessary incarceration of low level offenders. We do want to note the exceptions that you mentioned for public safety, flight risk, and other things.

When people get incarcerated, even if it's only for a few days, it can in fact impact their employment by the not showing up to work, their housing, and their family stability. And when they're that low offenses, we don't think that's appropriate. And of course, we got concerned about arrests that result in overcrowding at our correctional facilities, our jails especially. Thank you.

I'm going to take one testifier out of order because they're in a very different time zone, and then I'll come back to the county testifiers. Lars Trautman, the Policing Project at New York University School of Law, on Zoom. Please proceed.

Thank you. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, Members of the Committee. My name is Lars Trautman. I'm the Legislative Director of the Policing Project at NYU School of Law. My organization advises policymakers on how to make policing more effective, transparent, and equitable.

The policies in HB 2494 look a lot like those already enacted into law in a variety of other states. These are laws that help reduce the number of unnecessary arrests, leveraging citations to get people to court while minimizing the disruption for potential arrestees and saving officer time and jail resources.

HB 2494 has moved toward more effective citation use as particularly targeted. First, unlike the law in some other states, HB 2494, citation presumption does not apply to any felonies or misdemeanors. It also explicitly excludes two of the most serious petty misdemeanors, those relating to drunk driving and domestic violence.

And all of these cases, police can respond with an arrest in exactly the same way that they do now. What's more, even for the offenses that are covered by the bill's citation presumption, the bill outlines factors reflecting public safety or flight risks, where, if any single one of them is present, the presumption does not apply.

As a former prosecutor myself, I've thought hard about how this bill might apply to petty misdemeanors. And the more hypotheticals you run through, the clearer it becomes just how well this bill preserves the option to arrest in all petty misdemeanor cases that merit it.

In addition, all of the citation factors also represent routine law enforcement considerations that officers will typically consider at the scene of a possible arrest, regardless of the state of the law. Things such as whether an arrest is needed to establish a suspect's identity or to stop ongoing or future criminal conduct.

This overlap ensures that officers will be able to quickly apply the citation factors in the field, leaving officers able to capably respond to the multitude of scenarios they face. Thank you, and I urge you to support this bill.

Thank you very much, Mr. Trautman, and thank you to your team at the Policing Project at NYU School of Law. Have been very helpful to understand what are best practices across the country. Let's move back to... Oh, actually, Office of Public Defender. I should have had you come up sooner, but anyway. Sorry, you're a state office, not a county. Hayley Cheng, Office of Public Defender. Please proceed.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, and Members of the Committee. We are in strong support of this measure. From the unique perspective of the Office of the Public Defender, we can assure this committee that arrests for low level offenses, petty misdemeanors, and misdemeanors absolutely disproportionately impact the indigent and underprivileged community.

Bail amounts for those cases are usually nominal, but clients sometimes cannot afford to post $10 bail, $50 bail, $100 bail. Most of the time, practically speaking, these offenses will not result in jail time once they are convicted. So really the option of arrest in lieu of citation needs to be flipped in verse.

Which should be citation in lieu of arrest because it is overly punitive to our under marginalized members of our community. We also believe that this, as other testifiers have indicated, will reduce overcrowding in our jails. It will also alleviate the resources of law enforcement that have to effectuate arrests. The time devoted to an arrest versus the issuance of a citation is vastly different.

We also believe there are appropriate safeguards in the bill where people need to be appropriately arrested, and we do believe that that has to happen and we believe that police and law enforcement will have the discretion to do so if appropriate. We also wanted to briefly comment about the citation form aspect of this measure.

We hear the Judiciary's concerns and will defer to the committee on what the appropriate timeframe should be. But we would urge the committee to absolutely get something in place. The citations, at least in the First Circuit, are handwritten. They continue to be handwritten.

This inadvertently leads to illegible court dates, things of that nature, causing people to miss court even when they intend to appear. So a standardized form that is easily readable and not at the... And we understand that law enforcement officers are often trying to rush when they're issuing it, but it can lead to some issues. So thank you for the opportunity to comment, and I will be available for any questions.

