 Aloha and welcome to Ehana Kako. We're here every week on the Think Tech Hawaii Broadcast Network. I'm Kili Akiina, president of the Grassroot Institute. While we live in such a beautiful land, Hawaii and behind me we have the colorful Honolulu Hale, which is the city hall, the seat of the mayor of Honolulu. We have colorful people, we've got colorful landscape, and we've also got colorful politicians here in Hawaii. We're talking today about Billy Kenoi and asking a question, does his recent behavior that has come to light and been the subject of a trial constitute corruption in politics or is it just unwise behavior? I've got with me today a former mayor and city prosecutor. In fact, he is the third elected city prosecutor of the city and county of Honolulu, and the 13th mayor of the city and county of Honolulu. He's well known and he's certainly got a lot of insights into what's been going on with regard to the trial of Billy Kenoi. May, please welcome with me Mayor Peter Carlisle. Mayor! Carlisle is a pleasure, doctor! Mayor! We were actually rehearsing our names before we went on the show, just making sure we didn't forget. Absolutely, and it's usually a question at my age, I can forget anything at any time. So delighted you're joining us today. Thank you. So tell us, for our viewers' knowledge, we have people watching from all across the world. The big island constitutes an entire county in and of itself and city, and it's led by a mayor. Correct. And tell us what has gone on recently with Mayor Billy Kenoi of the big island? Well, there came an issue about how he was using something called the P card, which is for all intents and purposes a sort of a credit card. And that's for public officials? That's for, well, the public officials get them sometimes, but how they use them is strictly regulated here on Oahu and apparently less so on the big island, largely because Mayor Kenoi was using under the theory of making friends with people and allowing them to be closer to Hawaii and us closer to them. In other words, he would go out and entertain people ostensibly for city business. Oh, Molly, Molly, get together, talk, do all of those things, and that leads to relationships that are more powerful in Washington, more powerful here in the state. But there is a limit to that in my mind. And I think if you're starting to use it for some of the things that were used by Mayor Kenoi, where there's enormous amounts of alcohol, Crown Royal, a very expensive one, with that and Hostess Bars was actually also discussed at one point, although they weren't part of the indictment. He was indicted for theft at a felony level as well as a misdemeanor level, as well as tampering with documents of the government. That's sort of generic. And that led to his trial. And you have to understand that on the big island, it's a little bit of the Wild West out there. And I think that's a very good thing in a lot of ways. And sometimes it gets to be a little bit inbred. And Billy was very much a sort of a traveling party. And if you weren't part of the party, you didn't get to travel. And there becomes a line that's sometimes very thin between what's appropriate and what's inappropriate. Well, what does the law say itself in terms of what the mayor could do with his P card and what he should not do? Well, is it a clear cut? It's not that clear cut because he was allowed to use it in many different ways because they made up the rules. OK, so he's not only the one who uses the car, he's the one who's supervising in a sense. He's making up the rules. That or people who were working for him, who were very close to him, who had had all the benefits of him being the mayor, many of those people were making decisions. And so part of the problem here in trying to figure out what's going on is knowing exactly where the line should be drawn. Perfectly put. In fact, in his defense, he repeatedly stated that his intention was never to defraud the public at all and that his behaviors were suitable and necessary to carry out city business. And that's exactly correct. And the people who were with him, who were members of his staff, would say the same thing. And there were not people who were sitting there saying, you've got to be careful about this. We don't think that this is the right thing to do. And they were saying that you didn't have to make that public if you did it. Well, I want to ask you about making a judgment about that. But first, let's back up a little bit because you were a mayor. And you certainly had a significant responsibility to cultivate relationships for the benefit of the city. Correct. What kinds of behaviors were you involved in? Well, there would be dinners that would be held. There would be opportunities to go and speak at gatherings. There would be time to rub elbows with other late government officials as well as other mayors. Is it appropriate ever to have alcohol as part of the entertainment? If you it's not a 24 seven job. And so there are times when you are actually on the clock and sometimes that is clearly meant to be leisure. And at that point, is