Gov. Josh Green on Thursday signed several Judiciary-related bills into law, including one that will give the Big Island another judge.
House Bill 401 will add a second district judge seat in Kailua-Kona, where, according to written testimony from Third Circuit Chief Courts Administrator Robert Kim, “a single judge currently bears the immense responsibility of handling nearly 16,000 individual cases annually.”
“This unsustainable situation jeopardizes the Judiciary’s ability to fulfill its core mission to administer justice in an impartial, efficient, and accessible manner,” Kim wrote. He added that a tripling of Kona’s population over the past four decades and the corresponding increase in case filings “has created untenable caseloads that overwhelm court operations and hinder the Judiciary’s ability to effectively serve the public.”
District judges are appointed to terms of six years, with an annual salary of $203,292.
The new judge, whom the governor will appoint from a short list of applicants selected by the Judicial Selection Commission, will be subject to state Senate approval.
Also signed into law was HB 400, the Judiciary’s biennial operating budget of $426 million from this July 1 to June 30, 2027. The Third Circuit, which is the Big Island courts, is allocated about $49.8 million for the period.
Capital improvement funding includes $4 million for planning and design of a new district courthouse in Waimea, which Green, a longtime emergency room physician at Kohala Hospital, described as “something that’s near and dear from my heart, having come from that area.”
HB 727 permanently establishes the Mohala Wahine Women’s Court program on Oahu after a three-year pilot run, as well as a temporary two-year Women’s Court pilot program in the Kona division of the Third Circuit.
“The Women’s Court is special,” Green said during a bill-signing ceremony at the state capitol in Honolulu. “There are circumstances that women face that are often overlooked.”
He said the program “provides services in the court system to reduce recidivism for women inmates after they’ve been released from prison.”
The bill’s introducer, Rep. Mahina Poepoe, a Democrat representing a Maui County canoe district and vice chair of the House Judiciary and Hawaiian Affairs Committee, called the Mohala Wahine program “a proven alternative to incarceration and a pathway to reintegration for women.”
“Many of these women are mothers and caregivers — and with personalized, supportive care focused on healing rather than punishment — we can help them rehabilitate,” Poepoe said. “Expanding this program to Hawaii Island will strengthen families and communities across our state.”
Another measure becoming law, HB 398 increases compensation for court-appointed attorneys and guardians ad litem, who are child welfare advocates in Family Court, from $90 per billable hour — a rate that has been effect for almost two decades — to $150 per billable hour.
HB 396, which granted court-appointed attorneys an identical pay increase in criminal cases, was signed into law by Green on June 6. That new law caps compensation for attorneys in felony cases at $12,000, and for misdemeanor jury trials at $6,000.
Those raises all go into effect July 1.
Hawaii Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald, who’ll retire in October after 15 years as the state’s top jurist, called Thursday a “very, very special occasion” and expressed his gratitude “to everyone who’s made this day possible.”
“I think what’s happened in this last session was historic,” Recktenwald said. “The level of support for so many of our most important programs … are really making a difference in very tangible ways in our communities. … Here we have them being made permanent, being expanded, and the needs of our community met by the Legislature and with the governor and his support.
“So it’s a very, very big day for us as a justice system, and it’s a really good day for our community.”
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.