State v. Nakata8/2/1994
ffense DUI charge under HRS § 291-4, as amended by Act 128, is constitutionally petty. By noting that "it is now clear that the legislature has always viewed first time DUI offenses as petty," id. at 78, 856 P.2d at 1245, we called into question Jordan and O'Brien. Although we implied in Wilson that Jordan and O'Brien were no longer good law in regard to their application to first-time DUI offenses, we did not explicitly limit or overrule, in whole or in part, the holdings of either case. Before doing so today, however, we deem it necessary to clarify the dictum in Wilson, beginning with the fundamental tenet -- Above all is the constitution.
"American legislatures must adhere to the provisions of a written constitution. . . . Our ultimate authority is the Constitution; and the courts, not the legislature, are the ultimate interpreters of the Constitution." State v. Shak, 51 Haw. 612, 617, 466 P.2d 422, 425, cert. denied, 400 U.S. 930 (1970); see Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137, 180, 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803) (laws repugnant to the Constitution are void). "It is concept of the Constitution as law, and the judiciary as the institution with responsibility to interpret the law, which remains the cornerstone of judicial review today." R. Rotunda & J. Nowak, Treatise on Constitutional Law § 1.3, at 42 (2d ed. 1992). These same principles of judicial review apply when determining whether an offense is constitutionally petty or serious. When addressing the constitutionality of a statute, we have cautioned that
"whether the legislation under review is wise or unwise is a matter with which we have nothing to do. Whether it . . . works well or works ill presents a question entirely irrelevant to the issue. The only legitimate inquiry we can make is whether it is constitutional. If it is not, its virtues, if it have any, cannot save it; if it is, its faults cannot be invoked to accomplish its destruction. If the provisions of the Constitution be not upheld when they pinch as well as when they comfort, they may as well be abandoned."
Baehr v. Lewin, 74 Haw. 530, 582-83, 852 P.2d 44, 68 (quoting Home Bldg. & Loan Ass'n v. Blaisdell, 290 U.S. 398, 483, 78 L. Ed. 413, 54 S. Ct. 231 (1934) (Sutherland, J., Dissenting)), reconsideration and clarification granted in part, 74 Haw. 645, 852 P.2d 74 (1993).
In Duncan v. Louisiana, 391 U.S. 145, 20 L. Ed. 2d 491, 88 S. Ct. 1444, reh'g denied, 392 U.S. 947, 20 L. Ed. 2d 1412, 88 S. Ct. 2270 (1968), the United States Supreme Court wrote:
the boundaries of the petty offense category have always been ill-defined, if not ambulatory. In the absence of an explicit constitutional provision, the definitional task necessarily falls on the courts, which must either pass upon the validity of legislative attempts to identify those petty offenses which are exempt from jury trial, or . . . themselves face the question in the first instance.
Id. at 160; see also Frank v. United States, 395 U.S. 147, 156, 23 L. Ed. 2d 162, 89 S. Ct. 1503 ("We cannot . . . place unlimited reliance on legislative definitions and 'existing . . . practices in the Nation' and thereby allow Congress and the States to rewrite the sixth amendment the Constitution by simply terming 'petty' any offense regardless of the underlying sentence." (Warren, C.J., Dissenting)), reh'g denied, 396 U.S. 869, 24 L. Ed. 2d 123, 90 S. Ct. 34 (1969). Our task in interpreting whether legislative acts pass constitutional muster is aided by legislative statements which reflect existing public policies relied upon in
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