04-07-2018, 05:08 AM
Interesting that the Hawaii US Court site is silent on excusing for distance. California US District Court web site specifies that you can be excused if you are more than 80 miles distant from the courthouse. They say that you may, if you choose, serve from greater distances and that your travel/lodging/subsistence costs will be covered.
I would suspect that it isn't an oversight that Hawaii is silent on this - everyone from off-island would request a waiver automatically. But I have a hard time believing that Federal rules would consider traveling 80 miles in California would be a greater hardship than flying inter-island in Hawaii(although would concede that driving across Los Angeles county would rank a distant second on my enjoyment scale to an inter-island flight from Hilo to HNL).
I would suspect that it isn't an oversight that Hawaii is silent on this - everyone from off-island would request a waiver automatically. But I have a hard time believing that Federal rules would consider traveling 80 miles in California would be a greater hardship than flying inter-island in Hawaii(although would concede that driving across Los Angeles county would rank a distant second on my enjoyment scale to an inter-island flight from Hilo to HNL).