Legal writing readings

Via the (new) legal writer, the new issue of Journal of the Association of Legal Writing Directors is available -

In this issue, our authors show how better understanding of metaphor and story can help lawyers become more discerning as legal readers and more effective and persuasive as legal writers. Volume 7 includes twelve articles on subjects ranging from readers’ reactions to persuasive storytelling in briefs to analysis of the rhetorical effects of oral argument questioning by the U.S. Supreme Court.

"Public Photography Laws - Photographing Police and Public Places"

 Glenn Reynolds in Popular Mechanics discusses an issue this blog has touched on in the past -

Legally, it's pretty much always okay to take photos in a public place as long as you're not physically interfering with traffic or police operations. As Bert Krages, an attorney who specializes in photography-related legal problems and wrote Legal Handbook for Photographers, says, 'The general rule is that if something is in a public place, you're entitled to photograph it.' What's more, though national-security laws are often invoked when quashing photographers, Krages explains that 'the Patriot Act does not restrict photography; neither does the Homeland Security Act.' But this doesn't stop people from interfering with photographers, even in settings that don't seem much like national-security zones.

Tennessee law student Morgan Manning has compiled a list of incidents in which individuals were wrongly stopped. Cases like that of Seattle photographer Bogdan Mohora, who was arrested for taking pictures of police arresting a man and had his camera confiscated. Or NASA employee Walter Miller, who was stopped for photographing an art exhibit near the Indianapolis City-County Building and told that "homeland security" forbade photos of the facility. More recently, a CBS news crew was turned back from shooting the oil-fouled gulf coastline by two U.S. Coast Guard officers who said they were enforcing "BP's rules."

Unfortunately, Manning notes, although such hassling is generally illegal, it's hard for the average citizen to get redress in court...

If it's an issue that interests you, I've got a link to Carlos Miller's Photography is Not a Crime blog in the sidebar to your right. And if you have a professional interest in the subject, whether as a photographer or as counsel, look at the Legal Handbook for Photographers at the link in the quote from the article.

County farm worker housing bill passes

Garden Island:

Now, if and as soon as Mayor Bernard P. Carvalho Jr. signs the bill into law, farmers who generate an annual gross income of over $35,000 and have an agriculture dedication under the county Finance Department Real Property Tax Division will be able to apply for permits to build up to three farm-worker dwellings of no more than 1,800 feet of combined area.

"Scalia: Supreme Court should not be moral arbiters"

AP Yahoo! News on a speech by Justice Scalia this week at Montana State University's Museum of the Rockies.

Antonin Scalia believes Supreme Court justices are all too often deciding the nation's morals from the bench.
...
He said the Supreme Court should abandon the notion of a "living constitution" — an approach the court adopted in the last half of the 20th century that has resulted in the nation's charter being rewritten time and again by unelected judges who are unqualified to make decisions on morality.

Instead, the court should go back to the time when the constitution and the meaning of laws were considered static and could only be changed by an amendment of the people, he said.

The modern court's "living constitution" doctrine has resulted in the Supreme Court acting as moral arbiters for the nation, he said.

Ag land TVR bill update

Wednesday the County Council passed by 5-2 vote a bill that if signed by the mayor will allow owners of transient vacation rentals on ag lands and who meet various criteria to apply for non-conforming use permits. Such TVRs were denied the right by a 2008 ordinance. Here's today's Garden Island coverage of the bill and the vote and some of the history of the issue.

An opinion from Blaine Kobayashi in 2000, when he was a county attorney, stated the county should regulate TVRs operating outside Visitor Destination Areas.

On March 7, 2008, the late Mayor Bryan Baptiste signed a bill that allowed owners of those TVRs to apply for permits as long as they met certain criteria, which included paying state general excise and hotel-room taxes (TAT, or transient accommodations tax).

Ordinance 864 outlaws TVRs outside VDAs that started operating anytime after the day after Baptiste signed the bill.

Under that ordinance, however, owners of TVRs that were operating on agricultural lands were denied the ability to apply for permits. Council Vice Chair Jay Furfaro and Bynum have said that by denying those owners the ability to apply, the county could face lawsuits.

