Appellate attorney Benjamin Lowenthal Cracks the 30-Day Code at the Supreme Court

Background: The Road to Hawaiʻi’s Current Bail Forfeiture Landscape

To understand the legal battleground underlying Mr. Lowenthal’s arguments last week before the Hawaii Supreme Court, one must trace the law back thirty years to the foundational precedent that transformed Hawaiʻi’s bail industry: State v. Camara(1996).

Prior to Camara, bail bond agencies faced a harsh, highly unpredictable standard in the circuit courts when a defendant missed an appearance. Under HRS § 804-51, a judgment of forfeiture is entered after a failure to appear, triggering a statutory 30-day window for the surety to show "good cause why execution should not issue." Trial judges held vast, unchecked discretion to define what constituted that "good cause." In practice, a surety could act with absolute diligence—locating the fugitive, coordinating with police, apprehending and surrendering the defendant back into state custody within days, and filing a timely motion within the 30-day period—only to have the trial court deny the set-aside anyway. 

Under that older, restrictive doctrine, judges could take the position that tracking down an absconder after the breach did not cure the default; instead, the court demanded proof of an extenuating excuse existing prior to or at the exact moment of the missed hearing (such as an unavoidable accident, medical hospitalization, or uncontrollable circumstance). In that era, the court could have it both ways: collecting payment on a forfeited bond despite the agency successfully returning the fugitive to custody in a timely fashion.

Thankfully, the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court stepped in to dismantle that framework in State v. Camara. Vacating the First Circuit Court’s judgment, the high court rejected the trial judge's unduly stringent threshold and established the definitive standard for "good cause" under HRS § 804-51. Under this rule, a surety is not forced to prove an uncontrollable excuse and return the defendant; rather, "good cause" is satisfied by either of two independent avenues:

1. There is a satisfactory reason for the defendant’s failure to appear; OR
2. The defendant is surrendered back into custody, either voluntarily or involuntarily, prior to the expiration of the 30-day period.

Although created by statute as a procedural deadline to file a motion showing good cause to stay execution, the 30-day window became colloquially termed a “search period” because it simultaneously gave sureties time to locate and surrender the defendant, despite never being strictly confined to that single purpose. The Court anchored its reasoning in public policy: bail is designed to secure attendance at trial, not to enrich state coffers or penalize sureties who uphold their end of the bargain by returning defendants to justice.

Setting the Table for Mr. Lowenthal’s Current Argument

Mr. Lowenthal’s argument on behalf of All-in-One Bonding asserts that the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) gravely erred by holding that "good cause" under HRS § 804-51 strictly requires a defendant to be apprehended within 30 days of service of the forfeiture judgment. Blending my interpretation of his filings and being there live to witness his argument, I noted the following key points:

• Strict Filing Deadline vs. Flexible Search Period: While HRS § 804-51 imposes a strict 30-day deadline from service to file a motion to stay execution, the statute does not rigidly fix the timeframe within which "good cause" must ultimately be established.

• Discretion to Extend the Search Period: Trial courts possess the inherent discretion to extend the search period beyond the initial 30 days by scheduling the hearing on a timely filed motion at a later date. Lowenthal relies on State v. Ranger Ins. Co. (where the Hawaiʻi Supreme Court noted without issue the lower court’s "magnanimous" 42-day extension of the search period) and subsequent case law to demonstrate that courts have exercised this authority for 30 years.

• Apprehension Before the Hearing Constitutes Good Cause: Because All-in-One Bonding timely filed its motion requesting additional time and surrendered the defendant two days prior to the hearing date, "good cause" was satisfied, requiring the forfeiture judgment to be vacated.
• Abuse of Discretion by the Circuit Court: The circuit court abused its discretion by denying the motion without conducting any independent analysis, simply adopting the State’s erroneous argument that the defendant had to be apprehended within the original 30-day window despite the court-granted extension.

• Misinterpretation of "Good Cause" by the ICA: The ICA improperly treated the 30-day period from State v. Camaraas an inflexible, unalterable deadline. This stripped trial courts of their discretion and contradicted both the flexible legal meaning of "good cause" and the underlying purpose of bail: securing court appearances and keeping cases moving, rather than generating state revenue.

