The Hawaii Supreme Court on Wednesday night issued an order seeking a list of inmates fitting the same parameters as those the court previously ordered released from Oahu Community Correctional Center.
The high court ordered the Department of Public Safety, county prosecutors and court administrators of each circuit to provide their lists by noon Saturday. The order is in response to a petition by the state Office of the Public Defender seeking the release of inmates not deemed a danger to the community.
The court’s move appears to be a precursor to an order to release inmates from state-run jails on the neighbor islands because of COVID-19 concerns.
The inmate lists, which apply to all correctional centers and facilities except OCCC, are to contain the names of pretrial detainees, as well as those convicted of most nonviolent offenses — whether misdemeanors, petty misdemeanors or felonies — for which the inmate is serving a sentence of less than 18 months.
The order appears also to seek the inclusion of the names of inmates charged with or serving a sentence for misdemeanor assault of a nonfamily member.
Those to be exempt from the list include anyone convicted of or awaiting trial for felony assault, sexual assault or attempted sexual assault, robbery, burglary, unauthorized entry to a dwelling, domestic abuse, or violating a restraining order, protective order or injunction.
In the midst of a COVID-19 outbreak at Oahu Community Correctional Center, DPS released 28 inmates there as of Wednesday, pursuant to a previous high court order for them to do so.
As of Thursday DPS reported 239 inmates and 42 staff had tested positive for coronavirus at OCCC.
Hawaii County Prosecutor Mitch Roth, in apparent anticipation of an order to release inmates at Hawaii Community Correctional Center in Hilo, filed a response to the public defender’s petition.
Roth said he “objects to the wholesale release of inmates in custody without an individualized review of each inmate’s criminal history and other factors to ensure that the inmate can be released safely into the community.”
According to Roth, evidence and arguments cited in the petition “are centered on what’s happening in the community on Oahu and at OCCC.”
“Wholesale release of inmates from HCCC would have a detrimental impact on the community,” he said, turning his attention to the Big Island.
He said during a previous order to decrease jail populations because of COVID-19, “lower courts were also releasing inmates from custody, over the objection of (prosecutors), resulting in the re-arrests of repeat offenders.”
According to Roth, the inmate population — which on Monday was 355, or 149 inmates over the design capacity of 206 — hasn’t “risen to the levels seen prior to the pandemic and at this time, there are no cases of COVID-19 that we are aware of.”
“As of this filing, there are still other problems to be worked on in response to this pandemic that could aid in achieving a lower jail population. These problems impact the ability of the system to identify and/or process inmates who can be released, to adequately supervise them when they are released.”
Roth said Daniel Foley, a retired appeals judge hired as a special master to oversee orderly inmate releases earlier in the pandemic, agreed in his May 28 report to the high court with Roth’s suggestion that overflow inmates at HCCC’s main Punahele Street campus could be housed in a “tent city” on the grounds of Hale Nani, a minimum-security HCCC campus on the southern outskirts of Hilo.
The prosecutor also questioned that if probation clients serving short sentences are to be released early, “will there be an orderly process to give notification to probation officers prior to release, and are there adequate resources to add to probation caseloads?”
Roth said his office “is committed to work diligently to conduct individualized reviews of cases with defense counsel to determine which of the inmates should be released.” He added review factors should include “the inmate’s criminal history, seriousness of the offense, victim input and … a verified residence and/or contact information and an acknowledgment of future court appearances.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.
