Editorial: Rebuilding trust in prosecutor’s office

In the wake of the Kealoha scandal and a recent audit that slammed office leadership, the city Department of the Prosecuting Attorney is overdue for an overhaul.

So it’s encouraging that the newly installed Honolulu prosecutor, Steve Alm, has made public a 100-day plan that initiates steps toward restoring trust in the agency tasked with promoting and ensuring public safety through effective, efficient and just prosecution.

Among the steps: an in-office review of cases touched by Katherine Kealoha, a former high-ranking deputy prosecutor, who is now in federal prison following conviction on charges including fraud, conspiracy and obstruction of justice. Her estranged husband, former Honolulu Police Chief Louis Kealoha, also has been convicted and sentenced to prison.

The Prosecutor’s Office also is moving forward with welcome corrective changes based on recommendations in the report issued by the Office of the City Auditor. They include an unambiguous internal complaints system and a more rigorous conflict-of-interest disclosure policy through which any appearance of conflict would remove an attorney from a case.

“Kathy Kealoha never should have been doing anything about making the call on whether a police officer would get charged or not, given that her husband was chief of police,” Alm said last week at a news conference announcing the housecleaning effort. “We want to make the culture here so people won’t even think of doing something like that, and we want to make it front of mind for the attorneys as they open up every case.”

While Alm’s predecessor in the elected post, Keith Kaneshiro, has not been charged in connection with the Kealohas’ case, he did receive a target letter from the U.S. Department of Justice. That landed the city’s top law enforcement officer on paid administrative leave for the last 20 months of his term — and left the office under a cloud of suspicion.

In November, voters approved an amendment to the City Charter that limits the city prosecutor’s term to two consecutive four-year periods — a needed move to refresh leadership.

Under Alm’s leadership plan, the office intends to aggressively tackle certain types of crime, such as child sex trafficking, domestic violence and white-collar crime. For other lesser types, the retired U.S. attorney and Circuit Court judge rightly pointed out, seeking rehabilitation instead of incarceration might make more sense.

Excluding offenders who are truly violent, dangerous or who “won’t stop stealing,” Alm estimates that up to 60% of defendants should be placed on probation or secure a deferral to options such as drug court, mental health court or home probation.

Alm has put this strategy to work through Project HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity Probation with Enforcement), an innovation he introduced while serving on Hawaii’s Circuit Court bench. It aims to reduce crime and drug use by giving offenders the opportunity to avoid prison as long as certain court-mandated conditions are met.

The HOPE program has its critics, and not all of its participants stay out of trouble. Still, the probation option often stands as a better bet for lasting rehabilitative gains while easing overcrowding in jails. Further, for many offenders and their families, the loss of employment and stigma tied to a prison sentence can be a fast track to lasting poverty; an improved system stressing rehabilitation focuses on re-entry into society to lessen recidivism.

The role of the Prosecutor’s Office, which represents the people and the state in criminal proceedings, among other matters, is to “make sure that the system is fair — that people are charged correctly,” Alm said.

His promises of more transparency and community engagement in problem-solving initiatives hold restorative potential. After the last few bruising years, the public is keen to see Alm and his prosecutors succeed on much-needed office mending and trust-building.