The state Supreme Court has reversed a decision that Louis Kealoha was entitled to taxpayer-funded legal representation while on trial for the scandal he was involved in as chief of the Honolulu Police Department.

The high court issued its opinion Opens in a new tab Tuesday, disagreeing with the Honolulu Police Commission’s argument that Kealoha’s actions during the scandal entitled him to an attorney paid by the City and County of Honolulu. The Police Commission argued that the city should represent Kealoha because his actions “were done in the performance of Kealoha’s duty as a police officer, even if unlawful and regardless of motive.”

Kealoha had asked the city to provide him with a defense attorney, which the Police Commission in 2019 granted despite a recommendation from the city Department of the Corporation Counsel to deny the request. The commission based its decision on state law and the commission’s own rules.

The city appealed the decision, but it was reaffirmed when the Intermediate Court of Appeals sided with the Police Commission, saying that Kealoha’s actions in the scandal were done as part of his duty as an officer because they were tasks that police chiefs generally perform.

The Supreme Court argued against that analysis, and in its Tuesday decision said that, based on that logic, “police officers who effectuate arrests without probable cause for personal, non-law-­enforcement-related vendettas, or who fabricate and submit false police reports for personal purposes, would be entitled to representation because arrests and preparation of police reports are ‘acts that police officers generally perform.’”

The former chief and his wife, former city Deputy Prosecutor Katherine Kea­loha, were sentenced in 2020 following one of Hawaii’s biggest public corruption scandals, in which the couple conspired to steal the proceeds from a reverse mortgage on a home belonging to Katherine Kealoha’s grandmother.

The scandal involved framing Katherine’s uncle, Gerard Puana, of stealing the Kealohas’ mailbox in 2013.

The actions performed by Louis Kealoha that the Police Commission focused on when it decided he deserved city-funded representation included ordering Honolulu police officers to conduct surveillance on Puana, creating a false police report identifying Puana as the suspect in the mailbox burglary, and telling officers to arrest Puana.

The commission’s decision was reaffirmed in 2020 in a Circuit Court decision and again in March 2022 in a decision by the ICA before Tuesday’s reversal.

“Kealoha’s duties did not include overseeing a criminal conspiracy to hide his and his wife’s misappropriation of funds belonging to others. His duties did not include conspiring to frame his wife’s uncle for a crime he did not commit,” the Hawaii Supreme Court decision said. “Kealoha failed to meet his burden of establishing that he was being prosecuted for acts done in the performance of his duties as Chief of Police.”

The decision also said, as part of its conclusion, that the state law the Police Commission used to argue in favor of Kealoha’s entitled legal defense also says that police duties should benefit the public.

“Taxpayer-funded representation for officers whose acts are in the performance of their duties as police officers benefit the public,” the decision said. “Taxpayer­-funded representation for officers whose acts are not in the performance of their duties as police officers do not.”

The city said it was “pleased” with the high court’s decision.

“The City understands that former Chief Kealoha was represented by court- appointed attorneys in the federal criminal case so the City has not paid for his criminal defense,” the Department of the Corporation Counsel said in a statement. “The City will continue to seek recovery of the payment to former Chief Kea­loha and continues to search for any assets to which the default judgment may be attached.”