Musings: Means and Ends

Note: This post has been corrected.

The anti-GMO Hawaii Center for Food Safety Action Fund spent $4,434.66 on election mailers to support 14th House District candidate Fern Rosenstiel.

The money came from the mainland-based Center for Food Safety Action Fund, the uber wealthy banking heiress Lavinia Currier, who started the Sacharuna Foundation and owns a ranch on Molokai; and Oahu resident Randy Ching, co-founder and president of Civil Beat, an activist with the Sierra Club. [Correction: I identified the wrong Randy Ching.]

Campaign reports show Ching also donated $2,000 directly to Fern's campaign, as well as to Maui House candidate Tiare Lawrence. Both are on the CFS slate.

Gee, so Civil Beat funder/founder and editorial board member Pierre Omidyar is donating money to CFS, and Ching has teamed up with CFS to support anti-GMO candidates. Cozy. Stinky, even. [Correction: Omidyar does fund CFS, but Civil Beat's Randy Ching has not given campaign donations to anti-GMO candidates. E kala mai.]

Yet to hear editor Patti Epler tell it, Civil Beat has no conflict of interest at all. Ya, right.

For someone who claims to be a “grassroots candidate," Fern has been heavily bankrolled by off-island sources. CFS also ran a misleading phone campaign for Fern, where they made like she was the only candidate supporting local food.

Isn't this what's known as astro-turfing?

Interestingly, one of Fern's big donors — Jeffrey Bronfman, New Mexico-Maui resident, Seagram whiskey heir and mestre in the ahuyasca church — also made $2,000 donations to Tiare and House hopeful Jonathan Wong, another candidate on the CFS slate.

Curious how these anti-corporate candidates have no problem taking money derived from banking and booze empires.

Meanwhile, Monday's post on the Kauai prosecutor's race piqued the interest of the legal community, with some members raising concerns about the ethics and honesty of challenger Lisa Arin.

It seems Arin has twice had cases thrown out of court because she failed to share all the evidence with defense attorneys, as is required by law and legal ethics.

In a felony assault and abuse case, she buried a police report in which the officer questioned the credibility of the accuser to the point of suggesting the accuser should be prosecuted for filing a false report. 

The omission was revealed on the eve of the trial. And it came out only because Arin was on vacation. The deputy prosecutor handling the case in her absence noticed the document and properly turned it over to the defense, who immediately requested a dismissal.

According to the court minutes:

BASED UPON THE CHAMBERS MEETING WITH COUNSEL AND THE STATEMENTS AND ARGUMENTS PRESENTED, THE COURT GAVE A STERN WARNING TO THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE ABOUT TURNING OVER EVIDENCE IN A TIMELY MANNER. COURT NOTED THAT WHILE IT WILL NOT ISSUE A SANCTION AGAINST THE PROSECUTOR'S OFFICE, IT WILL CONDUCT A FURTHER INVESTIGATION AND WILL CONSIDER REFERRAL OF THIS MATTER TO THE OFFICE OF THE DISCIPLINARY COUNSEL. THE COURT DISMISSED THE MATTER WITH PREJUDICE.

Another breach occurred in the case of Steve Westerman, who was charged with six counts of sexual assault. According to the order to declare a mistrial, which the court granted:

In the fourth day of a jury trial, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Lisa Arin began her cross-examination of the last Defense witness by asking: “Dr. Acklin, isn't it true that your own son is currently charged with sexually assaulting a child?” The Office of the Prosecuting Attorney possessed this information including “publicly accessible” documents relating to Dr. Acklin's son's pending case which were never disclosed to the Defendant or the Court. 

By not disclosing this information... [Arin's] conduct infringed on Defendant's right to a fair trial. The failure to disclose was prosecutorial misconduct.

In this case, Arin's misconduct was referred to the Office of Disciplinary Counsel, and the OPA had to retry the case, with First Deputy Jennifer Winn securing a conviction.

Concerns also were raised about Arin's zeal to convict, which resulted in such questionable tactics as "fudging probable cause to ramp misdemeanors into felonies," intentionally setting high bails and taking dicey actions with the Grand Jury, such as filing lesser charges based on police declarations when she knew the victim was recanting or refusing to participate.

It's one thing to be tough on crime. It's quite another to act as if the ends justify the means. That's an attitude that has no place in the Office of Prosecuting Attorney.