My latest update on the Mike Miske case appears today at Civil Beat (“Miske Attorneys Ask For Trial To Be Delayed Another Six Months“). There’s nothing really new and shocking here, just the slow grinding of the wheels of justice.

It may be another year before the alleged leader of a criminal gang and his co-defendants face a trial by jury.

Attorneys representing Michael Miske, the former Honolulu businessman alleged to have controlled a sprawling racketeering conspiracy that prosecutors say extended over two decades, have asked for his trial to be extended for another six months, to September 2022.

At the end of my story, I reported the successful intervention by the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, which resulted in the unsealing this week of the plea agreement entered into by defendant Norman Akau III over four months ago.

Norman Akau pleaded guilty in June to a single count of conspiring with other members of the Miske Enterprise to violate racketeering laws. His plea was part of a deal in exchange for prosecutors agreeing to drop murder-for-hire and drug trafficking charges.

At the end of the June 9 plea change hearing before Judge Derrick Watson, Akau’s attorney, Beverly Hills-based Ronald Richards, requested the written plea agreement be sealed. Hearing no opposition from prosecutors, Watson agreed.

But the following month, the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest filed a motion to unseal the document, “citing its interest in the Miske case and its constitutional right of access to criminal proceedings.”

Attorney Richards opposed the motion, arguing Akau would be placed in danger if the extent of his cooperation with prosecutors was disclosed.

But Judge Watson ruled in favor of the Civil Beat Law Center and the plea agreement was placed on the public record earlier this week.

Local television station KHON2 reported their version of the tale last night.

It ran under the headline, “Miske co-conspirator used ‘Hawaii 5-0’ badge to impersonate officer.”

HONOLULU (KHON2) — A plea deal, that was recently unsealed in federal court, shows that Norman Akau III confessed to multiple attempted murder-for-hire schemes in connection to the Michael Miske case.

The deal detailed several of Akau’s actions, including using a badge that he got while working on “Hawaii 5-0” to impersonate an officer during an armed heist.

Akau also admitted that he was about to pull the trigger on a hit outside a Sand Island lunch spot but was stopped by another because he hadn’t removed a GPS tracker from the car of the targeted person.

Several things are worth commenting on.

First, the plea written plea agreement would have still been secret except for the intervention of the Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest, which filed a motion back in August pointing out the document had been sealed without the required showing that disclosure would “harm a compelling interest, and there are no available alternatives to closure that will adequately protect that interest.”

The motion was filed by the Law Center’s director, R. Brian Black, on July 23, and spelled out the applicable case law.

Last week, Judge Derrick Watson issued an order granting the Law Center motion, and spelling out his reasoning, which largely tracks Black’s memo. I’ve included a copy of Watson’s order below.

No mention of any of that in the KHON2 story.

Second, while there’s certainly public interest in the Miske case, the station could have reported much earlier, when the information was disclosed. I know, because I reported it back in June, after a hearing during which Akau changed his plea to guilty.

Akau’s various admissions were described during the hearing by Assistant US Attorney Mark Inciong, and then the judge asked Akau to explain in his own words what he had done.

My story on the hearing appeared at Civil Beat back on June 14. It included the tidbit about the Hawaii Five-0 badge, and much more detail about the attempted murder-for-hire. See (“A Surprise Revelation In The Miske Case: A Plot To Kill A Union Official“).

Order Granting Motion to Un… by Ian Lind