07-29-2024, 09:17 PM
"I don't think it has anything to do with Mitch. The police seem to do this all of the time.
Must be something in Hawaii law." - Obie
Well, ultimately this case does have something to do with Mitch. When presented with facts in 2015 indicating that the wrong people were convicted, he claimed that he saw nothing to justify reopening the case. Had he done so, the Schweitzer brothers and Frank Pauline could have been cleared much sooner.
And this whole mess is not a matter of Hawaii law, but rather the culture of the Big Island criminal justice system. "Catch and release" is the main operating concept partly because the judges keep telling the county that the jail is inhumanely overcrowded and partly because they are too lenient to begin with. The prosecutors are afraid to publicly call out the lenient judges, and the cops feel like their efforts to get criminals off the street are undermined.
Getting back to Mitch Roth, I once personally saw him at a meet and greet when he first ran for prosecutor. In response to a direct question, he said he didn't see his job as putting people in jail. When asked three minutes later why he was still sending people to prison for non-violent marijuana charges, he said, "I have to enforce the law" without any obvious embarrassment. And that's who we have running the county.
Must be something in Hawaii law." - Obie
Well, ultimately this case does have something to do with Mitch. When presented with facts in 2015 indicating that the wrong people were convicted, he claimed that he saw nothing to justify reopening the case. Had he done so, the Schweitzer brothers and Frank Pauline could have been cleared much sooner.
And this whole mess is not a matter of Hawaii law, but rather the culture of the Big Island criminal justice system. "Catch and release" is the main operating concept partly because the judges keep telling the county that the jail is inhumanely overcrowded and partly because they are too lenient to begin with. The prosecutors are afraid to publicly call out the lenient judges, and the cops feel like their efforts to get criminals off the street are undermined.
Getting back to Mitch Roth, I once personally saw him at a meet and greet when he first ran for prosecutor. In response to a direct question, he said he didn't see his job as putting people in jail. When asked three minutes later why he was still sending people to prison for non-violent marijuana charges, he said, "I have to enforce the law" without any obvious embarrassment. And that's who we have running the county.