• The Real-World Fallout: Re-imposing an inflexible, mechanical 30-day cutoff undoes the very policy engine Camarasought to protect. If bail agents face automatic, unextendable forfeitures on Day 31, they lose all financial incentive to expend resources chasing fugitives across jurisdictions. That rigid rule leaves bench warrants unserved, risks administrative Rule 9 dismissals, spooks underwriters from writing appearance bonds in Hawaiʻi, and ultimately forces more pretrial defendants to sit behind bars at taxpayer expense.

Notes from the High Court Bench

Although the formal opinion has yet to be issued, the hearing revealed several compelling insights from the bench:

Associate Justice Todd Eddins pressed the State on improperly conflating the two prongs established in Camara: 

• Two Distinct, Alternative Methods:Justice Eddins highlighted Camara’s disjunctive holding, which provides two separate avenues to establish good cause: providing a satisfactory reason for the failure to appear, or surrendering the defendant (timestamps ~32:38, ~44:25).
• Conflation by the State: He noted that the State is improperly blending these standards, questioning whether physical surrender was ever intended to be the exclusive requirement (timestamp ~44:25–44:35).

• Textual Independence: Justice Eddins emphasized that the 30-day statutory clause in HRS § 804-51 strictly governs the filing of the motion, placing no rigid temporal limit on the substantive facts establishing good cause (timestamp ~43:20–44:45).

Associate Justice Sabrina McKennafocused heavily on statutory interpretation, judicial practice, and public policy:

• Statutory Text: She observed that HRS § 804-51 nowhere requires surrender within 30 days—only that a motion showing good cause be filed within that window (timestamp ~27:44–27:54).
• Judicially Created Terms: She noted that the term "search period" is judicial shorthand and does not appear in the statutory text (timestamp ~31:40–31:50).
• Permissive Precedent: Justices Eddins and McKenna both highlighted Camara’s permissive phrasing ("good cause... may be satisfied..."), indicating that surrender within 30 days was never meant to be an exhaustive, unbending requirement (timestamps ~46:47–47:06, ~48:18–48:30).

• Perverse Public Safety Incentives:Justice McKenna questioned the wisdom of the State’s stance. If an agency locates an absconder on Day 30 on the mainland, an inflexible cutoff eliminates any financial reason to spend thousands of dollars extraditing them back to Hawaiʻi, directly undermining public safety (timestamps ~28:02–28:14, ~35:24–36:25).
• Impact on Families: She emphasized that forfeitures primarily penalize co-signers—families who put up their homes and savings—rather than the defendants themselves (timestamp ~36:57–37:05).

• Challenging the State’s Position:Justice McKenna challenged the State's hardline view that judges lack authority to grant continuances: “If the law is absolutely clear and the judge has no discretion to grant a continuance after the first hearing... why aren't you coming in with mandamus petitions to forfeit the bond, make some money for the state?” (timestamp ~41:04–41:52).

• Discretion to Continue: Chief Justice Devens noted that nothing in HRS § 804-51 prevents a court from continuing a hearing and staying execution while a timely motion is pending (timestamp ~38:30–40:12).
• Legislative Intent: The Justices reiterated that bail forfeiture is designed to compel court appearance, not to penalize sureties or generate municipal windfalls (timestamp ~37:05–37:25).

Watch the full oral argument here:

Aside from Mr. Lowenthal, no one has ever directly asked for my take on "good cause"—so I put together this tier list breaking down how it actually works in practice, from S-tier gold standards to failing F-tier arguments.

The Bottom Line

"Good cause" was purposefully crafted as an adaptable legal standard, not a rigid trap. Before Camara, unreasonable thresholds meant sureties could return a defendant immediately and still lose the bond. In the real world, surrender takes time: before electronic filing, I routinely waited weeks just for paperwork to drafted by the court, filed, then hand delivered to law enforcement. Today, apprehending a fugitive out of state requires waiting additional weeks for the prosecutor’s office to enter a local warrant into the National Crime Information Computer (NCIC) so I can lawfully apprehend a fugitive on the mainland. A mechanical 30-day apprehend-or-bust rule ignores the operational reality and penalizes the very diligence the system strives to incentivize.

Jail Mail will continue tracking Mr. Lowenthal’s appeal as the Supreme Court considers restoring judicial discretion. Protecting reasonable continuance windows isn't just about shielding sureties from punitive forfeitures—it preserves the financial incentive to bring absconders back to island courtrooms, ensuring victims see justice and cases reach resolution.

-Jail Mail Nick