Huihui v. Shimoda

• Decision Date: 17 May 1982
• Docket Number: No. 8563,8563
• Citation: 64 Haw. 527,644 P.2d 968
• Parties: Henry James HUIHUI, Petitioner, v. Edwin SHIMODA, Acting Director, Oahu Community Correctional Center; State of Hawaii, Real Party in Interest, Respondents.
• Court: Hawaii Supreme Court

Page 968

644 P.2d 968

64 Haw. 527

Henry James HUIHUI, Petitioner, v. Edwin SHIMODA, Acting Director, Oahu Community Correctional

Center; State of Hawaii, Real Party in Interest,

Respondents.

No. 8563.

Supreme Court of Hawai'i.

May 17, 1982.

Syllabus by the Court

1. The fundamental principle in construing a constitutional provision is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting it.

2. The Hawaii Supreme Court will not hesitate to extend the protections of the Hawaii Bill of Rights beyond those of textually parallel provisions of the Federal Bill of Rights when logic and a sound regard for the purposes of those protections so warrant.

3. As the highest court of this sovereign state, the Hawaii Supreme Court has the obligation to interpret and enforce the state constitution not in total disregard of federal interpretations of identical language, but with reference to the wisdom of adopting these interpretations for Hawaii.

4. Article I, section 12 of the Hawaii Constitution, although not guaranteeing an absolute right to bail in all cases, prohibits the unreasonable and arbitrary denial of bail as well as excessive bail which, at least in the eyes of the accused, amount to the same thing.

5. This state has a legitimate interest in protecting its communities from those who threaten their welfare, and this interest may be taken into account in the setting of pretrial bail without offending the bail and due process clauses of the Hawaii Constitution and federal constitution, respectively.

6. Statutes providing for pretrial detention must be reasonable and satisfy the minimal demands of procedural due process as such detention denies an accused his liberty without a formal adjudication of guilt.

7. HRS § 804-3(b)(3), by conclusively presuming a defendant's dangerousness from the fact that he had been charged previously with a serious crime and presently with a felony and not allowing individualized inquiry into dangerousness, violates the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment and article 1, section 12 of the Hawaii Constitution.

8. By forbidding the granting of and dispensing with bail under enumerated circumstances, HRS § 804-3(b)(3) violates article I, section 12 of the Hawaii Constitution which contemplates the existence of discretion in the trial judge to dispense with bail altogether where it is satisfied that the defendant or witness will appear as directed. Brook Hart, Peter C. Wolff, Jr., Michael D. Wilson, Hart & Wolff, a Law Corporation, Honolulu, for petitioner.

James H. Dannenberg, Deputy Atty. Gen., and Arthur E. Ross, Peter B. Carlisle, Deputy Prosecuting Attys., Honolulu, for respondents.

Before RICHARDSON, C. J., LUM and NAKAMURA, JJ., and Retired Justices OGATA and MENOR assigned by reason of vacancies.

LUM, Justice.

A petition for a writ of habeas corpus presents us, for the first time, with the question of the constitutionality of HRS § 804-3(b)(3) (Supp.1981), pursuant to which an accused must be denied bail if he is charged with a serious crime for which the proof is evident and the presumption great, where he is already free on bail on a felony charge. The petitioner initially argues that the trial judge erred in finding the proof evident and presumption great that petitioner committed the crimes for which he was charged, and additionally seeks our examination of the statute in light of the constitutional guarantees of equal protection of the laws, due process of law and bail. We find it unnecessary to review the trial judge's findings or to assess the statute's validity against the fourteenth amendment's equal protection clause, however, for we conclude that HRS § 804-3(b)(3) violates the bail provisions of the Hawaii Constitution and the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment.

I.

Petitioner Henry James Huihui was indicted on November 19, 1981 for two counts of extortion in the first degree, a class B felony under HRS § 707-765(1)(a) (Supp.1981) and two counts of extortion in the second degree, a class C felony under HRS § 707-764(1)(a) (Supp.1981). Following a hearing on the government's motion to commit petitioner without bail, the first circuit court denied petitioner bail under HRS § 804-3(b)(3) because it found that (a) the extortion charges were "serious offenses" within the meaning of HRS § 804-3(b); (b) the proof was evident and the presumption great that petitioner committed the offenses; and (c) at the time of the indictment, petitioner was already free on $100,000 bail awaiting trial on various felony charges for which he was indicted on July 2, 1980. While incarcerated, petitioner sought the intervention of this court for a writ of habeas corpus directing the circuit court judge to hold a bail hearing and determine a reasonable amount of bail for petitioner to post as a condition for his pretrial release. We granted an expedited hearing because of the importance of the petitioner's liberty interest, and in a recent decision issued the requested writ.