there any problem with somebody buying their own alcohol to drink? Absolutely not. Now, if it's done to excess, then it becomes a question of judgment. So as a mayor, you could legitimately entertain with alcohol, have wine at dinner or have cocktails at happy hour. As you discuss city business with people or or even just cultivate relationships. Certainly, that's true, but it can't can't go on inside of a government building. You're not allowed to drink inside of a government building. And so as a result, it would have to be somewhere out of that particular arena. So you wouldn't find people drinking in city hall. So what kind of judgment goes into determining the venue? For example, whether you go to a restaurant that has a bar or whether you go to what we know as a hostess bar. I think that it's fairly clear that under most circumstances, you can go to just about any reputable restaurant at any particular time, except after hours or something like that is a hostess bar, something that would necessarily fall in that category. I'm sort of skeptical of that. And I think it's it's doesn't reflect well on the position of mayor if you're going to a place that's got ongoing lap dancing and things like that. So when you talk about being skeptical, there's some judgment call that has to be made. Absolutely. I think that's that's completely correct. We're dealing with perceptions as well. And that's the same thing that's true for the criminal cases. I mean, there has to be judgment in terms of whether you proceed with it or whether you do not proceed with it. So there were some things that did not go forward that were in the purview of the knowledge of the Attorney General's office, but they decided that that was not something that should be pursued. Well, let's go to the trial itself. What exactly were the charges that Billy Canoia was brought up on? There were a couple of felony charges. There were a couple of misdemeanor charges, both of them involved theft. There were also there was also a tampering with government documents. There were also a few charges that the judge themselves threw out. Well, let's talk about the ones involving theft. Now, in this case, what was being charged and forgive me for using that term is that Billy Canoia used his credit card for personal purchases and would not have been inclined to pay them back to the city and county. Well, his his theory was that he was always willing to pay it back and was always planning on doing it, despite the fact that had been a couple of years and at least one instance before he decided it was time to pay back after he had been indicted. Well, let's let's talk about whether or not he paid them back. How appropriate is it to put the kinds of charges he did on his card? Simply, even if it was just a convenience, even if it was he had forgotten his own credit card, it's not something that I would have done. That's a different circumstance than what was going on in the Big Island. Is that illegal in and of itself? Not necessarily. So long as it would be repaid. No, not so long as it would be repaid, but so long as there wasn't an intent to deprive the county of Hawaii for that particular those purchases. Well, the amount of money that was involved in that. Now, this is an interesting legal point here because intent became an issue in the trial where the prosecutors had the burden of proving the intent of the mayor was to defraud and his defense was his intent was not to defraud. In fact, he came out and said his intent was always to pay back, whether timely or not. And that was essentially what was focused on by the jury and was disgusted by the foreman who sat there and said, you know, he was always planning on to returning this. And therefore, we couldn't find any intention that he was planning on depriving the county of Hawaii of getting that money back. Well, you were you're a former prosecutor. How easy is it to go into court and prove the intent of another party? It's always the hardest thing to do. It can be proved by direct or circumstantial evidence. So there is nothing to matter with circumstantial evidence, but you have to look at that and determine whether that will show you what is called the mens rea, the guilty mind. You can see the guilty act. Sometimes with direct evidence, he stood over her and shot four times into the back of the person's head. On the other hand, the question is, what is their intent to do in terms of who that person might be? So if this is somebody who has just jumped through a window, came charging into the room and had an axe in their hand, you would be able to intentionally shoot that person, but you would be covered by the thought of self-defense. You would have to be able to show that it was self-defense. And frankly, in a case like that, it would never pass the police department or the prosecutors office. In the case of Billy Kanai, how would you have shown that there was clear-cut intent to defraud the people? Well, some of the things that might show that was something that's outrageously inappropriate, such as the hostess bar. On the other