Case Notes

• Publication year: 2022

CASE NOTES

[Page 25]

Supreme Court

Criminal

State v. Obrero, No. SCAP-21-0000576, September 8, 2022, (Eddins, J. with Nakayama, J. concurring separately and dissenting; with whom McKenna, J. joins as to Sections II and III; and Recktenwald, C.J., dissenting, with whom Nakayama, J. joins). This case was about what limits, if any, Hawaii Revised Statutes § 801-1 (2014) imposes on the State's ability to prosecute felonies. The law says: No person shall be subject to be tried and sentenced to be punished in any court, for an alleged offense, unless upon indictment or information, except for offenses within the jurisdiction of a district court or in summary proceedings for contempt. Defendant-Appellant Richard Obrero (Obrero) argued the State violated Haw. Rev. Stat. § 801-1 by using the complaint and preliminary hearing process to prosecute him for second-degree murder, attempted murder in the first and second degree, and use of firearm in the commission of a separate felony. The Hawaii Supreme Court agreed. Obrero wasn't charged with contempt. And the felonies he was charged with are neither within the jurisdiction of the district court nor chargeable by information, see Haw. Rev. Stat. §§ 806-82 (2014), 806-83 (Supp. 2021). So Obrero was a person who shall not "be subject to be tried and sentenced . . . in any court, for an alleged offense, unless upon indictment." Haw. Rev. Stat. § 801-1. The Hawaii Supreme Court held that Haw. Rev. Stat. § 801-1 meant what it plainly says: criminal defendants cannot be "subject to be tried and sentenced to be punished in any court, for an alleged offense" without an indictment or information unless the charged offense is either contempt or within the jurisdiction of the district court. The Hawaii Supreme Court also held that defendants were "subject to be tried and sentenced to be punished" at arraignment, when they must either plead guilty, and be subject to sentencing, or plead not guilty and be subject to trial and possibly also sentencing.

Nakayama, J., concurred and dissented in which McKenna, J., joined as to Sections II and III. Nakayama, J. concurred in the result of the Majority's opinion because the State's complaint against Obrero was unconstitutional. In 1982, the Legislature and Hawaii voters amended article I, section 10 of the Hawaii Constitution to authorize prosecutors to initiate a prosecution upon a judge's finding of probable cause after a preliminary hearing. In this case, the State seized upon this authority to initiate a prosecution via a preliminary hearing even after a grand jury declined to return a true bill. This violated the purpose of the 1982 amendment, which was to create an alternative — not sequential — method by which the State could initiate a prosecution.

Recktenwald, C.J., dissented, in which Nakayama, J., joined. Rectenwald, C.J. stated that in 1982, the citizens of the State of Hawaii voted to ratify an amendment to the Hawaii Constitution to allow prosecutors to charge felonies by preliminary hearing. Its purpose and effect, until today, were never disputed: it granted prosecutors discretion to initiate criminal proceedings by either a grand jury indictment or upon a finding of probable cause by a judge at a preliminary hearing. The Majority's novel interpretation of the constitution departs from forty years of settled law and needlessly frustrates the framers' intent. This case required the Hawaii Supreme Court to consider whether the 1982 amendment of article I, section 10 invalidated Haw. Rev. Stat. § 801-1 (2014), unchanged in its current form at least since 1905. Whereas article I, section 10, as amended, allows a defendant to be charged by preliminary hearing...