Thank you very much, Ms. Cheng. Next, Maui Police Department in support. Not present. Next, County of Hawaii Office of the Prosecuting Attorney on Zoom. Mr. Waltjen.

Not around. Okay, well, if he returns... Mr. Waltjen, floor is yours.

Sorry, I'm having some technical difficulties. Can you hear me okay?

Yes, we do. Please proceed.

Aloha, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, Committee Members. Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney Kelden Waltjen. We stand in strong opposition of this bill. We share in the concerns noted by Deputy Attorney General Tom. Simply put, this legislation is not necessary. Police can already issue citations in lieu of arrest. Also, it's not feasible.

You heard the concerns noted by the Judiciary. This legislation is deeply rooted in the misconception that people are being incarcerated for low level offenses and that this legislation will somehow help alleviate overcrowding. It won't. That is not what the data shows, especially on Hawaii Island. Look at the numbers.

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation shares data each week online. HCCC is consistently Hawaii Islands, it's consistently Hawaii's most crowded correctional facility in the state. It's been like that for the year, for years. Instead, as of February 16, only about 90% of the people in custody at HCCC are being held on felony offenses.

Whether they be pre-trial, sentenced felon, probation or parole violators. Only a small portion of those in custody are being held on misdemeanor or lower level offenses, mostly those offenses being domestic violence related. Perhaps to reduce overcrowding, we can prioritize inmate transfers and movements.

For example, felons serving prison terms sometimes have to wait extended periods of time before being transferred out of state, further contributing to overcrowding concerns. Now, I bring up the overcrowding because, given the overwhelming attention on overcrowding, courts are already very reluctant to maintain bail for even felony offenses, let alone misdemeanor and petty misdemeanor.

I'd also like to highlight concerns that the booking process is essential to confirming the identification of a suspect. It's not uncommon for a person placed under arrest to lie to police or refuse to provide identification. The police power to make warrantless arrests based on probable cause has been an established rule of law for over a century.

We don't need legislation that will make law enforcement's job harder. We don't need legislation that's going to further erode the public's trust in our criminal justice system. We need laws that hold offenders accountable. We need to protect victims and survivors and make our communities safer. HB 2494 isn't that type of legislation.

This bill isn't about expanding... This bill, what this bill is about, it's about expanding rights of the criminally accused at the expense of victims and community safety. We submitted our written input, and we're available to answer any questions you have. Mahalo.

Thank you very much. Testimony from the Maui County Department of the Prosecuting Attorney in opposition. Not present. We have Mr. Hugo, Department of the Prosecuting Attorney, City and County of Honolulu.

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, Members of the Committee. Daniel Hugo for the Honolulu Prosecutor's Office. And we strongly oppose this bill. I should clarify first that every arrest is at some point reviewed by a judge, either in advance when issued on a warrant, or in cases where the person was arrested without a warrant, there is a judicial determination of probable cause.

So there are already written factual findings that courts make in all cases where there are arrests. I would suggest, as a prosecutor I've had the privilege to do police ride alongs and to actually see policing on the ground by the Honolulu Police Department. And the incentives are exactly the opposite. The incentive for our police is to write a citation because arrest is dangerous.

An arrest involves extra paperwork. An arrest can involve... Arrests often terribly inconvenience, create a great deal of inconvenience. And so there is already an incentive to write a citation. The reason why the police are doing arrests as opposed to citations is because they have to. Because otherwise that person will continue to pose a criminal threat either, even in cases where it's a nonviolent offense, that person will continue to...

It's a criminal threat. I would just suggest to the committee that the best evidence that you can see about what is actually happening is to go two blocks down to courtroom 7C where the custody cases are heard. And what you will see there is the revolving door of persistent criminals going through again and again and again, not meeting any sort of meaningful deterrence from our court system. And this bill will...