hand, if somebody had routinely said, no, you can't do this, and it was a person who was credible and it was somebody who liked Billy Kanai and wanted to make sure that he didn't get himself in trouble, that could be somebody who might be capable of saying, look, I told him over and over again, stop doing it. It's not appropriate. It's not even legal. And once you do that, then, and if he's ignoring that advice, and that's an absolute ground rule, if you had a rule that said, you cannot use your P card for A, B, C, D, E, F, G, and he violated that, then he would have been in significant difficulties legally. So before we go to a break, let me see if I understand this. The need and the case in order for the prosecution to win would have been to show a guilty mind, not a foolish mind, not an unwise judgment, not a selfish mind, not any of that, but to show that he actually was guilty of breaking the law. Well, it shows that there's not enough evidence to prove it. There's a big difference between somebody who is found not to be guilty as opposed to somebody who didn't do something wrong. I think we all know that. Well, when we come back from a quick break, tell us exactly how the court ruled, and we'll talk a little bit about that. OK. I've got Peter Carlisle with me, former mayor and city prosecutor of the city and county of Honolulu, and we're talking about what happened recently in the Billy Canoei trial. Please don't go away. We'll be right back after this short message. Aloha, everybody. My name is Mark Shklov. I'd like you to join me for my program, Law Across the Sea, on ThinkTechHawaii.com. Aloha. Hello. I'm Marianne Sasaki. Welcome to Think Tech Hawaii, where some of the most interesting conversations in Honolulu go on. I have a show on Wednesdays from one to two called Life in the Law, where we discuss legal issues, politics, governmental topics, and a whole host of issues. I hope you'll join me. Aloha. My name is Reg Baker, and I'm the host of Business in Hawaii with Reg Baker. We're a show that broadcasts live every Thursday from two to two thirty. We highlight success stories in Hawaii of both businesses and individuals. We learn their secrets to success, which is always valuable. I hope to see you on our next show. Aloha. Welcome back to the second half of today's Ehana Kako on the ThinkTech Hawaii Broadcast Network. Ehana Kako, does that sound familiar? It's like a Pule Kako. I know Mayor Carlisle knows that whenever a function is opened by a kahu or a minister here in Hawaii, we Pule, we pray. We say a Pule Kako, let's pray together. But Ehana Kako is what we say at the Grassroot Institute. Let's work together. Think of how terrible life will be here if we don't work together. We need to work together to build a better economy, government, and society, no matter what walk of life we come from. Well, we've been talking about the Billy Kenoi trial, and I want to get back and ask Mayor Carlisle, what was the disposition of the case? How did the court rule? Well, the court at one point ruled that there was not enough evidence to proceed on some counts. And the court, if it makes that determination that there aren't sufficient facts to uphold it in front of the jury at all, then the court can dismiss them. And that was done in a couple of counts. But once the judge allows it to go to the jury, then the judge has said that, in the light most favorable for the prosecution in this case, a jury could legitimately come back with a verdict of guilty. That did not happen in this case. Therefore, he was acquitted. He was found not guilty. But that does not mean outright innocence because outright innocence isn't what you're looking for. You're looking for somebody who's guilty or not guilty. Kind of like when President Clinton said, not guilty but responsible. That could be a fair thing to conclude. And it certainly wouldn't be something that you couldn't argue. Now, when the public is watching this, there's both confusion and outrage to some extent. There's a sense something isn't right here. The mayor didn't behave properly. And yet he's been declared not guilty. You must understand that disconnect between what legally is established and what ethically has taken place. Yeah, the ethics is different and beyond what we're discussing now. We're discussing about the basically the guilty, the not guilty, or the person who really never did this thing in the first place. And so one has to do with the standard of proof. One has to do with the finding of guilt. And the other one has to do with, okay, there wasn't enough evidence to convict this person. What are the implications of the ruling in the court? Or maybe that's not the right question to ask. Well, maybe I should be asking, what are the implications of this whole episode for Hawaii? Well, I would think that it requires a response that's more specific in terms of what you can and can't do. And I think that could easily come. I could sit there and describe somebody putting together a new standard for when you can and how you can use your P card. That is exterior to Billy Kenoy and the