Disappeared News: Good day in court on Kauai

Friday, January 16, 2009

Good day in court on Kauai

by Larry Geller

Joan Conrow braved the weather to visit the Lihue courthouse yesterday. And stuff happened. Good stuff.

You’ll remember that charges of trespassing were used against protestors in the confrontation over the Naue grave desecrations on Kauai last August.

Joan reported that charges were dismissed against… well, here’s a bit of what she said:

District Court Judge Trudy Senda dismissed trespassing charges against four of the guys arrested following an attempt last Aug. 7 to stop Joe Brescia from building his house atop burials at Naue. Charges also will be dropped against the other two who were arrested. It’s unclear what’s going to happen to the two men who have not yet been served with warrants.

I hate snipping this article, but maybe this fact, lifted unfairly from Joan’s complete article, will encourage you to read her account:

As a result of the failure of the administrative process, Defendants, believing that further desecrations were imminent, were compelled to occupy the property on August 7, 2008 to malama iwi kupuna.

I hope they understand this reasoning when they read the case over at Yale Law School. There are things that we believe are important to protect here that are undreamed of back on the Continent (Or, for that matter, over at the US Supreme Court).

Also check out Joan’s account in the same article of another win, for a surf school that was found to be properly offering services in a county park without a license. In fact, it appears that if they had a license they couldn’t offer services. I think I got that right. Joan explains all in her article.