Category Archives: Law

Appeals by Miske co-defendants facing strong headwinds

2 Replies

Three co-defendants of the late racketeering boss Michael J. Miske Jr. are learning just how hard it is to challenge a federal sentence after signing away their appeal rights in exchange for a plea deal.
To date, none of the three have had any success.

Appeals have been pursued by John Stancil, Miske’s half-brother; Norman Akau, a former executive board member of the union local representing stagehands and technical workers in Hawaii’s film and stage industries; and Lance Bermudez, whose reputation as a “shooter” brought him into Miske’s inner circle.

The three received the longest prison sentences handed down to Miske co-defendants. Miske himself died of a drug overdose while awaiting sentencing.

Bermudez, 35, received a 30-year sentence from U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson, who presided over the Miske trial, and has a projected release date in September 2047. Stancil, 39, received 20 years—the statutory maximum for racketeering conspiracy—with a release date in March 2037. Akau, 53, was sentenced to 14 years, putting his release at the end of July 2032.

Stancil

Stancil’s appeal was the first to reach a panel, and it was quickly dismissed in March by three judges of the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The panel held that the appeal was barred because the record showed Stancil had knowingly and voluntarily waived most of his appellate rights in his plea deal. The judges concluded the waiver remains valid, rejecting arguments by Stancil’s Boise-based attorney, William Miles Pope.

“Contrary to appellant’s contention, the district court’s statement at the plea hearing did not negate the written waiver of the right to appeal,” the court ruled.

“Contrary to appellant’s contention, the district court’s statement at the plea hearing did not negate the written waiver of the right to appeal.”

The panel rejected Pope’s argument that a single statement by Judge Watson during Stancil’s sentencing hearing had “unambiguously” invalidated the waiver, opening the door to Stancil’s appeal. Pope had cited a 1995 case which “held that when the district court, despite the presence of an appellate waiver in the plea agreement, clearly and explicitly advises a defendant that he has a right to appeal, the district court’s ‘clear statements’ control and the appellate waiver is not enforceable.”

Prosecutors countered, citing a 2022 case which qualified and limited the conditions under which a waiver of appeal rights is unenforceable: “A district court’s comments overcome an otherwise valid appeal waiver only if they are ‘unambiguous’ and ‘without qualification.’”

They challenged Pope’s argument on the basis that it took one statement by Judge Derrick Watson during Stancil’s sentencing hearing out of context and presented it in a vacuum. The government then described the discussion of the waiver during the sentencing hearing in some detail.

During the plea colloquy, Stancil told the court that he had read the plea agreement in full, spoke to counsel about it, and that he was confident that he understood each of its terms. The prosecutor went over the appellate waiver in detail, informing Stancil that he was waiving his right to appeal the sentence imposed except in two limited circumstances, one of which was if the court were to sentence Stancil to a sentence that is “above and beyond the guideline range that the Court finds is applicable to the case.” The district court then informed Stancil that it agreed with the prosecutor’s summary of the appellate waiver and summarized the appellate waiver in “sum and substance,” again citing the exception for an appeal of a sentence that exceeds the same “applicable” guidelines range just referenced by the prosecutor. Notably, the district judge also told Stancil that the appellate wavier meant Stancil was “agreeing to a very broad, general waiver of your rights to challenge the Court’s final judgment in this case, including the sentence that I impose.” Finally, at sentencing, the district judge told Stancil that “the applicable sentencing guideline range . . . [was] 210 to 240 months” and that Stancil could file an appeal but could do so “only within the limits allowed by the appellate waiver provision of your plea agreement. That’s paragraph 13.”

The judges agreed, and dismissed Stancil’s appeal.

In response, Boise-based attorney William Miles Pope filed a motion asking the panel to reconsider its order dismissing the appeal and, if that were not granted, to have their decision reviewed “en banc” by a larger panel or the full court.

Both requests were rejected in a terse August 20 order signed by the three judges.

“The motion for reconsideration and reconsideration en banc is denied.”

Akau

A notice of appeal was filed on behalf of Norman Akau in May 2025 by Tucson-based attorney Ramiro Flores, Jr., and his opening brief followed on December 22, 2025.

In the appeal, Flores argues the government violated the terms of Akau’s agreement with prosecutors which promised him immunity for statements admitting involvement in a murder plot against an ILWU official, but that these were later among considerations that led to his 14-year sentence. However, the government maintains that the immunity agreement covered only direct use of Akau’s statements, but did not bar the government from using evidence obtained from other sources regarding the same crime.