The bill

allows owners of transient vacation rentals on agricultural lands to apply for non-conforming use permits as long as their operations meet certain criteria.
...
If the agricultural land is less than 15 acres, owners need to apply with the Planning Department. Anything over that, the state Land Use Commission has the final say...
...
The bill does not extended [sic] the cut-off date of March 7, 2008. TVR owners who apply will have to have been in operation prior to that date. In addition to proof of payment of TAT and GET and receipts, owners will have to prove agricultural activity prior to the cut-off date, and have agricultural dedications registered with the county Finance Department Real Property Division.

In case the size, shape, topography, location or surroundings of the property, or other circumstances, did not allow for an agricultural dedication or inhibited agricultural activities, the department may exempt the owner from the agricultural-dedication criteria.

Arizona appeals

...as long as I'm following the story, I might as well update. 

Via Yahoo! News

Arizona asked [the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals] Thursday to lift a judge's order blocking most of the state's immigration law...

The State's Motion to Expedite Briefing and Hearing Schedule is here.  The exhibits include a copy of the lower judge's preliminary injunction order.

Update: Via SCOTUS BLOG -

The Justice Department on Thursday joined the state of Arizona in urging a federal appeals court to put review of the state’s new alien control law on a fast track.  The Department, however, asked for a different briefing schedule than the state had proposed.  The U.S. response is here.

BlackBerry App World 2.0 Beta Launch

Via Inside BlackBerry – The Official BlackBerry Blog

Is "foolish" a finding of fact, or a conclusion of law?

WTOL.com

Wearing saggy pants is not a crime, just foolish.

That's how a New York City judge ruled in throwing out a summons issued to a man wearing low-slung pants that exposed his underwear.

08-16704 - Day v. Apoliona - US 9th Circuit Case Summary

Via FindLaw (contains link to decision) -

In an action by native Hawaiians contending that the trustees of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, a Hawaii state agency that administered a portion of a public trust's proceeds, breached the trust, summary judgment for defendants is affirmed where: 1) alleged violations of state laws regarding the management and disposition of funds were not necessarily breaches, under federal law, of the trust itself; and 2) nothing in the trust's terms or purposes either requires the kind of comparative analysis plaintiffs proposed or suggested that Congress intended to prohibit expenditures whose benefits may extend beyond the trust's purposes.

Star Advertiser -

The Office of Hawaiian Affairs won a key victory yesterday when a federal appeals court said it will uphold a decision that the agency may fund programs supporting those who have less than 50 percent native Hawaiian blood.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled that OHA's trustees may spend money for several programs that benefit all Hawaiians, regardless of their blood quantum.
...

The lawsuit was filed by five native Hawaiians who said OHA should fund programs and services only for those with 50 percent or more of Hawaiian blood.

MaoliWorld -

Lately in the "news" the editors are claiming "Less Hawaiian blood OK for OHA's help, court rules."
...

Except that is NOT what was in the complaint that was filed by the four plaintiffs and it was NOT what the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled.

Hawaii Free Press -

Actually the Court holds that the Admission Act PROTECTS the right of the State to create OHA. Not stated by the Advertiser, this ruling ELIMINATES one of the key arguments for the Akaka Bill—that OHA needs to be protected from discrimination suits by being made part of a tribal jurisdiction. For better or worse, the Court has held that OHA is protected by the Hawaii Admission Act. This is a far superior form of protection than could be gained via any tribal structure.

"6 gay couples in Hawaii sue to get same rights as marriage following civil unions veto"

AP via The Buffalo News:

Six gay couples in Hawaii are filing a lawsuit Thursday asking for the same rights as married couples, three weeks after Gov. Linda Lingle vetoed a same-sex civil unions measure.

The lawsuit doesn't seek the titles of 'marriage' or 'civil unions' for gay partners. Instead, it requests that the court system extend them the benefits and responsibilities of marriage based on the Hawaii Constitution's prohibition against sex discrimination.

Update: Star-Advertiser -

The lawsuit, being filed today in Circuit Court, asks the court to step in where the Legislature did not and reverse the effect of Lingle's veto.

"We're seeking to secure equal legal protections and legal responsibilities for same-sex couples under the civil law," said Jennifer Pizer, an attorney for Lambda Legal, one of three co-counsels filing the complaint.

The lawsuit seeks a court order that same-sex couples be allowed to enter a legal status, known as a civil union, that would have the same legal rights and responsibilities that other couples can acquire through marriage.

On Top Mag -

The groups are returning to court after winning a landmark 1993 Hawaii Supreme Court case that struck down a law that limited marriage to heterosexual couples. But in approving the nation's first constitutional amendment that defines marriage as a heterosexual union, voters overturned the decision in 1998.