Thank you very much. Andre Peters, Honolulu Police Department. Welcome. Floor is yours.

Aloha, Chair, Vice Chair, Committee Members. Andre Peters on behalf of the Honolulu Police Department's Training Division. We are in strong opposition of this bill. As Hawaii County Prosecutor stated, that this bill is absolutely not necessary. The officers already do have discretion as far as when we can arrest or when we can cite.

We feel that, although we appreciate that reducing unnecessary incarceration is definitely a problem, that this bill significantly limits the officer's discretion by, like I say, requiring citations instead of arrests for petty misdemeanors and violations. As part of the offenses of like harassment or disorderly conduct.

When an officer arrives at the scene to this they won't be able to assess whether or not any of these five exceptions apply to this, to whatever offense that they're going to. And as the Honolulu Prosecutor also stated, that it would be great and an eye opener to actually go on a ride along with one of the Honolulu police officers because it's already a difficult job as it is for officers out in patrol.

You talk about that it'll actually take time away from the officers because they would have to cite instead of arrest. But that's actually not the case and it's not true because the officer would have to make sure that, as part of the justification on top of probable cause, that the officer would also have to have these five exceptions. So we feel that this wouldn't save the officer's time out in patrol and nor would it or this is not even a necessary bill. We'll be able to answer any questions.

Thank you very much. Next, Liam Chinn, Hawaii Justice Rising. Not present. Next, Josh Frost, ACLU.

My name is Josh Frost. I'm the policy advocate for the ACLU of Hawaii. We're here in support of the bill. Thank you for hearing it today, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, Committee Members. Arrests can have a significant impact on the individual as well as their families.

We know this data bears it out in terms of reduced income over the lifetime of their career, more likely to have to drop out of school, more likely to experience trauma and mental health challenges, as opposed to citations. This can have effects on families, communities, even on the local economy as a whole.

And studies have shown that young people who receive a citation... Citations, people who are arrested have increased likelihood of recidivism. So citations can reduce overall populations. In terms of time spent by police, there's a study out of Georgia that suggests citations can reduce, be more efficient for law enforcement officers to put them back into the field up to 35 minutes. Finally, we think this is a good approach for law enforcement.

We think it's a good approach for people charged with or thought to be criminals, and so it can help reduce prison populations. It can be more efficient use of law enforcement time and it can have positive impacts on those people who receive a citation rather than arrest. We urge you to pass the bill, and I'll be available for questions.

Thank you very much. Nikos Leverenz, Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, on Zoom. Please proceed.

Aloha, Chair and Members. Nikos Leverenz with Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii in strong support of this bill. At a time when state policymakers are looking to commit over $1 billion for a public private partnership arrangement for a new jail facility on Oahu, it's even more imperative for policymakers to consider changes to reduce the use of arrests for minor charges and the use of pre-trial detention.

As indicated by other speakers, even short periods of incarceration strain an already overcrowded and overburdened system that's characterized by workforce challenges. The impact on the arrestee or pretrial detainee is even more grievous given that short term incarceration has lasting impacts on them and their families, including disruption of care for children and older family members and the potential employment of loss of employment and access to housing. Mahalo for the opportunity to provide testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Leverenz. Next, Cacique Melendez in person in opposition. Not present. And finally, Dennis Dunn. Dennis, Mr. Dunn, welcome. Please, the floor is yours.

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe. Thank you for this opportunity to testify. I'm a strong advocate for victims for over 50 years, and I'm testifying in strong opposition to this measure. My basic objection is that this is enacting onerous new procedural requirements for police officers and is a broad brush across the board.

I believe that cases should all be reviewed on their own merits. The individual facts of the case and the background of the individual that's the subject of the investigation. In this particular case, many of the cases that are types of crimes for which a citation might be issued aren't as petty as they might seem.

Many sex offenders, for example, started with a variety of harassment offenses. Terroristic threatening oftentimes may result in harassment, harassing telephone calls and so on, or harassment. People's lives can be upended by this kind of activity.

