The death of a Good Samaritan in Waikiki last month might have been avoided if Kelii Acasia, the alleged killer, had been picked up on a warrant for his arrest issued on March 17.

The same is true for RJ Ham, who allegedly stabbed Fugitogamala Savea to death on Dec. 26 in a parking lot on North School Street. A judge on Oct. 31 had ordered Ham's arrest when Ham failed to show up for a probation hearing.

The cases are examples of the continuing problem of unserved arrest warrants in the hands of law enforcement agencies in Hawai'i.

A government task force that studied the problem in 2006 said there were more than 74,000 arrest warrants waiting to be served statewide.

Comprehensive, updated numbers are unavailable, although state Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa said Friday that there are 52,942 traffic court warrants and 2,506 probation violation warrants outstanding.

At the end of 2006, nearly 20,000 more misdemeanor arrest warrants were in the hands of county police departments, but no numbers were immediately available on the current size of that backlog.

LACK RESOURCES

Police and sheriffs personnel responsible for serving outstanding arrest warrants have repeatedly said in recent years that they don't have the personnel or financial resources to handle an ever-increasing backlog of unserved warrants.

In the meantime, cases like those of Acasia and Ham could continue to crop up.

Acasia, 19, charged in the beating death of Good Samaritan Ned Nakoa May 17 in Waikiki, had been at large for two months after a warrant for his arrest was issued March 17.

Ham, 24, is charged with the stabbing death of an 18-year-old Kalihi man Dec. 26, seven weeks after Ham failed to appear at a required court hearing.

A warrant for Ham's arrest was ordered by a circuit judge Oct. 31. However, the warrant was not issued — meaning law enforcement personnel didn't know Ham was wanted — until Dec. 27, the day after the murder occurred, court files show.

PROBATION PROJECT

Acasia and Ham were participants in a pilot probation project designed to reduce recidivism through close supervision and frequent drug testing along with immediate returns to jail for violators. The program is called Project HOPE, or Hawai'i's Opportunity for Probation with Enforcement.

A key element of HOPE is "quick service of bench warrants on those who abscond," according to an article about HOPE published last year in The American Prospect magazine written by Angela Hawken of Pepperdine University and Mark Kleiman of the University of California at Los Angeles.

That's not what happened with probationers Acasia and Ham.

Both men had failed to appear at their initial HOPE "warning hearings," in which judges explain the consequences of violations of program rules. The HOPE warrants then ordered for their arrests were supposed to have received priority treatment from law enforcement agencies.

Acasia's arrest warrant was sent to police April 1 but was not served until after officers arrested and charged Acasia with the May 17 murder of Nakoa.

Police spokesman Maj. Frank Fujii said he did not know what efforts were made by officers to find and arrest Acasia after the HOPE warrant was received.

ASSAULT CONVICTION

Acasia was convicted of sexual assault in 2006 and was originally sentenced to a year in jail and five years of probation by Family Court Judge Frances Wong.

Acasia was 16 years old at the time of the assault, which occurred when he and the victim were incarcerated at the Hawai'i Youth Correctional Facility, but he was tried as an adult and was 17 years old when he entered a guilty plea.

After Acasia finished his jail sentence and began serving probation, he failed to report to his probation officer and was brought before Wong again.

She revoked his probation and ordered him to serve up to 10 years in prison, according to court records.

After the Hawai'i Paroling Authority determined that Acasia should serve at least 4 1/2 years in prison before being considered for parole, the defendant's lawyer, Keith Shigetomi, asked Wong to reconsider the prison sentence and once again place Acasia on probation.

"Since being incarcerated at Halawa Correctional Facility, Acasia has fully realized that he squandered the previous opportunity to succeed on probation," the defense argued.

On March 14, Wong granted the motion and resentenced Acasia to five years of probation.

Just 13 days later, Acasia failed to appear for his HOPE "warning hearing" and Circuit Court Judge Steve Alm ordered a bench warrant issued for his arrest.

The warrant was issued the same day, but was signed for Alm by a different Circuit Judge, Derrick Chan.

GROWING BACKLOG

City Prosecuting Attorney Peter Carlisle, who has deplored the growing backlog of arrest warrants in the hands of law enforcement, said Acasia's case never should have gotten to the point of serving a warrant related to a probation violation.

Acasia should have been in prison, not on probation, Carlisle said.

"We were under the impression this guy should not be let out (on probation) because he was a risk and a major concern to public safety," Carlisle said.

"That's what we told the court," he said. "To let him out was wrong. Now we've got somebody who's dead."

Wong referred questions about Carlisle's comments to Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa, who said she could not discuss the Acasia or Ham cases.