The amendment, however, left the door open for other forms of legal recognition for gay and lesbian couples, something gay activists have since urged lawmakers to act on.

The new lawsuit seeks the benefits and responsibilities of marriage for gay couples without asking the court for the titles of “marriage” or “civil unions.” The groups say the Hawaii Constitution prohibits sex discrimination.

More from inversecondemnation.com on the Leonard nomination

inversecondemnation.com: How To Evaluate The Leonard Nomination


...

Arizona Immigration Law Partially Blocked

Following up on Friday's post about a motion for a preliminary injunction to stop the law from taking effect while lawsuits against it proceed the AP reports that while the overall law will still go into effect tomorrow, it will do so without sections that required officers to check a person's immigration status while enforcing other laws, required immigrants to carry their papers at all times, made it illegal for undocumented workers to solicit employment in public places, and allowed warrantless arrests of suspected illegal immigrants.

"Requiring Arizona law enforcement officials and agencies to determine the immigration status of every person who is arrested burdens lawfully-present aliens because their liberty will be restricted while their status is checked," U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled.
...
"There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new [law]," Bolton ruled. "By enforcing this statute, Arizona would impose a 'distinct, unusual and extraordinary' burden on legal resident aliens that only the federal government has the authority to impose."

Lingle's judicial legacy

David Shapiro -

After eight years of getting nowhere with the Democratic Legislature on her policy initiatives, the Judiciary is Lingle's only clear legacy. By the time she leaves, Lingle will have appointed three of the five Supreme Court justices, five of six judges on the Intermediate Court of Appeals and more than half of the Circuit Court judges.
...
Even with Lingle appointing three of the five Supreme Court justices, it's still arguably a Democratic majority.

Her first appointee, James E. Duffy Jr. in 2003, had previously been backed by Hawaii Sens. Daniel Inouye and Daniel Akaka for the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, but his nomination by President Bill Clinton washed out in the transition between the Clinton and Bush administrations.

When lawyers go bad

Fla. lawyer accused of vandalizing client's home -

LONGWOOD, Fla.—A lawyer was accused of burglarizing the home of a client who filed a complaint against him with the Florida Bar. Albert Ford II was being held on charges of burglary to a structure causing damage, grand theft, criminal mischief and burglary to an occupied dwelling. The 43-year-old Longwood environmental and land use lawyer was arrested Thursday. He has his first court appearance Friday afternoon.

What kind of opinions might we expect of of Hawaii Supreme Court Justice nominee Katherine Leonard?

Robert Thomas in Hawaii Reporter -

We’ve done an informal survey of the 2010 output of the ICA (and the Supreme Court in reviewing the ICA’s work) to pick out those cases in which Judge Leonard authored the opinion, or served on the panel in an interesting case. We tried to focus on published opinions, but there were several unpublished opinions which also caught our attention.
...
What, if anything, can be taken away from this admittedly cursory review of Judge Leonard’s recent judicial output, other than the fact that her opinions can be easily identified by their boldfacing of parentheticals (read them and you will see)?

First, if the Reel Hooker Sportfishing opinion is an indication, we can expect some clear writing and analysis in her work product. We should expect no less from a fellow veteran of the University of Hawaii Law Review. A very good sign.

Second, that Justice Acoba took the time to dissent from denials of certiorari review in Strong and Tuialii to point out his express differences with her opinions, might indicate a continuation of the often interesting splits of opinions between Justice Acoba and the other members of the Court. We could not find any cases in which Judge Leonard staked out a position different from her fellow panel members by filing a dissenting or concurring opinion, but that is not particularly unusual for the ICA. That may change if she becomes the Chief Justice, and if Justice Acoba continues his practice of filing separate opinions to set forth his differences with the Court, we could see an interesting dynamic develop between the two.

Nice work, Robert. Read the whole thing. Some eleven opinions are analyzed and linked.

Also available on Robert's blog, inversecondemnation.com.

Other ag land issues around the state

Pacific Business News -

The Hawaii Land Use Commission could decide as early as this summer whether to reclassify 766 acres of agricultural land in Central Oahu for Castle & Cooke’s proposed Koa Ridge master-planned community.

...[T]he commission is set to hear final arguments next month from the petitioner, Castle & Cooke Homes Hawaii Inc., and opponents such as the Sierra Club of Hawaii. A decision could be made in September.

