TMT - Contested Case Hearing Status - Hilo

[Eric1600]

Yesterday's testimonies were full of drama too. For example, Brandon couldn't cross-examine because of a medical condition. When asked to elaborate he said I can't think clearly without REM sleep and continued to argue he had a medical excuse which he could produce. Amano just said you seem to be expressing coherent thoughts now, he shot back you're not qualified to decide that. So the judge was disinclined to reschedule the witness, but another cross-examiner was unable to find his map he wanted to discuss and was not prepared in spite of this being his second chance to be prepared and cross-examine. So the judge arranged for both to continue on Wednesday since the witness could be made available then again. There were also numerous attempts to sneak in the Hawaii has no authority or jurisdiction arguments. And they kept asking the witness about where he was born (California), when he moved to Hawaii, who he worked for in the past, and in general searching for anything to try and use against him. One cross examiner tried to argue California was not one of the original 13 states and tried to imply he could not represent the US in addition to trying to argue that the CDUA is a process for "indian lands" not Hawaiians, but the judge just said this witness can not testify to any of those issues.

So not only did the originally scheduled witness take up all of Monday, he has to come back for more on Wednesday. And they are having a time crunch to get another witness on the stand before he has to leave to return to South America.