Honorable Calvin K.Y. Say

Speaker, House of Representatives

Twenty-Second State Legislature

Regular Session of 2003

State of Hawaii

Sir:

Your Committee on Judiciary, to which was referred S.B. No. 1274, S.D. 1, entitled:

begs leave to report as follows:

The purpose of the bill is to make extreme mental or emotional disturbance (EMED) an affirmative defense to attempted murder based on a reasonable person standard and requiring the loss of self-control.

The Department of the Attorney General, the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the City and County of Honolulu, the Department of the Prosecuting Attorney for the County of Maui, the Honolulu Police Department, the Maui County Police Department, the Kauai County Police Department, the Hawaii County Police Department, and the State of Hawaii Organization of Police Officers testified in support of this bill. The Office of the Public Defender opposed the measure.

Your Committee finds that requiring the prosecution to disprove beyond a reasonable doubt that EMED does not exist is an inappropriate burden. Requiring the defense to prove by the preponderance that EMED exist is not unfair. Once EMED is shown by the evidence to exist, the defendant will then be entitled to an acquittal on the charge of murder and be instead convicted of a manslaughter offense.

Your Committee amended the bill by:

(3) Deleting reference to the reasonable person standard.

As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 1274, S.D. 1, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 1274, S.D. 1, H.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.