It seemed like a tough decision at the time: Should the Honolulu Police Commission pay for the defense of scandal-ridden Police Chief Louis Kealoha, who had been charged with a variety of federal crimes, all allegedly perpetrated while he was employed by the Honolulu Police Department (HPD)?

In October 2017 and again in 2018, federal indictments were filed against Kealoha, stemming from an elaborate scheme using HPD resources to frame his wife’s uncle to cover the couple’s own misdeeds. Over the objections of Honolulu’s corporation counsel, the police commission voted in 2019 to use public money to cover Kealoha’s defense. Its key rationale was that an officer’s actions in the line of “duty” could include criminal behavior, so long as it involved actions that police officers “generally perform.” Though the city resisted and appealed the decision, state Circuit and Appeals courts agreed with the commission.

Fortunately, Hawaii’s Supreme Court rejected this decision on Tuesday. Its ruling should elicit a deep sigh of relief from ethics watchdogs and taxpayers, who should not be called on to support the defense of officers who criminally veer far outside the guardrails of “duty,” as most understand it. The Supreme Court specified that a criminal act pursued for personal gain is not within an officer’s “duty,” regardless of whether an officer is on the job when violating the law.

It also interpreted Hawaii law to specify that police officers must make their case with the commission that actions they seek defense for are in the line of duty — a wholly reasonable requirement.

Some five years ago, the charges against Kealoha, including conspiracy and obstruction of justice, stemmed from a scheme to falsify the theft of a mailbox at the Kealoahas’ home, trump up a baseless charge against his wife’s uncle and hide evidence of fraud.

The commission already had bent over backward to buy Kealoha out of office, secretly moving money within the HPD budget to provide him with a $250,000 severance package on Jan. 18, 2017, and committing to allow him to keep his pension of about $150,000 a year.

Thanks to this week’s ruling, the commission must now follow the high court’s directive in determining whether to support a police officer’s defense, and look at “the entire record” of a disputed incident in making its decision. As the ruling stated, “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 high court also provided guidance and latitude on whether actions “generally performed” qualify for legal assistance. It gave the example of an officer who jumps into the ocean to attempt a rescue and is sued for causing an injury: The officer would qualify for representation, even though ocean rescues aren’t “generally performed.”

Going forward, the Honolulu Police Commission — most members have changed over since the Kealoha era — must continue to absorb lessons learned from its repeated missteps and failures to dig deeper into Kealoha’s behavior.

In the summer of 2013, Gerard Puana was arrested — falsely, it turned out — for stealing the Kealohas’ mailbox, just months after filing a civil lawsuit against his niece Katherine (Louis Kealoha’s wife and a Honolulu prosecutor) for misappropriating family money. That year, the Kealohas bought a $1.25 million Hawaii Kai home, now known to have been purchased using grifted funds. But in February 2014, the commission saw no reason for concern, unanimously voting to retain Louis Kealoha as police chief for a second term.

The Kealohas betrayed the public trust and ran criminally rampant across Honolulu for more than a decade, leaving a wreckage of mistrust in the justice system in their wake. Public corruption cannot be tolerated — and the high court’s decision this week sends a firm message that the public should not be blithely put on the hook to defend such criminality.