Gov. David Ige signed a bill into law Monday that prosecutors and police hope will reduce the number of court cases thrown out for technical reasons.
House Bill 1541, which became law as Act 002, makes a small but significant change to state procedures regarding how criminal complaints are submitted.
It allows criminal complaints to be signed by prosecuting attorneys instead of a victim or complainant.
This change closes a legal ambiguity in the interpretation of a 2017 Hawaii Supreme Court decision that has reportedly led to thousands of Hawaii District and Family Court cases being dismissed because victims failed to sign their complaints.
Hawaii County Prosecuting Attorney Kelden Waltjen explained in testimony for a March 15 committee hearing that judges have interpreted the 2017 case, State vs. Thompson, to mean that criminal complaints must be signed by the complainant.
“However, one of the unanswered questions following the Thompson opinion is who constitutes the complainant,” Waltjen wrote. “This ambiguity has resulted in inconsistent rulings among the District Courts, Family Courts and Circuit Courts across the state, and the dismissal of cases based on an ambiguous and trivial procedural justification as opposed to a review of the merits of a case.”
Oahu Sen. Karl Rhoads, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, testifying during the March 15 hearing, wrote that more than 1,000 cases have been dismissed in Oahu alone based on the Thompson verdict.
“A survey of the counties indicates that different judges are coming to different conclusions about the sufficiency of District Court complaints … often with differing expectations of what the county prosecutors should do to meet the “statutory requirements” (of state law),” Rhoads wrote.
Hawaii Police Department Chief Paul Ferreira testified in support of the bill in February, saying that the lack of specificity in the Thompson verdict has led judges to apply its rationale to get criminal cases involving such crimes as domestic abuse, sexual assault, DUI, and more thrown out.
In a statement Wednesday, Waltjen thanked Ige for signing the bill, and said that, with the clarity of the new law, his office “will be prioritizing assessment and refiling of dismissed cases.”
Email Michael Brestovansky at mbrestovansky@hawaiitribune-herald.com.