...
The Sierra Club also opposed the project, noting that Koa Ridge would mean the loss of 766 acres of productive farm land.

Slightly off topic - Arizona's immigration law

Off topic, but too interesting to ignore. This Washington Post report is the first I've noticed of any substantive proceedings in the administration's challenge of Arizona's new immigration law, which empowers police to question people they have a "reasonable suspicion" are illegal immigrants and to send them to federal authorities for possible deportation. The Feds argue the law is preempted - that the regulation of immigration is exclusively a federal power. The state argues, on the contrary, that it enjoys a sovereign right to secure its borders against illegal immigration.

According to the WaPo story, at a hearing yesterday on whether the federal district court will grant a preliminary injunction to stop the law from taking effect while the lawsuit proceeds, the judge challenged the federal claims.

"Why can't Arizona be as inhospitable as they wish to people who have entered or remained in the United States?" U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton asked in a pointed exchange with Deputy Solicitor General Edwin S. Kneedler. Her comment came during a rare federal court hearing in the Justice Department's lawsuit against Arizona and Gov. Jan Brewer (R).

Bolton, a Democratic appointee, also questioned a core part of the Justice Department's argument that she should declare the law unconstitutional: that it is "preempted" by federal law because immigration enforcement is an exclusive federal prerogative.

"How is there a preemption issue?" the judge asked. "I understand there may be other issues, but you're arguing preemption. Where is the preemption if everybody who is arrested for some crime has their immigration status checked?"

There was no ruling on the motion yesterday.

How to scrub metadata from WordPerfect Documents

(Via Futurelawyer)Community - Saving WordPerfect Files Without Metadata

Fortunately, the issue of metadata is primarily a Microsoft® Word problem. Word stores information about a document in a hidden area at the end of the file. You can't access it, so you can't remove it. Although there are macro routines that can scrub this invisible area, they are not foolproof.

WordPerfect® handles metadata differently from Word. Features that might store hidden or attached data are readily available, so confidential or sensitive information can be removed from a file before it is shared electronically. This is one of the many reasons that legal professionals favor WordPerfect.

Katherine Leonard picked as next Hawaii chief justice

Pacific Business News (Honolulu)

Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle on Thursday selected Katherine Leonard to serve as Hawaii’s next chief justice.

Leonard, currently an associate judge on the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals, would be the first woman to serve as chief justice of the Hawaii Supreme Court.

If confirmed by the state Senate, Leonard will succeed outgoing Chief Justice Ronald Moon, who will retire in September at age 70, as mandated by state law.

County Council Planning Committee approves ag land TVR bill

...which, if it passes in the full council, will in part allow owners of single family vacation rentals that existed on agricultural land as of March 2008 to apply for a special land use permit and remain in business as TVRs.

The only first-hand account I've seen so far is on Joan Conrow's Kauaieclectic blog. Joan is strongly opposed to the bill and most of her post consists of criticism of testimony (she characterizes it as whining) which, according to Joan, ran almost all in favor of the bill.

Joan does report that the committee attached an amendment that would require applicants to be engaged in bona fide farming, as evidenced by state and federal tax returns, unless the planning commission finds the shape, size, topography or surrounding land uses inhibits intensive agriculture.

Mel Rapozo left an inside-baseball comment on Joan's post indicating that Dickie and Lani are the last best hope for opponants of the bill.

The indignities of sovereignty

Via NYTimes.com - U.S. Rules May Bar Iroquois From Lacrosse Event

The Iroquois national lacrosse team was hoping to spend Monday getting acclimated in England as it prepared for its first game in this year’s world championships.

Instead, the team was stuck in a hotel in Midtown Manhattan, missing the visas needed to travel abroad....

The [Iroquois] Nationals’ 50-person delegation had planned to travel to Manchester, England, on Sunday on their own tribal passports, as they have done for previous international competitions, team officials said.

But on Friday, the British consulate informed the team that it would only issue visas to the team upon receiving written assurance from the United States government that the Iroquois had been granted clearance to travel on their own documents and would be allowed back into the United States.
...
“Lacrosse is our game — we are the originators, we invented the game, there are 60 countries that play our game,” said Denise Waterman, a member of the team’s board of directors. “And now we can’t go to a tournament that’s honoring our game? It’s almost unbelievable that this is happening.”

