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Haw. Rev. Stat. § 702-236

De minimis infractions

Applied in 4 court decisions — leading case 3 Haw. App. 472 - State v. Johnson (1982)

Most recently applied in David Wayne Gober v. The State of Wyoming (August 2025)

L 1972, c 9, pt of §1

How often courts cite this section

19821990200020102020202510
citing decisions per year

Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.

(1) The court may dismiss a prosecution if, having regard to the nature of the conduct alleged and the nature of the attendant circumstances, it finds that the defendant's conduct:

(a) Was within a customary license or tolerance, which was not expressly refused by the person whose interest was infringed and which is not inconsistent with the purpose of the law defining the offense;

(b) Did not actually cause or threaten the harm or evil sought to be prevented by the law defining the offense or did so only to an extent too trivial to warrant the condemnation of conviction; or

(c) Presents such other extenuations that it cannot reasonably be regarded as envisaged by the legislature in forbidding the offense.

(2) The court shall not dismiss a prosecution under subsection (1)(c) of this section without filing a written statement of its reasons.

Official source: Hawaii State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Hawaii statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.