POLICE departments on Kauai and in Honolulu are going through periods of embarrassment caused by serious accusations against high-ranking officers. However, the allegations may be a positive sign that a code of silence that has cloaked police misconduct for time immemorial has been broken. Whistle blowers dressed in blue should be encouraged to withstand peer pressure and bring honor to the police force. Police forces scrutinize
charges of misconductThe issue: High-ranking police officers
on Kauai and Oahu have been accused
by other officers of misconduct.Kauai Mayor Maryanne Kusaka placed police Chief George Freitas on paid leave for four months, awaiting completion of an investigation arising from a complaint by a police inspector and a lieutenant, two of the department's highest-ranking officers. The mayor declined to describe the nature of the complaint, but KITV-4 reported that Freitas is accused of trying to squelch an investigation of an officer facing felony charges stemming from a long-term sexual relationship with a girl younger than 14.
An Oahu grand jury has indicted Assistant Chief Rafael Fajardo Jr. and Maj. Jeffrey Owens on felony theft charges for allegedly diverting Honolulu Police Department funds to buy expensive food for consumption by officers, including Chief Lee Donohue. They are accused of feasting on rack of lamb, prime rib and other foods bought with money intended for the purchase of more common grub for cellblock detainees. Donohue stripped the two officers of their authority and assigned them to desk duty.
Both departments have been reluctant to disclose information about the alleged misconduct. The investigation of the food money came to light last November, when Maj. Gordon Young reported improprieties to the department's Internal Affairs Division. Fajardo and Owens were not named as suspects at that time and retained their high positions until they were indicted on Thursday.
Kusaka's placing of Freitas on leave came at the recommendation of the Kauai Police Commission. The mayor refused to disclose the nature of the allegations, saying only that "a public statement will be issued at the conclusion of the case." Freitas has asked that evidence from the investigation -- which he challenges -- be made public, and the mayor should honor that request.
Two years ago, the Honolulu Police Department was shamed when Officer David Chun invoked the police code of silence in refusing to implicate other officers in the beating of a man they had arrested. Chun admitted to having taken part in the beating and resigned from the police force in the belief that he had acted honorably in protecting his colleagues. His values were distorted.
High-ranking police officers brought real honor to the Kauai and Honolulu police forces by reporting activities they saw as official misconduct. They should be held up as models of integrity, instilling respect both within and beyond the ranks.
EACH person who walks away from death row with proof of wrongful conviction raises questions about how many other innocent people in this country have been executed before innocence could be proved. The most recent person to escape this ultimate miscarriage of justice is Charles Fain, who spent 18 years on death row for the rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl in a small town in Idaho. It is time that the United States join most other civilized societies in abolishing this barbaric and too often misdirected act of vengeance. Put capital punishment
into history booksThe issue: The seventh Death Row
inmate this year was freed after
his innocence was proved.Fain, who will turn 53 years old next month, owes his freedom to the advance of DNA testing, which indicated that hairs found on the girl's body and had been used to convict him were not his. The identity of the real killer is not known.
Fain is the seventh death-row inmate in the U.S. to be exonerated this year. At least 96 people have been proved innocent and freed from death rows since capital punishment was reinstated by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1976, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a Washington-based nonprofit group. During that time, 728 people have been executed, including 45 this year.
Hawaii is one of 12 states without the death penalty. No federal executions have been ordered here, probably because the Justice Department has avoided seeking the death penalty in states where it has been abolished. As columnist Molly Ivins noted Friday on these pages, Texas is by far the most egregious death-penalty state, responsible for 47 percent of the nation's executions.
The movement to abolish the death penalty has spread rapidly around the world in recent years. More than 40 countries have abandoned the practice since 1985. At this point, according to Amnesty International, 109 countries have ended capital punishment by law or in practice, and 86 retain it, although the number that actually execute prisoners is much smaller; 88 percent of the known executions last year took place in China, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United States.
Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, has sponsored a bill aimed at improving the quality of defense counsel in capital cases -- many defendants are represented by public defenders or relatively inexperienced court-appointed lawyers -- and ensure the availability of DNA testing in such cases. While those measures would be an improvement, the best remedy for this savage and irreversible level of punishment is to eliminate it altogether.
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