II.

Petitioner advances the threshold proposition that article I, section 12 of the Hawaii Constitution guarantees persons accused of crimes the right to pretrial release subject to reasonable bail. ¹ Acknowledging at the same time that this right may be curtailed for legitimate reasons, petitioner avers that the provision for the denial of bail in HRS § 804-3(b)(3) impermissibly infringed on his right to bail by conclusively presuming that persons charged with a serious crime while on bail on a felony charge pose a danger to the community or are not likely to appear at trial.

III.

An initial inquiry into whether our state constitution guarantees accused persons a right to bail is necessitated by the particular wording of article I, section 12, which, like its federal counterpart, ² fails to mention any such right. That provision of Hawaii's Bill of Rights recites as follows:

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel nor unusual punishment inflicted. The court may dispense with bail if reasonably satisfied that the defendant or witness will appear when directed, except for a defendant charged with an offense punishable by life imprisonment.

When originally adopted in 1959, ³ the provision (then numbered article I, section 9) consisted only of the first sentence, which closely follows the wording of the eighth amendment. The Committee of the Whole Report on the proposed Bill of Rights in fact indicated that the sentence was "taken from the 8th Amendment to the Federal Constitution, and will give this state the benefit of Federal decisions construing the same." Comm. Whole Rep. No. 5, I Proceedings of the Constitutional Convention of Hawaii of 1950, at 302 (1950). No other explanation of the excessive bail clause appears in the 1950 Constitutional Convention proceedings, and the provision was incorporated into Hawaii's Bill of Rights with virtually no debate.

We have acknowledged in the past "that the fundamental principle in construing a constitutional provision is to give effect to the intention of the framers and the people adopting it." State v. Miyasaki, 62 Haw. 269, 281, 614 P.2d 915, 922 (1980), quoting HGEA v. County of Maui, 59 Haw. 65, 80-81, 576 P.2d 1029, 1039 (1978). Here, where the 1950 Constitutional Convention delegates failed to provide specific guidance for interpreting article I, section 12, we shall, as they intended, refer to federal decisions construing the like language of the eighth amendment. Should we so decide, however, we shall not hesitate to "extend the protections of the Hawaii Bill of Rights beyond those of textually parallel provisions of the Federal Bill of Rights when logic and a sound regard for the purposes of those protections" so warrant. State v. Miyasaki, supra 62 Haw. at 281, 614 P.2d at 922; State v. Manzo, 58 Haw. 440, 452, 573 P.2d 945, 953 (1977); State v. Kaluna, 55 Haw. 361, 369, 520 P.2d 51, 58 (1974). For it is our obligation to interpret and enforce the state constitution as the highest court of this sovereign state "not in total disregard of federal interpretations of identical language, but with reference to the wisdom of adopting these interpretations for our state." State v. Miyasaki, supra 62 Haw. at 280, 614 P.2d at 922; State v. Manzo, supra.

The United States Supreme Court has never squarely confronted the question of whether a right to bail inheres in the eighth amendment, ⁴ and dicta from two of its most recent cases construing the excessive bail clause have been viewed as supporting conflicting interpretations. See United States v. Edwards, 430 A.2d 1321, 1329-30 (D.C.App.1981) , cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 102 S.Ct. 1721, 71 L.Ed.2d ----; Borman, The Selling of Preventive Detention 1970, 65 Nw.L.Rev. 879, 901-03 (1971). In Carlson v. Landon, 342 U.S. 524, 72 S.Ct. 525, 96 L.Ed. 547 (1952), ⁵ the Supreme Court rejected the contention that the eighth amendment required the same reasonable bail for alien Communists under deportation charges as it did for citizens charged with bailable offenses. In support of its holding, the majority noted that the bail clause, like its predecessor in the English Bill of Rights, "has never been thought to accord a right to bail in all cases, but merely to provide that bail shall not be excessive in those cases where it is proper to grant bail." Id. at 545, 72 S.Ct. at 537. Observing that Congress has always been free to define bailable offenses despite the eighth amendment, the Court concluded that the excessive bail clause did not require bail to be set under the circumstances of the case. In Stack v. Boyle, 342 U.S. 1, 72 S.Ct. 1, 96 L.Ed. 3 (1951), ⁶ on the other hand, the Supreme Court, in reviewing the reasonableness of certain bail orders, spoke of pretrial release in terms of a "traditional right to freedom before conviction (which) permits the unhampered preparation of a defense, and serves to prevent the infliction of...