RES 273 Draft 01 2008-2010 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

Violation of Order for Protection; Harassments; Terroristic Threatening; Probation Revocation for Abuse of Household Member); 7 Circuit Court defendants with felony charges and misdemeanor committals (Probation Revocation; Robbery Second Degree; Unauthorized Entry in Motor Vehicle; Burglary 1St Degree; Promoting Dangerous Drugs; Assault; Abuse of Household Member). This appears an all island problem with mostly East Hawaii having the most, but a114 district court judges, three of the four Circuit Judges, and one Family Court Judge having "no shows" in a day's sampling. Most of these misdemeanor offenses have potential, enhanced felony charges for repeat convictions, such as OVUII and Abuse of Household Member; and mandatory jail penalties for the violent crime offenses. As noted by the one-day of sampling, there are serious concerns with an inaccurate criminal history check: defendants with records would be treated as first time offenders; enhanced pleadings for charges or mandatory sentencing would not be done a timely way; bail for subsequent offenses would be set too low, etc. Luckily, many of the offenders are "frequent fliers" within our county, so background checks rely heavily upon each agency's case management system, so some of the "no shows" are discovered and appropriately booked upon a subsequent arrest or court appearance. Courts have been reluctant to issue warrants or another penal summons for failing to get booked (misdemeanor contempt), because these many times do not get served before the offender shows up in court again on a subsequent arrest. The 2007 Judiciary Report on Backlog of Warrants support that most of the 74,000 warrants backlog is for failing to comply with courts. HCJDC has proposed a collaborative project called the Hawaii Integrated Justice Information Sharing (HIJIS). The draft Strategic Plan explains the need for "same day" updates for conviction data, verified identification at every point of the criminal justice information, and integrated, "real time" conviction and mental acquittal or unfitness data identification. The HIJIS Strategic Plan Draft (2007-2008) and proposed Memorandum of Agreement support the need and justification and demonstrate the importance of the problem and solution proposed by our application. As noted in the 2007 Warrant Backlog Report, the Judiciary and other agencies had difficulty getting accurate data, because the associated lack of a single, comprehensive data management system. The Hawaii Criminal Justice Data Center (HCJDC) has the statutory responsibility to provide the Criminal Justice Agencies with this comprehensive offender based criminal history, but one group that easily "falls through the cracks" are offenders brought into the court system through a penal summons complaint. The case is going. through the judicial system, but information is unavailable to other statewide criminal justice agencies who are not involved with the case. With the ease of air travel today, many defendants do crimes away from Hawaii County, but law enforcement or prosecutors would not know of a filed criminal case is pending for serious offense, such as abuse of household members or OVUII. Both the judiciary and HCJDS do not routinely monitor the failure of offenders who do not follow the court orders to get "booking with an arrest for identification purposes upon a conviction or deferral of a criminal offense." Although most offenders get processed, the more problematic offenders violate the courts' orders and continue to disregard their responsibilities to the justice system. As noted in 2007 Backlog Warrants Report, the problem of failing to follow court orders is significantly attributed to a small number of multiple, repeat offenders (40 percent,), who are manipulative, and do not respond because there is no immediate and consistent, effective consequences, and continues the public apathy and lack of respect for the judicial system. As noted, the one day sampling shows that AG/CPJAD #i(a) (Rev 03/3/2009) Page 2