House, Senate panels
OK bills to ease wiretap useBut a committee kills a proposed
"walk and talk" program
Obtaining state wiretaps would be less cumbersome under bills winning approval by House and Senate committees this week.
A new state wiretap law, patterned after the federal wiretap law, is a key anti-crime bill for the Lingle administration, and the OK by the House and Senate Judiciary committees will allow state law enforcement to use evidence gathered from either state or federal wiretaps.
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But the Senate Judiciary Committee also handed Lingle a setback yesterday by killing bills to allow the so-called "walk and talk" program.
The Hawaii Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the program that allows plainclothes police officers to approach suspected drug smugglers at airports, strike up a conversation and ask them to consent to a search.
Law enforcement agencies also hoped to use a variation of the program "knock and talk" to investigate suspected drug houses.
Both Honolulu Prosecutor Peter Carlisle and state Attorney General Mark Bennett praised the initial approval for the wiretap bills but were concerned that the walk-and-talk measures failed.
"We are not trying to give Hawaii law enforcement tools that no one else has; we are trying to give Hawaii law enforcement tools that almost everyone else across the nation has," Bennett said.
Carlisle said the walk-and-talk bill would have been an important aid in helping combat local drug problems.
"We get an enormous amount of citizen concern and request for action dealing with drug houses," Carlisle said, referring to the need for the knock-and-talk program.
Senate Judiciary Chairwoman Colleen Hanabusa (D, Nanakuli-Makua) said her committee rejected the walk-and-talk measure because "it doesn't seem to be necessary anymore."
Both Carlisle and Bennett, however, said the wiretap bill will allow evidence gathered in a federal investigation to also be used in state cases.
Federal authorities are allowed to use electronic wiretaps if they can show a judge probable cause that a crime has been or is about to be committed. The state process is more cumbersome and hardly used by prosecutors.
Because of the difference in the laws, evidence obtained via federal wiretaps cannot be used in state courts. That results in as many as 100 suspects going untried each year because the alleged offenses fall short of federal jurisdiction and the state cannot use the evidence, law enforcement officials say.
