Committee amends plan to increase penalties for excessive speeding after testimony from public defender

Chair Tarnas brought House Bill 54, addressing penalties for third or subsequent excessive speeding offenses, before the Committee on Judiciary & Hawaiian Affairs on Feb. 20.

The Department of Transportation backed stronger penalties and cited safety statistics. “Forty-four percent of Hawaii’s traffic fatalities from 2013 to 2022 were speed related,” Deputy Director Tammy Lee told the committee, citing National Highway Traffic Safety Administration data.

The Office of the Public Defender, represented by First Deputy Haley Chang, opposed elevating the third-or-subsequent excessive speeding offense to a class C felony. Chang said felony treatment would enable defendants to demand jury trials and would raise significant evidentiary and sentencing issues: “Speed is tracked by HPD or other law enforcement by use of a pace using their own vehicle to pace the speed or by a radar or laser gun. … There are a lot of challenges to the state of the evidence when trying to prove someone beyond a reasonable doubt as to a specific speed,” she said. Chang also warned that the bill as originally drafted removed sentencing options such as probation; she described some provisions as “an illegal sentence” as written.

After hearing testimony, the chair proposed amendments intended to increase penalties but not to elevate the offense to a nonprobationable felony. The committee adopted technical and substantive changes: substituting a full misdemeanor penalty for a class C felony for third offenses within a specified period, setting a minimum jail term in the revised misdemeanor scheme, and shortening one custody-related term from 1 year to 6 months in a specific subsection. Committee members cited a desire to address speed-related fatalities while preserving prosecutorial and sentencing discretion and avoiding the collateral consequences of elevating the offense to a felony.

The committee moved HB 54 forward with those amendments. The committee’s record shows written support from the Honolulu Police Department and others and written opposition from the Office of the Public Defender and the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii; several members asked staff to refine the sentencing language in the standing committee report.

Ending: The committee advanced HB 54 with amended penalties; the measure will proceed with the committee’s recommended language for further floor or committee consideration.