Doesn't this fall under the "obstruction of justice" description? The records were the subject of pending court cases. Destruction of evidence and/or obstruction of justice is a felony.
I don’t think any of the court cases specifically asked for the original birth INDEX or the index of foreign births, although it would be reasonable to expect that anything original could be brought into a court case regarding the legitimacy of the documentation at any time - which is probably why the original records are required to be retained permanently.
That’s one reason why destroying these records would be such a serious offense.
Remember the huge stink when the interrogation tapes were destroyed? As far as I know, there was nothing legally requiring those to be kept and yet there was a big stink over it because those tapes could have potentially been used as evidence in a future lawsuit. These are records that ARE required to be retained, forever.
Once again, though, the question isn’t what the laws are or what is legal. The question is what law anybody is willing to ENFORCE. So far Hawaii is batting .000 on that.