I think it's important to point out that this measure could result because of the requirements in cases being challenged by collateral legal attacks simply for procedural defects. The cases would be inappropriately dismissed as a result.

Similarly, this case would, I believe, result in a higher instance of people not showing up in court, which would add significantly to the already huge backlog of bench warrants issued by people who failed to appear in court. I do think that the bill, if enacted, would also lead to the inappropriate release of individuals who are providing an unjustifiable risk to individual victims and to the community.

And finally, I would emphasize Mr. Tom's point about the fact that with citations that offenses that arrests that are not... I'm sorry. Offenses that are citations, they're not supported by fingerprints will not go into the state or federal databases. So that information would not be available to law enforcement who would be checking to see if an individual has a background. With that, I thank you very much and ask you to defer this measure.

Thank you very much, Mr. Dunn. We received a total of 14 testimonies in support, 21 testimonies in opposition, and one with comments. Is there anyone else here wishing to testify in this measure? Please come up and introduce yourself.

Good afternoon, Chair and Members of the Committee. My name is John Deutzman. I live in Waikiki. I stand by my written testimony. I want to bring in a couple of real life examples. In Waikiki, we have a guy with 556 career cases. Most of them are citations.

This bill says the police have to say, well, let's take a look at this guy's failure to appear rate. Then maybe I got to arrest them. This guy never goes to court. Most of these people never go to court. So this guy now, instead of getting 556 mostly citations, will be arrested for each case because this bill will force the cops to say, wow, look at his record. He never goes to court. So it'll backfire.

The intention of this, to keep people out of jail is going to backfire on most of the people we deal with in Waikiki. There's no reason. There's a lot of millions of dollars spent on research here. I do my own research. I'm a former investigative reporter. I have a database of a thousand convictions.

In Waikiki, the median misdemeanor sentence is two days, two. The day that you're arrested and the day you go to court. Most misdemeanor offenders never make it to OCCC. So how you can argue that OCCC is like jammed up with low level offenders? It doesn't make any sense.

Nobody here, despite the millions spent on research, has the failure to appear rate. At least in Waikiki, on people who are releasing their own recognizance, the failure to appear rate is 73% on those people who are arrested. It's likely much higher for people with citations, probably closer to 100% than 73%.

And also, I want to bring up something about the numbers of people in jail. The data seems to be off. I've written to several of you people about this. Last February, they reported 85 people on average being held pretrial misdemeanors in OCCC. I did a freedom of Information request.

There was only 27. In March, basically the same, and there was only 29. So I don't know where they get these numbers from. But if the likelihood when you get arrested, you spend one day at the police station, one day in court, and you never go to OCCC, how does OCCC have all these people on misdemeanors? It makes no sense and have no reasonable explanation. Thank you.

Thank you very much. I appreciate your work on this, Mr. Deutzman. Anyone else wishing to testify on this measure? If not, questions, Members? I have a question for, if Lars Trautman, if you're still there from the Policing Project. Could you just give us a sense of how the reforms in this bill align with national trends? If you're still there, Lars.

Yes, hi. So in terms of trends over the last 10-15 years in particular, we've seen an increasing number of states take a number of routes to expand citations. There's not one single template that states have used. Some have expanded just the discretion to offer citations, but we are increasingly seen as well the use of presumptions.

Either, you know, extending them first to the lower level offenses, and then once there's a little bit more buy in, considering whether there are other offenses for which they can be used. But I will note in some states they will go as high as not just misdemeanors, but even sometimes the lowest categories of felonies. So there are other states that have blazed this path well in advance.

Thank you. Just, and one last question. How does Hawaii's current warrantless arrest authority compare to other states and jurisdictions, Mr. Trautman?

Yeah, so I've reviewed arrest statutes probably in a couple of dozen states at this point, and Hawaii has one of the most expansive warrantless arrest laws that I've seen. Most states that I've reviewed have some sort of limitations, whether it's based on the offense at issue, limiting it to more serious offenses, requiring perhaps that the offense occur in the presence of the officer.