people who work for him. But no matter how many laws we come up with or nor how precise those laws are in terms of determining what is right and what is wrong or what is legal and what is illegal. Won't judgment always need to be a big factor in determining behavior? Absolutely. That's always going to be, well, it's not the behavior is the behavior. It's not determining the behavior. It's the consequences of the behavior. And if you have somebody who's done something that we all look at and say that's morally and ethically wrong, it may not be covered by some statute that would allow you to pursue it criminally. And if that's the case, then you're in a different set of circumstances than you would be if you had a document that says, okay, you can use your P card on these following circumstances and none other. Do we have widespread P card abuse throughout any of the counties? I don't believe so. But we have other kinds of ethical questions all the time. For example, the Ethics Commission looked into gifts that were being received by politicians from developers who gave them packages to go play golf and so forth. How prevalent is that type of practice? That was something that I think was done more frequently in the past. I think that's been cleaned up to a lot of extent, to a large extent. I do not believe that there is something necessarily wrong with three or four mayors getting together and playing golf together, but it shouldn't be on company time. I really do genuinely believe that. And we used to have, I remember when we played golf at the prosecutor level, which I take as to being the knights in shining armor, that we would all sign out. And we would not play that. We would take vacation time rather than do that and say, well, we were all talking to each other and we were doing all that as you're driving around, having a beer from the beer cart on the golf course and having fellowship with your fellow prosecutors for most of the time of your friends. Well, some of these ethical quandaries crop up during campaign season or because of campaigning, especially with the need to raise money. I remember when you ran for office as a city prosecutor, you put a limit on the amount that you would receive from each individual contributor. I did, just because I thought that it made sense and I thought it would be something that I could also use to sit there and say, hey, look, it's not just a few people who are supporting me. It's people who want to have a change in the prosecutorial regime and these are the reasons why you should support me. It was very different in terms of the first time that I went because I was up against somebody who I looked at as being very ethical and actually a very nice guy. It was Dave Aracau who he and I are good friends right now, but you're still fighting to win that particular spot and so there was conflict, but it was done not only in a civil way but in an ethical way as well. When politicians take office, they make decisions that affect parties that are capable of contributing to their campaigns. Sure. For example, with the Honolulu area rail that is being built, many council persons have received contributions from rail developers. How do you draw the line between what is appropriate and not? Well, we have a system that allows people to contribute to candidates who they feel are worthy and they want to help and you don't look at somebody's occupation in terms of that being different, but the question is, was anything done illegally? In other words, did all of those contributors for one of these large construction companies, did they get there and say, look, I've got a million dollars, now what I'm going to do is cut that up and give it to each one of you people and I want you to say it's what you're doing and giving for this particular candidate. That can't be done, it's called bundling. But on the other hand, if people want to give to a particular candidate, they're free to do so. So the fact that a rail developer or contractor gave to a city council person isn't in and of itself something unethical, but what would have to be shown is that that city council person acted in a way that benefited that contractor. And then there would be conflict of interest. The operative word is quid pro quo. Yeah, was there a quid pro quo? Pay to play. Yeah, and pay to play is another way of putting it. Yes, if that's going on, that's illegal. On the other hand, if it's part of an ongoing ability to support somebody who is in a taking a position that's important to you, that's important for the community, and important for even their business, there's nothing wrong with that. Well, in the current mayoral race in this 2016 election season, an ethical question has been raised about one of the candidates who is a mayor of Honolulu now, but also sits on the board of a bank and is compensated quite handsomely. Yes, I'd say it's in a remarkable way. The only thing I get back from my banks is like 1.2% is my own money that's giving me that opportunity to get that. Getting $200,000 for like a couple hours of work a month must be really