Opinion ID: 1184512
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Heading: hawaii penal code section 101

Text: Hawaii Penal Code Section 101 provides in pertinent part: Sec. 101  Applicability to offense committed before the effective date. (1) Except as provided in subsections (2) and (3), this Code does not apply to offenses committed before its effective date. Prosecutions for offenses committed before the effective date are governed by the prior law, which is continued in effect for that purpose, as if this Code were not in force. For purposes of this section, an offense is committed before the effective date if any of the elements of the offense occurred before that date. (2) In any case pending on or commenced after the effective date of this Code, involving an offense committed before that date: (a) Upon the request of the defendant a defense or mitigation under this Code, whether specifically provided for herein or based upon the failure of the Code to define an applicable offense, shall apply; [4] In the case at bar the indictment was presented and filed on July 12, 1972, and the trial commenced on August 6, 1973. Consequently at a threshold level Section 101 is applicable. The opening sentence of this section announces its general purpose which is that [p]rosecutions for offenses committed before the effective date are governed by the prior law... .  The relevant exception in the case presently before us is subsection (2) which may be invoked at the request of the defendant without leave of the court. Cf. Hawaii Penal Code Section 101(2)(a). By way of invocation of this subsection the defendant may assert, either to defend or to mitigate the charge against him, any relevant provision prescribed for, or based upon the failure of the Code to define an applicable offense. With this language as a foundation, the appellants contend that the failure of the Hawaii Penal Code to define an applicable offense, i.e., cultivation of marijuana, results in a complete defense to the charge. We view the term applicable offense as described in Penal Code Section 101(2)(a) to mean an offense that is applicable to a given set of factual circumstances that make up a criminal act. Surely from the standpoint of consistency there can be no doubt but that the planting and growing of marijuana is at least as pernicious as is the possession of a single marijuana cigarette. One cannot say that the failure to proscribe cultivation per se under the new Code evidences a legislative intent to allow the planting and growing of marijuana inasmuch as the legislature has continued to forbid the possession of marijuana. Hawaii Penal Code §§ 1247 et seq. The result of failing to proscribe cultivation per se is only that charges stemming from such conduct must now be brought pursuant to §§ 1247 et seq. pertaining to possession; the gravity of the crime charged now turns on the amount and nature of the contraband possessed. Thus it cannot be said that the Hawaii Penal Code fails to define an applicable offense, and for this reason Hawaii Penal Code Section 101(2)(a) does not provide the defendants with a complete defense to the crime charged.