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On July 6, the Hawaii Legislature passed . If signed by Gov. David Ige, it will shine long-needed light on police disciplinary practices.

Under the current law, over the last 20 years the Honolulu Police Department has not released files about any suspended police officers. All attempts to get access have resulted in years-long, still-ongoing court battles.

What kind of records have been withheld?

For anyone unfamiliar with Sgt. Darren Cachola’s conduct in 2014, there are multiple publicly released videos and hundreds of pages of news articles. HPD’s annual report summarized the incident: “Yelled and swore at his girlfriend. While intoxicated, failed to leave a restaurant when asked to do so. Was observed on video engaged in physical altercations with his girlfriend.”

In 2018, an arbitrator reversed HPD’s decision to terminate Sgt. Cachola and imposed a six-month suspension instead. Why did the arbitrator override HPD’s decision to terminate Sgt. Cachola? What justified keeping Sgt. Cachola as a police officer when the videotaped incident caused public uproar and concerns from elected officials about how police departments handle domestic violence that involves a police officer?

The answer to those questions and others would only be found in the arbitrator’s decision.

But when numerous people asked to see a copy of the arbitrator’s decision, the police union filed a lawsuit to stop HPD from disclosing it. The basis for the union’s lawsuit was privacy language in Hawaii’s public records law. As currently written, the law said that Sgt. Cachola had a privacy interest in his disciplinary suspension that must be balanced against the public’s interest in seeing the arbitrator’s decision. Under this balancing test, if the public interest outweighs Sgt. Cachola’s privacy interest, the record is supposed to be disclosed.

No government employees other than police officers have such a privacy interest under the law. For every other government employee, after the employee has had a full and fair opportunity to challenge a disciplinary charge in the grievance process, the disciplinary file becomes a public record if the misconduct was serious enough to result in suspension. For police officers only, the law required a balancing test even if the police officer was suspended.

As a result of that balancing test, every request for police suspension files has been delayed in litigation. Even when the public interest so clearly outweighs any privacy interest — as in Sgt. Cachola’s case — the balancing test means that the public cannot find out what happened for years, if ever. As another example, for almost seven years and counting, the public has been denied access to records involving police officers who were suspended for misconduct such as assault, falsifying police reports, fleeing the scene of an accident, and pleading guilty to criminal charges.

This insistence on hiding even the most egregious misconduct has proven that stronger accountability measures are required. HB 285 ensures that the public will not suffer years of delays and expensive lawsuits just to understand police discipline.

This change was not a knee-jerk reaction to the recent national calls for police reform in the wake of George Floyd’s death. The Legislature has been debating it for six years. Before HB 285 was introduced in 2019, there was HB 1812 (2014), SB 497 (2015), SB 3016 (2016), HB 456 (2017), SB 424 (2017), and HB 1849 (2018).

No government employees other than police officers have such a privacy interest under the law.

Over the years, support from Sen. Rosalyn Baker, Sen. Kalani English, former Sen. Will Espero, Sen. Russell Ruderman, Sen. Laura Thielen, Rep. Aaron Johanson, and Rep. Chris Lee — just to name a few — made sure that the issue did not get lost and eventually passed this year. But the three legislators whose work contributed most to this six-year effort to bring greater transparency and accountability to police departments were Sen. Clarence Nishihara, Sen. Karl Rhoads, and Rep. Scott Nishimoto.

If Gov. Ige signs HB 285, he will end decades of secrecy. Police officers will be treated the same as other government employees. And Hawaii will join other jurisdictions that require public access to police disciplinary suspensions, including, among many others, Arizona, California, Florida, New York, Texas and Washington.

Most police officers do not commit misconduct. But when police officers as a group fight against disclosure of conduct so serious that it results in suspension, it erodes public confidence in police generally. HB 285 provides accountability for individual police officers and that paves the way for greater public trust in law enforcement as an institution.