nice for his bank account. I don't know if that's really nice to have for somebody a mayor having that many different bosses. But the mere fact that he sits on the bank board and is compensated, is there any problem with that in and of itself? No, if there was, I'm sure it would have been taken care of by one, a prosecutorial agency here or two, a federal agency. What would have to be shown for it to be truly an ethical problem? Well, to show that it was truly an ethical problem, it would have to conflict with the city ethics and at least for one time it did not. And the question is, this becomes more the person who is the mayor. Is that something that he can do? Absolutely, yes. Is it something that he should do? In my opinion, if that was what I was getting, I'd first off be a lot wealthier person than I am right now, but I would sit there and say that shouldn't be something that's done. So we have a conflict of interest, but we also have the idea of- I can't say that it's a conflict of interest. Let me finish that for a moment. We have the concept of a conflict of interest. But we also have the concept of appearance of conflict of interest. And if I understand what you're saying, it's, as mayor, you not only have to avoid conflicts of interest, you have a responsibility to avoid the appearance of conflicts of interest. That's what it- I don't think we should get into what the responsibilities are because the responsibilities so far have been within the letter of the law. But the question is, is that something- Now, clearly there's a huge advantage for this place, territorial savings, to now have been known that they have a close relationship with the mayor and sometimes they're involved in giving him substantial amounts of money. And that makes you seem like you're on the in-crowd and territorial's got its claws in the mayor and the mayor's got his claws in territorial. And that's- There was nothing that said that was improper. But the question is, once again, is that something you can do? Yes, is it something you should do? That depends on who the mayor is. For my set of circumstances, I would not feel that was appropriate. So as we come full circle, talking about the Billy Kenoi trial, one of the defenses of the mayor was that ultimately he is the one responsible for determining what can go on a P card or what cannot. He's the chief executive. If in fact he used that term. Now, what we've come to then is that there's a difference between breaking the law and exercising good judgment. I would say that that's fair. I think that I would agree with that statement. And yes, the law isn't broken, but the shameful treatment by the Caldwell administration of Chaktato, a person who gave ethics to the city, who created an ethics commission, was in my mind distasteful and in a large way, something that makes you lose confidence in the government and the administration that's currently there. Peter, will the laws ever be sufficient to ensure appropriate ethics? No. Well, then what can ensure the best ethics? The change in the hearts of men and women throughout the world. And it's Pollyanna. It just won't happen. It's one of those things where there will always be this type of conflict. And you're going to have to figure out how you hire the right type of people who won't behave like this. And how we elect the right kind of leaders. Exactly. And I think right now that the things that we're seeing are going on in Washington, D.C., the things that we're seeing are going on in the mayoral race in Honolulu. You have to take a step back and say, how can we do this better? And how can we get people to vote people, not because what they're promising you or who their friends are, but for what their accomplishments have been and are those the types of accomplishments that you want to carry forward the business of the city or the business of the prosecutor's office? I would imagine with our low voter turnout in Hawaii, we have very little to complain about then in terms of the fact that we don't hold our leaders accountable. It seems like the numbers are going up. Well, let's hope so. I'm very optimistic that that will be true on a national level. I don't know quite so well how it's going to be at the local level, but everybody should get out to vote. You have the option of voting, yes for person, no for the person, or you can leave it blank to protest the caliber of the people you've been given. Well, that's a good note to end on today because as voters, we're the ones who hold our leaders accountable. Exactly. Mayor Carlisle, thank you very much for being with us today. Dr. Martin. Delightful to be with Peter Carlisle today and I think his life is one in which he can reflect upon a wonderful term of service to the people of Hawaii. And again, Peter, thank you so much for being with us. No offense meant to Mayor Billy Kenoi. We were more interested in talking about the actual trial and talking about the issues involved here. We wish him the best as well. I'm Keeley Iakina for the Grassroot Institute on Think Tech, Hawaii's Ehana Kako. Until next week, Aloha.