Giving credence to the wildest claim for Hawaiian separatism, a state judge has turned state law on its head by allowing a convicted child abuser to remain free on bail while awaiting an appellate court's ruling that she is not exempt from the law. Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall should be reprimanded for her outrageous misconduct in deciding that such an appeal has an ounce of legal merit, and her ruling should be quickly overturned.

An assistant city prosecutor asked Crandall last month to sentence Rita Makekau to a maximum of 41 years in prison for brutalizing her sister's five sons and daughters, now ages 10 to 18, in her custody, which began four years ago. Makekau's daughter and and son-in-law were sentenced in August to a year in jail after pleading no contest to child abuse. Crandall sentenced Makekau to a five-year prison term.

Makekau's abuse included hitting the children's heads with knives and cans of dog food, their fingers with metal and wooden spoons and their mouths with a hammer. She was accused of holding them underwater in the bathtub, holding their hands over the stove and shoving a broomstick down a child's throat.

Admitting to the abuse, Makekau cited the Bible for not “;sparing the rod”; on children and entered a plea of no contest. Her only contention on appeal is that she is immune from state law as foreign minister of the separatist Hawaiian Kingdom Government. Crandall allowed Makekau to remain free on bail.

The law allows a defendant to remain free during the process of a meritorious appeal, as city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle pointed out. “;And no matter what you think about sovereignty,”; he added, “;that is not a meritorious claim for somebody who has committed a crime under the laws of Hawaii.”; The Hawaiian sovereignty bill being considered by Congress would not provide anyone immunity from state and federal laws.