I am so very embarrassed by the decision of the Honolulu prosecutors office to press ahead with criminal prosecution of U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams for violating Mayor Kirk Caldwell’s emergency orders. And I’m angry, as a citizen and taxpayer, that we’re wasting public funds and resources, and adding unnecessarily to the case load facing Hawaii’s already bogged down courts, to prosecute this public official who was, after all, here to assist the state in ramping up its Covid-19 testing.

I decided to check the court records on his case. Not only did prosecutors follow the original citation by filing a written criminal complaint against Adams, the case has now been assigned to attorneys normally handle felony cases, you know, serious crime.

Here’s an excerpt from the court docket.

Let’s walk back to the beginning.

Adams and an aide were cited by a Honolulu police officer about 10 a.m. on August 20 while stopped at Kualoa Regional Park. Here’s the citation as it appears in court files.

Prosecutors followed with a written criminal complaint, charging that Adams “did intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly enter or remain in a City and County of Honolulu park and/or botanical garden and/or State of Hawaii park within the City with intent, knowledge or reckless disregard of the substantial and unjustifiable risk….”

The citation notes Adams told the officer he did not know the parks were closed to the public. And, of course, the weren’t totally closed to the public, since they allowed people to gain access to the ocean through the park. You may recall that there’s been confusion about these rules all the way along.

How easy would it have been for the officer to simply say, “Well, sir, I’m sorry but the parks are closed by the mayor’s emergency rules, and you’ll have to leave the area. I’m know you understand our attempt to control the Covid outbreak. Thank you for your cooperation. And thank you for your service.”

Would that have been so difficult?

Now that this has become a criminal case, prosecutors must prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that this visitor from Virginia “intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly” violated the mayor’s emergency orders. These elements are basic to the supposed “crime.”

Absent proof of those elements, there’s no way to prove a violation of law.

According to an article today in the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, prosecutors must believe that an email sent to Adams which included links to county rules was sufficient evidence of an intentional, knowing, or reckless violation. So they didn’t deliver the rules to him, or explain the rules to him. They sent an email with links. Right.

Good luck with that argument in court, folks. Especially with noted defense attorney Michael Green arguing on behalf of Adams and his aide.

The emergency rules, a copy of which was attached to the written criminal complaint, run 45 printed pages. And, it turns out, prosecutors attached the wrong version of the rules and have had to come back an request permission to amend the complaint to attached a corrected version of those rules. That request to amend is still pending.

And note: There have been reports that these citations for violation of emergency rules are being dismissed wholesale.

It didn’t take me more than a couple of minutes to find this example in which prosecutors simply declined further prosecution of 25 individual cases involving citations for violating emergency rules without explanation. All it took was a short, simple declaration by a deputy prosecutor declining further action. No muss, no fuss.

It’s time for prosecutors to stop digging their hole even deeper. Let common sense prevail.