After a series deadline of extensions approved by the court, the government responded on June 22, 2026 with a motion to dismiss the Akau appeal. The final legal briefs were filed on July 23, and the case is now awaiting a decision.

Bermudez

Finally, although a notice of appeal was filed on behalf of Lance Bermudez in July 2025, no appeal has been filed yet. The first attorney appointed to handle the appeal asked withdraw to from the case in late October 2025, disclosing that Bermudez had refused to speak with her and had returned her legal mail unopened.

He was then assigned another attorney, who has now asked to withdraw after her review of the case concluded “there do not appear to be any nonfrivolous challenges to Bermudez’s 360-month sentence.”

The court has not yet ruled on the withdrawal, but issued an order last month directing the panel to “conduct an independent review of the record and decide whether to allow counsel to withdraw and whether to appoint new counsel.”

Sentences received by Mike Miske’s co-defendants

Miske was convicted at trial; the 12 co-defendants in the main case pleaded guilty. Ranked by the federal prison sentences imposed:

| Rank | Co-defendant | Sentence |
| ——-: | ——————– | ————————————–: |
| 1 | Lance L. Bermudez | 30 years (360 months) |

| 2 | John B. Stancil | 20 years (240 months) |

| 3 | Norman L. Akau III | 14 years (168 months) |

| 4 | Harry K. Kauhi | 8 years, 10 months (106 months) |

| 5 | Dae Han Moon | 7 years, 10 months (94 months) |

| 6 | Delia Fabro-Miske | 7 years (84 months) |

| 7 | Hunter J. Wilson | 3 years, 8 months (44 months) |

| 8 | Jarrin K. Young | 3 years, 6 mo.(42 months) time served |

| 9 | Preston M. Kimoto | 3 years, 1 month (37 months) |

| 10 (tie) | Michael J. Buntenbah | 3 years (36 months) |

| 10 (tie) | Kaulana Freitas | 3 years (36 months) |

| 12 | Jason K. Yokoyama | 2 years (24 months) |

Important qualification: Moon’s 94-month federal sentence is in addition to his Hawaii state sentence of life with the possibility of parole for the unrelated murder of Stevie Feliciano. The first 34 federal months were ordered concurrent with the state term; the remaining 60 months must follow it. Young’s 42-month sentence equaled the time he had already spent in custody, so he was released immediately after sentencing.

Aloha to a longtime friend

9 Replies

I awoke in my 7th floor room at Queens Hospital in Honolulu on Friday morning, and received the news that a friend of more than 40 years had died the day before.

We were friends with Doug Campbell for most of the 46 years he spent as a judge in Canada, first as a provincial judge and later a federal judge.

He and Meda grew up together professionally from their different positions analyzing the impacts of the courts and criminal justice system, and I was lucky to tag along for the ride, along with Doug’s wife, Shirley.

Doug retired in 2020 as the longest serving judge in Canadian history, and left an extraordinary legal and human legacy built during those decades of public service.

But our personal relationship goes back to the late 1970s. At that time, Doug had already assumed the task of organizing judicial training for the province, while Meda was a newly minted PhD, who was in the process of creating the field of feminist criminology.

They were on a panel together at one of the first professional conferences she attended on the West Coast, recognized their common professional interests, and we were off! Before long, we had become personal friends with Doug both Doug and Shirley.

Over the last 15 or 20 years, we would meet them on Maui during their annual migration from the harsh Canadian winter, and jointly celebrate Mada and Shirley’s birthdays, which are about a week apart.

And AI-assisted review of his accomplishments and impacts beers below.

When Canadian legal historians reflect on judicial reform, few names carry as distinctive a legacy as the Honourable Douglas R. Campbell. Appointed to the Provincial Court of British Columbia in 1974 at just 29 years old, and later elevating to the Federal Court of Canada in 1995, Justice Campbell retired in 2020 as Canada’s longest-serving judge after 46 consecutive years on the bench.

Throughout his nearly five-decade career, Justice Campbell left an indelible mark on how Canadian jurists are trained, how courts interact with marginalized communities, and how administrative justice treats vulnerable individuals.

Transforming Judicial Education Through “Social Context”

For much of the 20th century, Canadian judicial education focused narrowly on doctrinal updates and statutory interpretation. In the early 1990s, Justice Campbell disrupted this model by pioneering social context education through initiatives like the Western Judicial Education Centre.

