Many inmates would be released from Hawaii state prisons earlier than the length of sentences imposed by judges under a bill being considered by the state Legislature. While that would make room for inmates serving time in private prisons on the mainland to be brought back to Hawaii, it is the wrong way to let prisoners go free early.

If proponents of the bill are right, judges — and defense attorneys — were oblivious for decades to Hawaii’s sentencing law when it came time to put convicts behind bars. Back then, the law allowed multiple prison terms imposed at the same time — usually for violations of different laws associated with the same offensive incident — to be served simultaneously, but only if the judge said so. Otherwise, the prison terms would be served back to back, or consecutively.

In actuality, the state Public Defender’s Office claims, the judge often would reject the prosecutor’s motion for terms to be served consecutively but did not specify that the terms should be concurrent. Other times, the judge would indicate that concurrent terms were intended but did not say so at sentencing time. If that’s so, the defense attorney should have given the judge a nudge but did not.

In 2005, the Legislature changed the law to require that sentences for repeat offenses should be tacked on at the end of prior terms resulting from other incidents. Three years later, the Legislature decided that all multiple terms should be served simultaneously, even those arising from unrelated convictions, unless other specific laws required or the sentencing judge decided they should be served back to back.

Now legislators, citing cases of inequity that caused some inmates’ prison time to be recalculated and extended, want that standard to be applied all the way back to 1986, when the consecutive terms were automatic unless the judge decided otherwise. That could result in the immediate release of hundreds of inmates serving consecutive terms and, in effect, overturn sentences handed down by judges. It also would violate the separation of powers doctrine, which prohibits the legislative branch of government from overturning Judiciary rulings, as pointed out by state Attorney General David M. Louie.

It may well be cumbersome and time-consuming, but Louie rightly suggests a legitimate way to shorten the prison time for convicts serving back-to-back terms. He proposes that a prisoner serving consecutive terms should be allowed a hearing before a judge to request making those multiple terms concurrent.

Without such a hearing, Louie points out, people who committed heinous crimes and were deliberately sentenced to consecutive terms — although sentencing records don’t mention the word "consecutive" — might obtain a drastic reduction of their prison time. Indeed, the direct decision for each convict’s term of imprisonment should be determined by a judge, not the Legislature.