Or even saying that there have to be certain factors present justifying that kind of warrantless arrest. So Hawaii's statute that places no meaningful restrictions on that, other than there is a separate one looking at low level traffic violations, that is outside the norm and much more expansive than we see in other states.

Okay, thank you. Question for the Attorney General, Mr. Tom. You know, the Maui Police Chief thinks this is a good idea, saying it's a proactive approach to criminal justice reform that aligns with national best practices. He has some suggestions for tightening up the language. But here's a police chief chief saying it's a great idea. You're telling us it's a terrible idea. How do I reconcile these two?

I think each county is different. I think in the aggregate, though, you can hear from numerous law enforcement agencies explaining to the committee how there's unintended consequences. And maybe, and I can't speak for Maui Police Department on exactly why they have that position, but there's a lot of unintended consequences.

They might not be taken into account where law enforce, different law enforcement agencies might be, such as prosecuting attorneys or the attorney generals that handle such petty misdemeanor offenses. We have a lot of issues when we're going to go into court and we're going to have to deal with a lot of...

I don't want to say frivolous motions, but motions that might start flooding in for these petty misdemeanor offenses, for a claim of unlawful arrest. So anything that they found would be suppressed, motions to suppress. So those are things that prosecutors have to deal with as a result of some of the aspects of this bill. In addition, when we are doing bail, as I mentioned...

I appreciate you're talking about the prosecutors. I was looking at the police. And we have a Maui County Police Chief says this is a great idea. Other police, you know, representatives of other police departments have a different opinion. I understand what your position is on this.

I just wondered if you had any insight and you don't really know what's going on in Maui. Okay, we'll leave it at that. On page four, the bill lists several reasons why the officer could arrest, including, quote, must be detained to prevent bodily injury to that person or another. Would wouldn't that be satisfactory as one of the reasons why the officer could arrest?

I think that as I mentioned in our testimony, there could be situations where a number of them, right. Even for subsection 4, where there's no further police contact, the officer may arrest in a situation in that, in that scenario. They might determine that subsection 6 applies.

It comes into court and the defense counsel in that case says, no, we don't think that was an unlawful arrest because our client or our defendant in the case is saying he was just going to go home, was not going to cause any more harassment, no more disorderly conduct. Or in a situation with a driving without license, they claimed they were not going to get back into their car, they were just going to sit on the side of the road.

And in a case like that, we would still have to litigate that to some degree to determine if there's any other additional evidence that might be suppressed pursuant to the motion to suppress or pursuant to a motion to dismiss for unlawful arrest in that case. So there are, I understand that there's a variety in a laundry list to try to encompass every scenario or situation.

But as the Honolulu Police indicated, there's just so many variables when they come across a situation that they cannot account for. And six or seven criterias, two including just specific types of charges, just might not encompass all the scenarios that might be required to effectuate an arrest in a situation to ensure public safety.

All right, thank you. And then one last question for Ms. Acosta, the Judiciary. Could you explain the issue with the Social Security numbers that you outlined in your testimony?

Sure. The Social Security, the last four digits, is one of the identifiers. So if there were two Michelle Acosta's that have court records or arrest records, we might want to know that these are connected. So the way the case management system for the Judiciary is that there are party IDs. Michelle Acosta 1 would have a party ID.

Michelle Acosta 2 would have a party ID. I could be the same person. And one of those identifiers would then allow us to identify that these are one of the same or two separate people. So that is the issue with the, if we're removing it for citation, it's removing one of our identifiers for that purpose.

Okay. And then on the citation form, are we heading toward a fully digital form?

There are initiatives in Maui County, also in Honolulu and Honolulu City and County, a lot electronic citations are being used by the police departments. They're not widely used at this point, but we are moving in that direction. And so that's why we included in here for consideration that there might be a need for a working group to take a look at that.