Recognizing that formal legal neutrality can perpetuate systemic inequality if judges remain unaware of societal power imbalances, Campbell pushed for experiential adult education. Instead of conventional lecture halls, he facilitated programs where judges directly engaged with the lived realities of disadvantaged populations. His educational framework became a cornerstone for modern training through the National Judicial Institute and was adopted internationally across jurisdictions from South Africa to Australia and South Asia.

Elevating Marginalized Voices and Indigenous Realities

Campbell was among the earliest judges to champion the principle that true impartiality requires understanding historical trauma and structural oppression.

* Indigenous Justice: He advocated for relational and community-connected approaches, urging jurists to step outside institutional silos and learn directly from Indigenous elders and community members.

* Centering Vulnerable Litigants: Whether adjudicating matters involving racialized minorities, people living in poverty, or individuals facing state deportation, Campbell maintained that decisions detached from human reality are fundamentally flawed.

The Meaning and Legacy of “Campbelling”

In the halls of the Federal Court, Justice Campbell’s approach to immigration and refugee law earned him a unique place in Canadian legal slang: getting “Campbelled” (or the practice of “Campbelling”).

camp-bell-ing [verb / legal slang]:
The judicial overturning or remanding of an uncompassionate, overly rigid,
or mechanically detached administrative decision in refugee and immigration cases.

In refugee and humanitarian-and-compassionate (H&C) reviews under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, Campbell frequently took administrative tribunals to task for bureaucratic indifference. Where decision-makers evaluated human life through rigid checklists, Campbell insisted that adjudicators must employ both “heart and mind”.

Between 2008 and 2016, his rate of granting relief in refugee reviews notably exceeded court averages, driven by a strict standard against administrative decisions that ignored the real risks of deportation. Decisions such as Kolosovs v. Canada helped reshape judicial oversight, emphasizing that assessing hardship requires genuine empathy.

While critics occasionally debated the limits of judicial discretion, refugee advocates regarded appearing before Justice Campbell as an assurance that the human stakes of a claim would not be overlooked.

Justice Douglas Campbell’s legacy demonstrated that judicial independence and deep social consciousness are complementary virtues. By institutionalizing social context education and embedding empathy into judicial review, he redefined what it means for the justice system to serve everyone who comes before it.

[written and edited from my bed in Queen’s Hospital on an iPhone Air, a challenge in itself.]

A High Bar: Why Prosecuting Sylvia Luke for bribery will be an uphill battle

7 Replies

Prosecutors face steep legal hurdles to secure a criminal bribery conviction against Hawaii Lt. Gov. Sylvia Luke. The difficulty doesn’t just rest on the specific facts of the case—it stems from nearly 50 years of robust constitutional protection established by the U.S. Supreme Court.

luke and three others, including former Rep. Ryan Yamane, as well as former Gov. David Ige’s one-time chief of staff, were indictd on charges that included bribery and conspiracy to commit bribery. A fifth was charged with obstruction of justice and falsifying campaign spending records. The bribery charges carry a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment plus a fine on each count.

But convicting Luke is likely to be an uphill slog for prosecutors. The Supreme Court has consistently held that the right of citizens and political candidates to give and accept campaign contributions falls under the protections of free speech and association provided by the First Amendment. To breach those protections and prove illegal bribery, prosecutors must prove the existence of an explicit, mutual “quid pro quo” agreement between the donor and the recipient.

This for That

As explained by the League of Women Voters:

“Quid pro quo” (Latin for “this for that”) refers to an exchange between a candidate and donor in which the candidate receives a personal gain (a contribution for election or re-election to office) from the “sale” of public power (a vote or other action that benefits the donor).

This is often framed as a conflict of interest because an officeholder has a duty to act in the best interests of constituents, which overrides any agreement to follow the preferences of a donor. The Supreme Court specifically mentioned quid pro quo corruption as well as the appearance of quid pro quo in the Buckley v. Valeo (1976) decision, which supported restrictions on direct campaign contributions but not on campaign expenditures.

Because the Hawaii Supreme Court has not issued a definitive ruling establishing where a legal political contribution ends and an illegal quid pro quo begins, Hawaii courts must look to federal case law for guidance.

The Legal Standard: Explicit Agreements and “Official Acts”

Federal precedent sets an exceptionally high bar for converting a political contribution into a federal or state crime.

To prove criminal bribery, prosecutors must demonstrate two crucial elements:

• An Explicit Agreement: The campaign contribution must be part of an explicit quid pro quo deal. A political donor giving money to a candidate whose views or legislative goals align with their interests is completely legal; prosecutors must prove a direct, unambiguous agreement that the money was given strictly in exchange for specific action.