Spokesmen for the Department of Homeland Security and the British consulate said that they would not comment on specific cases. A spokeswoman for the State Department would only say that the Iroquois team has been offered expedited United States passports, but they declined that offer.

It's not too hard to imagine a post-Akaka Bill sovereign Hawaiian surf team finding itself in similar circumstances.

Pro se litigation is up

Via Law.com - Pro Se Representation Is Up -- and That's Bad, Say Judges in ABA Survey:

A survey of state judges by the American Bar Association indicates that fewer parties in civil cases are being represented by lawyers, and in the opinion of most of the judges, the outcomes of those cases are worse for it.

The Coalition for Justice, an arm of the ABA that focuses on access to the courts, conducted the survey in an attempt to measure the impact of the economic recession. The results, released Monday, echo warnings from the Brennan Center for Justice and other groups who say the nation's judicial systems are increasingly overburdened.
...
Asked how the lack of representation affects the parties, 62 percent of all judges said the outcomes are worse for a litigant when he represents himself, while 3 percent said they were better. The rest said there was no impact. The judges who saw worse outcomes said the most common problems for pro se litigants are failure to present necessary evidence, procedural errors, ineffective witness examination and failure to object to evidence properly.

I can attest to being frustrated on more than one occasion when pro se litigants who lost at trial approached me wanting representation, or advice, for an appeal and, while there appeared to be potentially reversible error in the trial, the litigant, fatally unaware of any such requirement, failed to preserve the issue(s). There is also often bewilderment expressed by pro se litigants regarding why the court refused to hear the testimony or allow the evidence or make the argument the litigant thought central to the case. And often, due to frustration at being stymied by a lack of familiarity with the various bodies of rules that govern litigation, pro se litigants end up in a hostile, oppositional relationship with the judge.

New HAWSC decision puts new twist on Kauai TVR controversy?

Part of the impetus behind the bill in the County Council that would grandfather existing ag land TVRs was the worry that the county might otherwise be vulnerable to suit by TVR owners who had operated with implicit and even explicit approval by the county. After Friday's Hawaii Supreme Court decision in County of Hawaii v. Ala Loop Homeowners, No. 27707 (PDF), it looks as though private parties who can show standing  might now enjoy a newly-minted right of action to challenge the validity of the new ordinance if it passes.

Via inversecondemnation.com, where Robert Thomas has been following the case,

The case involves a "new century charter school" located in the County of Hawaii (Big Island). The school sought to begin operations on land classified (zoned) as agriculture on the island of Hawaii. Such uses are not normally allowed in the Ag zone. The school's neighbors, the Ala Loop Homeowners, asserted the school needed a special permit pursuant to Haw. Rev. Stat. § 205-6, which allows a county planning commission to permit certain "unusual and reasonable uses" within an agricultural or rural district, despite the land not being zoned for such use.

The ICA had held that the homeowners group did not have a private right of action to enforce its HRS Chapter 205 claims against the school, but the Supreme Court said, on the contrary, "article XI, section 9 of the Hawaii Constitution creates a private right of action to enforce chapter 205 in the circumstances of this case[.]"

Belated ag land TVR comment response

A commenter raised a valid point earlier this month on my re-post of a TVR argument I had advanced last summer -

Charlie, I understand what you're saying, but you didn't address HRS Ch. 205-4.5 where it limits uses on ag land to certain specific uses which do not include transient rentals. It would appear that the State is saying, "We will tell you what you can do on ag land and it's limited to those uses." I believe this predates TVR uses on ag land so it appears that from the onset TVR use on ag land so that grandfathering isn't an option if it was never a "legal" use.

It's a good point that furthers the debate - and I've been remiss in not returning the courtesy of a response - so I thought it worth highlighting in a post of its own. My short response is: Supporters of grandfathering appear to be using a reliance argument. That is, the government allowed the activity and taxed the activity, and a county attorney opinion even interpreted the law as allowing the activity. It is therefore argued that owners reasonably relied on the government's assurances, and also that the government benefited by letting the owners TVR their properties. Hence, the county's stated concerns about law suits. Of course the county is likely to get sued regardless of which way it ultimately decides to go.

I'm not saying its an airtight point. It leaves a lot of room for debate, and I welcome that debate here.

Hawaii Senators Reach Agreement On Akaka Bill Amendments

Via Gov Monitor, three changes to the language approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in HR 2314.

