On Politics: Troubling questions surround Kaneshiro, once Dems’ law-and-order man

Going from being the darling of the old Hawaii Democratic machine to now someone under federal investigation, Keith Kaneshiro’s career as the Honolulu prosecutor appears ready to flame out.

Back in 1988, then-city Prosecutor Charles Marsland was a political nightmare for the Hawaii political establishment. He was a brash, opinionated Republican who had clicked with the voters. While his whole message was anticrime, Democrats could see support for Marsland growing into a GOP movement, since much of the lanky crimefighter’s appeal was his willingness to attack Democratic majordomo Larry Mehau as a key figure in organized crime. Marsland’s claims were unproven, but it didn’t stop him from raising alarms.

Up stepped Kaneshiro, a former deputy attorney general and director of the now-defunct Hawaii Crime Commission, to run against Marsland. The Democratic Party apparatus swung into action as then-Gov. John Waihee appeared at a Kaneshiro rally at the Waikiki Shell, hugging the candidate and heaping praise on his campaign.

The next blow was delivered by an ad-hoc labor group called the Committee on Labor Education running full-page newspaper ads attacking Marsland. Kaneshiro won and the victory essentially collapsed Marsland’s platform. Kaneshiro then won a second term, before declining to run for a third consecutive term. Kaneshiro later tried but failed to get his old job back, running against the incumbent prosecutor, Peter Carlisle.

Kaneshiro did make it back, winning a special election to serve the final two years of the term vacated by Carlisle to run for mayor, and then in 2012 and 2016 winning two more full terms against minimal opposition.

Now the veteran of almost two decades as city prosecutor is a target of a federal probe.

As of press time, Kaneshiro has refused to talk about the case, while his political opponents and defense attorneys are ripping him apart.

Last week Kaneshiro’s office declined comment, refusing to confirm or deny that the 69-year-old prosecutor and two of his top deputies, Chasid Sapolu and Janice Futa, got letters from the U.S. Justice Department linking them to a federal investigation of government corruption.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser and other news media have reported that Kaneshiro received what is called a target letter, indicating that he is a target of the federal investigation arising from the federal indictment of former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha and his wife, former Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kealoha.

Defense attorney Brook Hart told the newspaper that Kaneshiro should salvage the dignity of the office, by taking a leave while the case goes through the courts.

“To maintain the pristine reputation of the justice system to the extent it can be maintained, it would be for the better to have an attorney who is properly qualified to act in the stead of the attorney at the top of the office who is now a target of a federal investigation,” Hart said in a Star-Advertiser report. “It’s a matter of the appearance of justice versus going on with everyday business as if nothing has happened. A lot has happened.”

A federal probe is not an indictment and an indictment is not a judgment of guilt, but Kaneshiro’s actions only raise questions with the possibility of some troubling answers.

Richard Borreca writes on politics on Sundays. Reach him at 808onpolitics@gmail.com.