Prohibits the attorney general from posting non-felony convictions on any website accessed via the Internet.

A BILL FOR AN ACT

SECTION 1. The legislature finds that an important part of the State's obligation to protect its citizens and promote the public safety is to ensure vigorous enforcement of its criminal laws and to monitor offenders through a comprehensive criminal justice database. It is likewise important to permit citizens to participate in this process by granting access to parts of that database that will empower them to take any additional action necessary to protect themselves and their families. To this end, the State has created an internet-accessible database of sex offenders and offenders against minors that can be queried by data relating to the offender or to a geographic location. An internet-accessible database of all convictions can be queried by offender name and related data.

The legislature also finds that an important part of the criminal justice process is giving the convicted offender an opportunity to complete the offender's sentence, to rehabilitate, and to resume a law-abiding lifestyle as a member of the community. While conviction data is public information, and should remain so, making an offender's every mistake, even minor ones, instantly accessible and visible may undermine efforts at rehabilitation. Although a convicted person has diminished privacy rights, article I, section 6 of the Hawaii constitution still recognizes that the "right of the people to privacy is recognized and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest" and requires the legislature to take affirmative steps to implement this right.

The legislature further finds that there is a compelling state interest in making felony conviction data as widely available as possible and that this interest warrants an infringement on the offender's right to privacy. However, there is not a similar interest in making so widely available conviction data pertaining to misdemeanors and petty misdemeanors. While this information should remain public and available at the Hawaii criminal justice data center and the county police departments, it should not be posted on the Internet. The legislature previously made this determination with regard to sex offenses and offenses against minors by excluding from the registry of those offenders all offenses of a misdemeanor or lower grade.

The purpose of this Act is to balance the need to promote public safety, on the one hand, and rehabilitation of offenders, on the other, by limiting dissemination of conviction information regarding minor offenses.

SECTION 2. Section 846-9, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended to read as follows:

"§846-9 Limitations on dissemination. (a) Dissemination of nonconviction data shall be limited, whether directly or through any intermediary, only to:

These dissemination limitations do not apply to conviction data. These dissemination limitations also do not apply to data relating to cases in which the defendant is acquitted, or charges are dismissed, by reason of physical or mental disease, disorder, or defect under chapter 704.

Criminal history record information disseminated to noncriminal justice agencies shall be used only for the purposes for which it was given.

No agency or individual shall confirm the existence or nonexistence of criminal history record information to any person or agency that would not be eligible to receive the information itself.

(b) Conviction data shall be disseminated to the public and accessible at the data center and the county police departments. Conviction data relating to felonies, but not offenses of a misdemeanor or lower grade, may be made available at a website accessed via the Internet."

SECTION 2. New statutory material is underscored.

SECTION 3. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.