So that if citations, just as Office of the Public Defender mentioned, these are handwritten. And for data to be collected, to be read carefully so people know when to come to court, it is difficult to read handwriting sometimes. So digital electronic citations may be one of the answers to that.

So we're starting on that road to get there, but it's not consistent across the state.

Correct.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Thanks very much. Other questions, members? Thank you very much to the testifiers on this measure. We're going to move on to the next measure, House Bill 2413, relating to pretrial reform.

This measure requires release on recognizance for defendants charged with violations, traffic offenses, nonviolent petty misdemeanors, nonviolent misdemeanors, and nonviolent Class C felonies subject to conditions. It establishes exclusions for specific offenses, threats to public safety, and willful flight.

It requires findings when bail or detention is imposed, ongoing review of continued detention or conditions, and a prompt hearing of bail cannot be posted. It requires prosecutors to notify victims of pretrial decisions. First up, Mr. Bento, Office of the Public Defender.

Good afternoon, Chair Tarnas, Vice Chair Poepoe, and members of the committee. My name is William Bento, and I'm from the Public Defender's Office. I believe that this is a very important and a historic day in the State of Hawaii because we're talking about bail reform and actually trying to implement work that began in 2018, so much so that it's caught the attention of people in the media.

There's an article written by the R Street Collective talking about Hawaii's chance to fix its bail system, and I think that that's a reflection on how important it is. And I think the reason why it's so important is because, for perhaps the very first time, we're talking about the release of people pretrial, very limited group via people arrested for violations, nonviolent petty misdemeanors, misdemeanors, and nonviolent Class C felonies as being the default decision of the court, and that the current system, which tends to be the incarceration of those that are pretrial and presumed to be innocent, is not working.

The language in the bill is very important when it reads, shall be ordered by the court to be released, because this clearly states the intention of the Legislature and what the law is meant to do.

And a side note to that, it also gives a judge the opportunity in making a decision in court to say that the law compels the decision that I am making from the bench. I cannot tell you how many times I've been in court and have made argument on many different issues and the judge has said, that was a fine dissertation, Mr. Benton, but can you show me where the law supports your contentions?

It would be great to go into court to have the law to support our contention that those who are arrested for nonviolent offenses have a right to be released pretrial. Others will talk to you about all of the ramifications that occur when somebody is incarcerated pretrial--the loss of a job, the inability to support one's family, things like that--but the fundamental aspect of being released when you're presumed to be innocent is very, very important under these circumstances.

I just want to point out also that the bill is not, you know, a wholehearted change. It allows for the court to use discretion when it needs to and it doesn't cover violent offenses. And so we're talking about a limited group here. The Office of the Public Defender, for these reasons, strongly supports this measure. We do have a couple of amendments that we have proposed. I'd be happy to answer any questions in regard to that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bento. Next, Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. Ms. Torney.

I just want to preface my testimony to remark that what's included in this bill came as a result of HCR 134 2017 Criminal Pretrial Task Force, which was under the auspices of the Judiciary. They presented the report in 2019. These are well-thought-out, discussed, and research recommendations.

First of all, again, the bill allows for people released on own recognizances for violations and nonviolent petty misdemeanors in Class C. They are enumerated in the bill, unless a person is a threat, of course, to public safety or a flight risk. It ensures judicial oversight, prompt bail hearings, and victim notification, which we think is very important.

Low-level pretrial defendants do contribute to overcrowding, and HCCC is an example. Currently at HCCC, we do have 21 pretrial misdemeanors there, and so the commission does support this measure. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, the Judiciary. Thank you for being here, Ms. Awong.

I shouldn't have sat so far in. Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. My name is Jennifer Awong. I'm the staff attorney for the criminal administrative divisions of the First Circuit as well as for Judiciary Administration. The Judiciary supports the intent of this proposed legislation, and we stand on our written testimony in support of the intent.

