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Prosecutor
downplays Cockett
murder development

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By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

A U.S. magistrate's recommendation that the 1994 murder conviction of Janice Cockett be overturned and she be retried is just that -- a recommendation, the city prosecutor's office said.

Under federal statutes, only a U.S. District Court judge has the power to dispose of a petition, the office said. "The prosecutor's office will file a response to the recommendation, but the final decision will have to be determined by the federal District Court," the office said in a statement released yesterday that stopped short of saying it plans to appeal.

Attorney Michael Green, who represented Cockett in her appeal to the Hawaii Supreme Court, said he hoped to seek the U.S. District Court judge's approval to have her released on bail while the state appeals U.S. Magistrate Barry Kurren's ruling.

Cockett was convicted in the 1986 murder of her husband, Habilitat executive Frank Cockett, who was found bludgeoned to death in the trunk of a car at Ala Moana Center.

Kurren ruled last week that Cockett's due process rights were violated when she was denied the right to confront her accuser, Billy Makaila. Makaila's wife, Jaymie Mineshima, had testified that he told her Cockett had hired him to kill her husband.

But because Makaila denied on the stand that he had any knowledge of the murder except for what he heard in the news, Cockett's trial attorney felt there was no point in cross-examining him.

The trial judge allowed Mineshima's testimony about Makaila's confession to her for the purpose of showing the inconsistency of her husband's statements. The prosecutor argued that Mineshima's testimony was proof that Cockett had murdered her husband.

Prosecutors have 10 days to respond to Kurren's ruling.