In an effort to end the Maui County Prosecutor’s five-year campaign to bust MauiTime Publisher Tommy Russo for photographing two Maui Police Officers on a public road (the county says he was “failing to comply” with the officers, but that’s BS to mask the fact that he was photographing cops on a public road), Russo’s attorneys Ben Lowenthal and Sam MacRoberts asked the Hawaii Supreme Court to hear their case (click here for our June story on their appeal).
After all, District Court Judge Kelsey Kawano had tossed the case out in 2014 on a procedural matter and the state Legislature passed a law making clear that photographing cops in public is legal. But when the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) ruled in March of this year that Judge Kawano should not have tossed the case, it seemed like the whole travesty would go on forever.
In late June, Russo’s attorneys asked the Supremes two questions:
• “Did the Intermediate Court of Appeals gravely err by vacating the dismissal order when the record clearly established there was no probable cause to bring the charge of obedience to a police officer against Mr. Russo?
• “Did the ICA gravely err in failing to review and examine if the prosecution against Mr. Russo violated his constitutional right to record the police conducting a traffic stop before vacating and remanding the case to the lower court?
On Aug. 1, the five justices of the Hawaii Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and will schedule oral arguments. No word yet on when that will happen, though.
Click here to read the Hawaii Supreme Court’s Aug. 1 order.
Photo: D Ramey Logan 2011/Wikipedia
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