There are a couple comments that I wanted to make that are contained in our testimony. First, there are several occasions that are not really contemplated by this bill where a defendant may end up being held in custody despite this, on another charge or another case, and in those instances, it would be imperative that we be able to set an amount of bail so that they can get credit for the instant case. If we don't set bail, they will not get any credit. So we've outlined five additional qualifications in the testimony that we would like you to consider.

The additional language will ensure that any defendant who has continued to be held in custody due to violation of the conditions of release, probation, or parole on another case or due to being charged with a serious crime in another case at the same time due to a violation of federal law, any of those instances, they'll be able to get credit.

Second, the release decision contemplated by this proposed statute actually occurs at the 804-7.5 hearing, so we just wanted to make that clear in the legislation. Third, we've got some notations with respect to Subsection F, and we just were asking that the language in that particular section be amended to be more consistent with the language throughout Chapter 804.

Fourth, we had some suggestions with respect to the definition of willful flight to include the failure to maintain contact with council and to address the good cause for their prior failure to appears. Finally, we do have some concerns with respect to the written findings required by this measure.

It's most significant in District Court, especially here on Oahu, where there are approximately 170 custodial arraignments every week, which would require probably at least a few orders in those instances.

And because of the language further on in Subsection-- in the measure that requires a review of bail at all subsequent hearings, it may not be specifically necessary to have written findings at this particular instance. I'm available for any questions, and again, everything else is in our written testimony. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Ms. Awong. Next, the Attorney General.

Good afternoon, Chair, Vice Chair, members of the committee. I'm Deputy Attorney General Kory Young, speaking on behalf of the department. We do oppose this bill, and we thank the committee for reviewing our written testimony. I don't want to belabor that. I just want to make three points just of emphasis.

And we do have concerns because if the committee members were to go to the seventh floor of the District Court building, the initial appearance date, what you'd see is the courts are already bending over backwards to release whoever they can-- whoever they can justify releasing, people charged with violations, petty misdemeanors, misdemeanors.

So a lot of this is already covered. What we are concerned about, though, is a difference in language between what the court is doing now to ensure defendants appear and to protect the public. They're already doing that.

But adding language that requires the judge to find a specific real and present threat could deter the ability of the judges to actually protect the public in those instances. We can have individuals who are there for a theft come back on a criminal property damage, come back on a harassment.

Now, if that person is back for a fourth time, third time, what are we saying the specific threat is, though? They've committed a litany of different offenses, but if we're looking for a specific offense, we can't say, well, you are specifically likely to damage property because you steal property and you harass people as well.

We can't say, well, you're specifically likely to harass this person because their other crimes are for property offenses. So it can be very difficult to pin down specifically what a person is likely to do. So the language that is currently in 8045, requiring the court to ensure the defendant's appearance and to protect the public, we believe is adequate, and already the courts are using that to guide who they should release and they do release at all points that they can.

Our other points would be, there are a bunch of enumerated offenses within the bill, or classes of offenses that the Legislature is clearly concerned about. We would actually ask that that would be expanded or that the Legislature consider looking at other offenses that may not appear violent but do have either a potential to lead to violence or a history behind them that would lead the courts to want to hold them.

Like, as it's currently constituted, we would look at habitual property crime. That requires, to even be charged with that, that the individual have prior property crimes on their record. You know, why wouldn't that be adequate to just be held? Harassment by stalking, aggravated harassment by stalking, cruelty to animals, injuring or killing a service animal or a law enforcement animal--these are kinds of offenses that clearly indicate violence.

Criminal property damage, unauthorized entries into dwellings, which can be frightening for homeowners, would be the kinds of offenses judges should be able to look at and say, hey, you know, even though we can't make a specific finding, you're going to commit this next offense. You've committed enough offenses. We're going to have you held.

Thank you.

I'll be available for any questions. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Next, we have-- next testifier that said they wish to testify is Kelden Waltjen, Hawaii County Office of Prosecuting Attorney. Please proceed, Mr. Waltjen.