Judge declares US gay-marriage ban is unconstitutional

Via The Boston Globe:

A federal district court judge in Boston today struck down the 1996 federal law that defines marriage as a union exclusively between a man and a woman.

Judge Joseph L. Tauro ruled that the federal Defense of Marriage law violates the Constitutional right of married same-sex couples to equal protection under the law and upends the federal government’s long history of allowing states to set their own marriage laws.

'This court has determined that it is clearly within the authority of the Commonwealth to recognize same-sex marriages among its residents, and to afford those individuals in same-sex marriages any benefits, rights, and privileges to which they are entitled by virtue of their marital status,' Tauro wrote. 'The federal government, by enacting and enforcing DOMA, plainly encroaches upon the firmly entrenched province of the state.'

ACLU, Lambda Legal challenging civil unions veto

ACLU, Lambda Legal Are Ready With Lawsuit Challenging Lingle’s Veto-

The Hawaii ACLU and the Hawaii chapter of Lambda Legal have already prepared the lawsuit challenging the veto decision of Hawaii Governor Linda Lingle. Citing the possibility of long legal battles if she signed the civil unions bill (HB 444) into law, Governor Lingle vetoed it today.

Law.com - Lawyering Suits Pile Up at High Court

An important article for practitioners -

From client advice to attorney fees to ineffective assistance of counsel, the U.S. Supreme Court decided an unusually large number of cases last term involving how lawyers do their jobs.

July Fourth Fourth Amendment thoughts

...by a renowned Fourth Amendment scholar and practitioner - FourthAmendment.com - It's your Fourth Amendment; Protect It, Use It, Enforce It:

We as a society have to change the government’s thinking about the Fourth Amendment. But, don’t blame Bush or Obama; blame yourself. If the government never has much respected the values of the Fourth Amendment, apparently “We the People,” the collective we, haven’t either.

It’s always the other guy’s privacy rights at issue, never yours. That short sighted thinking for the life of this country is what got us in this Constitutional mess. The rights of every citizen are protected when the rights of any one of us are. This is the boiling frog syndrome in action–what little rights we have we don’t even try to protect because we don’t see them slipping away when it is always the other guy who’s rights are violated.

...
Government hostility to individual privacy is endemic for government employees and officials, and it long pre-dates the Fourth Amendment.

The Volokh Conspiracy » Gun License Fees and the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for Self-Defense

Interesting post in light of Hawaii gun registration requirements.

Happy Fourth

For a lawyer's perspective, read this.

Elsewhere, here's an excerpt from President Calvin Coolidge’s speech on the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

A couple of other legal stories in the Garden Island this morning

...that are worth pointing out.

The farm-worker housing bill before a divided County Council is deferred again until July 14.

And here's an interesting Q&A on the First Amendment by 1 For All, which is worth a read.

Garden Island: residents call police to stop Wailua Beach road work

Paul Curtis at the Garden Ilsand: Hawaiians want bridge work stopped, claim ‘obfuscation:

State Department of Land and Natural Resources agents suggested Kaua‘i residents Waldeen Palmeira, Ka‘iulani Edens and Liko Martin call police over concerns about a 20- foot-long, four-foot-deep trench makai of Kuhio Highway near Wailua Beach. So they did, filing a Kaua‘i Police Department complaint around 10:45 a.m. Wednesday, claiming desecration and obstruction of due process, part of an ongoing battle to prevent construction of roads and paths over and around Wailua Beach. They said they are lineal descendants who are certain the county coastal path along the beach will yield human remains during the construction process. The trio also said on both sides of Wailua River not enough investigation and consultation has been done into how many remains remain, and where they might be located.

It was almost exactly two years ago that Police Chief Darryl Perry halted groundbreaking at the besieged oceanfront Brescia property in a dramatic 11th-hour appearance on the site, stating that construction would violate the state burial desecration statute. Ultimately, the house was built. Paul Curtis doesn't report what came of yesterday's call to police, so presumably the chief declined to exercise his discretion.

As I've pointed out on this blog numerous times, while Hawaii is unique in the ubiquity of ancient burials and, therefore, guaranteed controversy and conflict in practically any activity involving much excavation, that's not to say that we are the only place where the future and the past collide in this way. Here, inversecondemnation.com, updates the latest development in the ongoing saga of the the use of eminent domain to take property in St. Johannes Cemetery for the expansion of O'Hare airport, and last week's oral argument in the appeal by the "living relatives" from an Illinois state court's judgment dismissing their claims.