• An “Official Act”: The promised exchange must involve an “official act”—a formal exercise of governmental power.

Crucially, routine political and legislative actions—such as setting up meetings, hosting public events, making introductions, or speaking with other state officials—do not, by themselves, constitute corrupt agreements under federal law.

Routine Constituent Work Isn’t Bribery

The reality of modern campaign finance means political candidates routinely take actions that benefit donors who support them. In the landmark case McCormick v. United States (500 U.S. 257), the U.S. Supreme Court acknowledged this reality and cautioned against overcriminalizing everyday politics.

“Serving constituents and supporting legislation that will benefit the district and individuals and groups therein is the everyday business of a legislator. It is also true that campaigns must be run and financed. Money is constantly being solicited on behalf of candidates, who run on platforms and who claim support on the basis of their views and what they intend to do or have done.

Whatever ethical considerations and appearances may indicate, to hold that legislators commit the federal crime of extortion when they act for the benefit of constituents or support legislation furthering the interests of some of their constituents, shortly before or after campaign contributions are solicited and received from those beneficiaries, is an unrealistic assessment of what Congress could have meant… To hold otherwise would open to prosecution not only conduct that has long been thought to be well within the law, but also conduct that, in a very real sense, is unavoidable so long as election campaigns are financed by private contributions…”

The Road Ahead for Prosecutors

While public optics surrounding campaign donations can often look questionable, unfavorable ethics or bad appearances are generally not enough to support a conviction.

To overcome Lt. Gov. Luke’s First Amendment protections, prosecutors cannot simply show a timeline where contributions were made around the same time legislative assistance was provided. They must produce concrete evidence—such as wiretaps, written correspondence, or insider testimony—proving a clear, explicit “this-for-that” demand was made. However, courts have held that criminal intent and agreement can be inferred from the totality of the circumstances, such as a pattern of reciprocal benefits, coordinated actions, and suspicious timing, even if the parties never explicitly speak the words “bribe” or “agreement.”

But circumstantial evidence and possibly unsightly context is precisely what fifty years of First Amendment jurisprudence was built to protect. Unless prosecutors in Luke’s case can produce concrete evidence that transforms a suspicious sequence of events into an explicit quid pro quo, they will struggle to cross the threshold from bad optics to criminal guilt.

* Graphic produced by Gemini AI.

A second federal judge in Oregon orders limits on use of chemical munitions against protesters in Portland

2 Replies

In a well-functioning constitutional democratic republic, free speech, courageous newsgathering, and nonviolent protest are all permitted, respected, and even celebrated. In an authoritarian regime, that is not the case. Indeed, a democracy is only as strong as its tolerance for dissent. As Benjamin Franklin wrote:

Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.

Our nation is now at a crossroads. We have been here before and have previously returned to the right path, notwithstanding an occasional detour. In helping our nation find its constitutional compass, an impartial and independent judiciary, operating under the rule of law, has a responsibility that it may not shirk.

So begins the 34-page decision and order by Judge Michael H. Simon, U.S. District for the district of Oregon, granting a preliminary restraining order restricting the use of chemical weapons against peaceful protesters near the ICE building in Portland, Oregon.

No Enjoined Person may direct or use chemical or projectile munitions, including but not limited to kinetic impact projectiles, pepper ball or paintball guns, tear gas or other chemical irritants, soft nose rounds, 40mm or 37mm launchers, less lethal shotguns, and flashbang, Stinger, or rubber ball grenades, unless the specific target of such a weapon or device poses an imminent threat of physical harm to a law enforcement officer or other person.

No Enjoined Person may fire any munitions or use any weapons described in subsection (a) at the head, neck, or torso of any person, unless the officer is legally justified in using deadly force against that person.

Other restrictions, and conditions under which such munitions can be used, are spelled out in a separate order of preliminary injunction.

The Portland Chicken in an AP photo included in the original legal complaint.

Plaintiffs in the case include two journalists, a couple in their 80s who were hit by various munitions while peacefully protesting, and the lead named plaintiff, Jack Dickinson, better known as the Portland Chicken. Dickinson’s has appeared at protests outside the ICE facility in a distinctive bright yellow chicken costume to which he owes his chicken identity.

It is the second such opinion in just a few days. On Friday, March 6, another federal judge ordered similar restrictions in a lawsuit brought by residents and owners of a low-income apartment complex across the street from the ICE building.