Kauai judicial nominee fends off criminal complaint

A Kauai attorney under consideration to become a state family court judge overcame what his supporters described as a surprise smear campaign Monday at the Legislature.

The state Senate Judiciary Committee recommended confirming Gregory Meyers as a state district judge for Family Court on Kauai after an unusual public hearing Thursday at which a criminal complaint filed recently against Meyers drew major attention.

Committee Chair Sen. Karl Rhoads said Monday that the allegations raised against Meyers weren’t convincing and should not establish a precedent that encourages people to file last-minute complaints against judicial nominees to disqualify them from being appointed as judges.

“It does not appear to me that Mr. Meyers’s behavior was either criminal or unethical,” said Rhoads (D, Downtown-Nuuanu-Liliha) before the committee’s 6-0 vote.

Thursday’s hourlong hearing was largely dominated by discussion of a criminal complaint filed against Meyers on Monday and received by the committee Wednesday.

The complaint made by a Kauai County deputy prosecutor alleges that Meyers, a defense attorney, tampered with a witness in a criminal case initiated in December and resolved in April.

The allegations, contained in a police report and a complaint filed with the state Judiciary’s Office of Disciplinary Counsel by Kauai County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Robert Christensen, were roundly criticized by several attorneys who testified before the committee and have worked with and against Meyers.

“This should have no concern for the committee,” Daniel Hempey, a Kauai attorney who once was a law partner of Meyers, told the panel.

According to Meyers and his supporters who are familiar with the allegations, the complaint involves a case in which Meyers represented a client who was charged with assault stemming from a fistfight.

The complaining witness in the fight wanted to withdraw his complaint to police, according to Meyers, so Meyers interviewed the man without saying much and took notes.

Meyers told the committee that his client asked for a written account based on the notes, and shortly after that the client returned with a signed statement from the complaining witness that Meyers forwarded to the Kauai County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney.

Prosecutors still proceeded to charge the client of Meyers with a crime, but after negotiations the accused person pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct, which Meyers said is an infraction that resulted in a ticket as opposed to a criminal offense.

Christensen didn’t present oral testimony to the committee, but opposed the confirmation of Meyers in written testimony in which Christensen said that he filed an ODC complaint and said Meyers is under criminal investigation for witness tampering initiated by his office and being investigated by the Kauai Police Department.

Meyers told the committee that what he did was ethical, and that it would have been malpractice not to talk to a witness who volunteered that they wanted to withdraw their police report.

“I have not violated any ethical rules, and I am confident that I will be vindicated through the ODC process,” he said.

Mauna Kea Trask, a partner at the Cades Schutte law firm on Kauai, concurred that it’s OK for a defense attorney to talk to a complaining witness. “The complaining witness is not a client of the prosecutors,” he told the committee, calling the complaint filed by Christensen bizarre.

Michelle Premeaux, a former deputy prosecuting attorney on Kauai, told the committee that defendants in criminal cases have due-process rights that include their counsel interviewing complaining witnesses.

“This frivolous police report that was filed by a deputy prosecuting attorney appears to be an attempt to scuttle Mr. Meyers’s nomination, and furthermore intimidate the defense community,” she said.

Craig De Costa, a Kauai attorney at the same firm with Premeaux and Hempey, said he has been a colleague and adversary of Meyers and knows him to be ethical and diligent. “He has proper temperament to be a judge,” De Costa told the committee. In written testimony, De Costa said, “The prosecutor’s idea that only those with a badge get to talk to witnesses belongs in another nation, not ours.”

The Hawaii State Bar Association, which reviews Judiciary candidates for being either qualified or unqualified, considered the complaint along with other research and deemed Meyers qualified.

Meyers, who started his career as an attorney working for the nonprofit Legal Aid Society of Hawaii in Hilo and served as a per diem family court judge on Kauai from 2014 to 2016, was nominated for a six-year term on the bench by Hawaii Supreme Court Chief Justice Mark Recktenwald on May 25 to succeed Edmund Acoba, who recently retired.

During Thursday’s hearing, Sen. Jarrett Keohokalole probed to what extent Meyers might have to recuse himself as a judge from cases involving county prosecutors if confirmed for the job. Rodney Maile, administrative director of the courts, said it’s possible but couldn’t say to what extent.

Keohokalole (D, Kailua-­Kaneohe) also asked Meyers whether he could be impartial in such instances.

Meyers said he would be 100% impartial. “I’m not vindictive,” he said. “That’s not the judge’s role. The judge’s role is to be impartial. The judge’s role is to be fair and diligent and independent.”

Rhoads said on Monday that Recktenwald was aware of the allegations against Meyers before he nominated Meyers from a list of six contenders offered by the state Judicial Selection Commission in April.

Rhoads also said the Kauai County Office of the Prosecuting Attorney does not oppose Meyers becoming a judge, and referred the criminal complaint made by Christensen to the state Office of the Attorney General.

If Meyers is found to have done wrong, Rhoads noted that he can be disciplined under Judiciary rules that allow for the removal of a judge.

A vote by all senators on the appointment of Meyers is scheduled for today.