LETTER TO THE MAUI PROSECUTORS OFFICE FROM PROFESSOR KEKAILOA PERRY:
Aloha Kākou,
I am Kekailoa Perry, Associate Professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at Manoa teaching a current issues class in Hawaiian Studies. Our class is reviewing the legal and policy decisions in the State of Hawaiʻi v. Samuel Kaeo (No. 2DCW-17-0002038) case. We are also studying the cultural rules and practices relating to language and sacred sites as they are impacted by your offices prosecution in this case. After witnessing the actions of the judge and prosecutor in yesterday's "trial" I feel obligated to express to you my concern in the way your office has handled the case from the point of view of a Hawaiian community member.
I am writing to implore you as officers of the court in the State of Hawaiʻi to make a conscious decision to carryout your duties, honor the constitution and protect the constitutional right outlined in Article XV§4 of the State Constitution by supporting the active, functional use of Hawaiian language in the courts and public places.
The legal and policy arguments made by your office (via your English only motion) in the case, State of Hawaiʻi v. Samuel Kaeo (No. 2DCW-17-0002038), were poorly contrived and lacked the legal authority to make a convincing legal or policy argument persuasive enough for a more discerning court to grant.
More importantly, your effort to unconstitutionally deny Hawaiian language in the court speaks to the blatant abuse of your station and the responsibilities you pledged to protect. The office of the prosecutor carries such powerful and demanding responsibility. When you advocate in cases like these, your office shows contempt for the law and the citizens you are duty bound to protect. The State v Kaeo case you are managing is an unapologetic, naked act of cultural violence imposed against all Hawaiians. The community expects and demands better behavior than that which you currently display in your briefs and in the court.
Hawaiian language and Hawaiian people are more than activists, numbers on a docket or burdensome problems to be ignored. There is the law and then there is the responsibility of individuals to carryout the law with fairness and justice at its core. Looking at the way your office has handled this case, I am doubtful that youʻve done either of those things well enough to prove that this trial is anything more than an exercise of raw, brutish power against a distinct cultural, racial and political class of people. In most democracies who honor the law, this kind of action is tantamount to institutional racism or worse.
I am hearing now that the judge is calling back his bench warrant and that there may be some glimmer of consciousness in the leadership of your office. I hope that is true. Yet, nothing in the way your office has handled this case thus far has proven anything except the prosecutionʻs willingness to further the destruction of Hawaiian constitutional rights and tacitly support the ongoing threat of violence against Mr. Kaeo and all Hawaiians through your flawed interpretation of the law.
I urge you and your colleagues to find the will to free yourselves from the chains that bind you to such un-natural and hateful approaches to justice and peace. Be better than your predecessors. Be a better you. There is no value or benefit in litigating a case like this except to bludgeon the hearts and minds of the Hawaiian community. And even then, as you now notice, we have no intention of giving up. Who would be so empty to follow such an unhealthy path like the one you currently travel? Give up the case and give yourselves something to be proud of in this community of justice loving people. Moments from now, when this story is told in the classroom, in the school, in the church and in the home, yearn to be on the pono side of history.
Peace,
Kekailoa.
Kekailoa.
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