Yesterday, Governor Josh Green, M.D. signed into law, bills to codify conditions under which felony prosecutions can be initiated and to provide further protections for reproductive health care services.
Senate Bill 36 (SB36) amends state law to allow county prosecutors to initiate felony cases by complaints following preliminary hearings and prohibits multiple attempts to initiate a felony prosecution for an offense, except in certain circumstances. The amendment to HRS Section 801-1 resolves an issue resulting from the Hawai‘i Supreme Court decision in State v. Obrero, in which the court ruled that HRS 801-1 did not permit initiation of felony criminal charges via preliminary hearing. The ruling came despite active use of the process for some 40 years.
A subsection of SB36 limits the prosecution to one attempt to charge a felony case via grand jury indictment or complaint following preliminary hearing unless certain conditions are met, including presentation of additional material evidence, there is evidence of misconduct by the grand jury or grand jury counsel, or if a court finds good cause to allow another attempt.
Senate Bill 1 (SB1) advances Hawai‘i’s long civil rights history. Key aspects of the new law are that it expands access to reproductive health care services in numerous ways; clarifies that the state will not deny or interfere with a pregnant person’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy and protects Hawai‘i health care providers from punitive legal action from within or outside of the state relating to the provision of legally provided reproductive health care services. Additional protections, prohibitions and requirements are included.
Hawai‘i’s first civil rights protections against discrimination date back to pre-statehood days, when territorial lawmakers at the Constitutional Convention of 1950 first ratified what is now an article in the state Constitution: Art. I § 5 of the State Constitution states that “[n]o person . . . shall be denied the enjoyment of the person’s civil rights or be discriminated against in the exercise thereof because of race, religion, sex, or ancestry.”
Photo credit: Office of Governor Green