STAND. COM. REP. NO. 886

Honolulu, Hawaii

RE:    S.B. No. 961

       S.D. 1

Honorable Colleen Hanabusa

President of the Senate

Twenty-Fourth State Legislature

Regular Session of 2007

State of Hawaii

Madam:

     Your Committee on Judiciary and Labor, to which was referred S.B. No. 961 entitled:

"A BILL FOR AN ACT RELATING TO THE HAWAII RULES OF EVIDENCE,"

begs leave to report as follows:

     The purpose of this measure is to provide that if evidence of an alleged victim's character for aggressiveness or violence is offered by an accused and admitted under Rule 404(a)(2) of the Hawaii Rules of Evidence, then evidence of the same trait of character of the accused offered by the prosecution may be admissible.

     Your Committee received testimony in support of the bill from the Attorney General's Office, the Honolulu Prosecuting Attorney's Office, the Judiciary's Standing Committee on Evidence, and from a private citizen.  The Public Defender's Office testified in opposition to the bill.

     Your Committee finds that the Judiciary Standing Committee on the Rules of Evidence studied and approved a change in the rules of evidence to allow for the admission of the accused trait of character for aggressiveness under a limited circumstance.  This bill seeks to permit a more balanced presentation of character evidence by providing the judge or a jury with a complete picture of the evidence.

     Your Committee has made clarifying amendments to the bill by inserting the phrase "trait of" before "character" for consistency, and removing the words "for violence" and refer to only aggressiveness.

     As affirmed by the record of votes of the members of your Committee on Judiciary and Labor that is attached to this report, your Committee is in accord with the intent and purpose of S.B. No. 961, as amended herein, and recommends that it pass Second Reading in the form attached hereto as S.B. No. 961, S.D. 1, and be placed on the calendar for Third Reading.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of the members of the Committee on Judiciary and Labor,

____________________________

CLAYTON HEE, Chair