City Prosecutor Keith Kaneshiro faces a challenge in the November general election from a former veteran deputy prosecutor who lost his job when Kaneshiro took office two years ago.
Kaneshiro, a two-term prosecutor in the 1980s and 1990s who returned to office after winning a special election in 2010, maintains that he brings more leadership and experience to a position that includes fighting for laws and programs to ensure public safety.
His opponent, Kevin Takata, says the key issue in the race is Kaneshiro’s management style and the resulting "mass exodus" of about 50 of 100 deputies since Kaneshiro became prosecutor in September 2010.
Takata, a city deputy prosecutor for 23 years, was one of 11 deputies Kaneshiro didn’t reappoint to their jobs when he took office.
Kaneshiro, 63, and Takata, 56, are running for a four-year term in the Nov. 6 general election for the $129,312-a-year job. The office has about 100 deputies, nearly 200 other employees and an annual budget of about $21 million. It handles nearly all of the state prosecutions on Oahu, ranging from traffic cases to murders.
Despite his late entry into the 2010 race, Kaneshiro defeated former city Deputy Prosecutor Franklin "Don" Pacarro and Darwin Ching in the winner-take-all special election to complete the term of Peter Carlisle, who left the office to run for mayor.
Takata is considered the underdog in his first bid for elective office against the better-known Kaneshiro, who has served a total of 10 years as prosecutor.
An incumbent prosecutor lost a re-election bid only once since the office became an elected position in 1980, when Kaneshiro defeated Charles Marsland in 1988.
In an interview, Kaneshiro said the role of prosecutor is more than heading an office prosecuting cases, and also includes advocating for programs and working with other law enforcement agencies, state and city lawmakers and the community.
He cited obtaining $2.3 million from the city for a Family Justice Center that would provide transitional housing for domestic violence victims, and working on nuisance-abatement cases to shut down several drug houses.
Kaneshiro said he is also trying to preserve a drug court program that is "eroding" because participants in the HOPE (Hawaii’s Opportunity for Probation with Enforcement) recidivism prevention program who fail on probation are shifted to drug court, which means less room for drug offenders.
"You’ve got to be a voice out there to ensure that laws won’t be passed to jeopardize public safety," he said.
Takata, a state deputy attorney general, is on vacation leave from his job during the campaign.
He told the Star-Advertiser the reason he’s running is to "correct the mismanagement" that has led deputies to leave the office.
Takata said he obtained more than 20 homicide convictions, the most of any prosecutor in Hawaii, but was left without a job when Kaneshiro took office.
He said he wasn’t given a reason, and that his departure "caused a lot of unrest in the office because deputies thought if I was fired, then everybody’s job was at risk."
Takata said his ouster isn’t the reason he is running. He said he decided to enter the race early this year after he was encouraged by former and some current deputies who do not like Kaneshiro’s style of management.
He said Kaneshiro micromanages and issues blanket policies that affect office morale.
"I’m a prosecutor running for office," Takata said. "He’s a politician running an office."
Kaneshiro said Takata unfairly lumps together all those who left the office as an exodus. The 11 weren’t fired, Kaneshiro said; their terms ended when he took office, and he could not fire anyone who didn’t have a job.
Several others retired, seven more left Oahu for reasons unrelated to any poor morale, and 20 took other jobs to pursue a different career, he said.
Kaneshiro acknowledged that some left because they weren’t happy.
He said he found that some deputies were showing up for work late and going home early. He said he told them they had to come to work at 7:45 and needed to be supervised.
"Obviously, some people didn’t like that," he said.
Kaneshiro said they found that several deputies had neglected cases, which then became so old they could not be charged because of the statute of limitations.
"It’s not about who left, but about people who are at the office, who are very hardworking and skilled," Kaneshiro said.
The vacancies caused by the departing deputies have been filled, he said. The office now has about 100 deputies.
Kaneshiro said the reason he didn’t reappoint some of the 11 is that after he was elected, he learned that they had expressed their opinion that they didn’t want to work for him.
In Takata’s case the former deputy prosecutor "jeopardized public safety" and was "insubordinate" during Kaneshiro’s previous tenure as prosecutor, Kaneshiro said, disclosing for the first time his reasons for not reappointing Takata.
In one case the parole board released a man who had been convicted of a 1982 prison murder. Kaneshiro said Takata expressed to the parole board that the convict, Sopo Faalafua, was innocent.
Faalafua was involved in a 1995 robbery of a drug house less than a year after his release and was killed, Kaneshiro said.
In another case, Kaneshiro turned down a plea agreement Takata requested in a case involving an attempted murder charge against a man who stabbed his father.
But during closing arguments of the 1991 trial, Takata told the jury that the defendant wasn’t guilty of attempted murder, but a lesser charge of first-degree assault.
The jury found Arwin Echineque guilty of the lesser charge.
When he learned what Takata did, Kaneshiro said he was "upset."
Takata said he had reviewed Faalafua’s case and found that there had been a "complete lack of evidence" to support the prison murder conviction. He said he gave the parole board his assessment.
Takata said he did not notify Kaneshiro because he knew the prosecutor wouldn’t permit him to give that opinion.
"I could not in good conscience let a person remain in prison for a crime he didn’t commit," Takata said.
In Echineque’s case, Takata said the injuries to the father were minor. He said he did not believe it was an attempted murder case.
"I don’t think he (Kaneshiro) was happy, but as an officer of the court and as a prosecutor, I’m ethically bound to seek justice," Takata said. "It’s not doing your job to go in and do what you’re told to do when you’re told to do something that’s unjust."
Neither Takata or Kaneshiro could provide statistics on the rate of convictions during Kaneshiro’s current term compared with other years.
No primary election was held for the race because the two are the only candidates.