"Because both cases will come before the court again, and because the Judiciary must refrain from making public statements that may be misconstrued or considered prejudicial to a case or to the defendant's right to a fair trial, I will not comment on the court's actions in the Kelii Acasia and R. J. Ham cases," Kitagawa said.

'WARNING HEARING'

Ham was originally convicted in May 2006 of assaulting two men and was sentenced to five years of probation.

When he was approved for participation in Project HOPE, he was ordered to appear at a "warning hearing" on Oct. 31, but didn't show up.

Circuit Judge Michael Town ordered Ham's arrest on a $20,000 bench warrant, but court files show the warrant wasn't signed by a judge until Dec. 27. Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall signed the warrant that day on behalf of Town.

Ham allegedly stabbed Fugitogamala Savea to death on Dec. 26 in a parking lot at 2215 North School St.

Police received the probation violation warrant Jan. 2 and served it on Ham the same day, after he was arrested on suspicion of murdering Savea.

Kitagawa could not explain the delay in issuance of the warrant.

Generally, felony bench warrants for probation violations are issued to the police department on the day the warrants are ordered," she said.

Chan, the administrative judge for criminal cases, "has taken steps to ensure judicial orders calling for felony bench warrants are issued 'forthwith,'" said Kitagawa.

Acasia and Ham have pleaded not guilty to the murder charges against them.

CHARGES DROPPED

In another case, a delay in issuing a warrant resulted in a convict getting charges against him dropped.

The Intermediate Court of Appeals last month dismissed a probation revocation case against Gerald Siamani because an outstanding arrest warrant was not served on him for two years and four months.

Siamani had been convicted of a charge of second-degree terroristic threatening in July 2004 and was sentenced to one year of probation.

In October 2004, Siamani failed to appear at a probation hearing and a bench warrant for his arrest was issued.

It was finally served in March 2007 and Siamani's probation was revoked. He was ordered to serve 90 days in jail.

The public defender's office protested the ruling, noting that the state had failed to show that it "used due diligence in serving the warrant on him or that the warrant had been executed 'without unnecessary delay,'" according to court records.

There was no evidence that Siamani was avoiding service of the warrant, the court found.

"Indeed, the record indicates that Siamani made appearances in Circuit Court on an (unrelated) felony charge while the bench warrant remained unserved," the opinion, issued May 16, said.

And the defense pointed out that after the warrant was issued, "Siamani was arrested and charged with a felony offense ... and he made appearances in this felony offense in Circuit Court from Nov. 28, 2005 through Feb. 22, 2007, but he was not served with the bench warrant."

The appeals court overturned the probation revocation, saying the state provided "nothing in the way of justification for the two-year-four-month delay in serving the warrant."

TRAFFIC COURT ARREST WARRANTS PILE UP

Unserved traffic court arrest warrants continue to pile up at Honolulu District Court because there aren't enough employees to print them out and deliver hard copies to sheriffs for service, said state Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa.

Some 3,000 warrants ordered by judges since mid-February haven't been processed, said Kitagawa and District Court legal documents administrator Calvin Ching.

Under the law, police and sheriffs can't arrest a wanted offender without a paper copy of a warrant, even though they know the warrant exists electronically in the system, state Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Louise Kim McCoy said.

When The Advertiser studied the backlogged warrants system in detail in 2006, law enforcement agencies said they simply didn't have the manpower to execute the outstanding warrants. Kitagawa said last week personnel shortages are also to blame for the ongoing bottleneck of traffic warrants at Honolulu District Court.

"Due to a lack of resources, the Honolulu District Court is currently working on traffic warrants ordered in February and cannot process warrants any faster at the current staffing level unless court staff work overtime," she said. "The Judiciary has significantly reduced its overtime hours given severe budgetary constraints."

Ching said Friday that overtime has now been approved to process traffic warrants issued since mid-February.

"We'll clear it up," Ching said.

Kitagawa added that the long-planned "paperless" warrant system that will solve the problem will soon be implemented.

That system, which was one of the recommendations of the 2006 task force that studied the backlog, "will allow authorized law enforcement personnel to electronically access the Judiciary's statewide database of outstanding traffic warrants and to print the warrants, 24/7."

A pilot version of the system, called "eBenchWarrant," is being tested now and should be operational early next year, said Dana Nakasato, a specialist with the Judiciary Information Management System.

Once the system is fully operational, "court staff on O'ahu will no longer have to print and deliver the warrants to the Sheriff's Office and staff at the Sheriff's Office will no longer have to file the warrants," Kitagawa said.

The paperless warrant system will only work with outstanding traffics warrants issued since November of 2005. Tens of thousands of older warrants will still be in hard copy form which must be retrieved from file drawers at the state Sheriffs Division before an arrest can be made.

And the most serious arrest warrants, for felony offenders and parole and probation violators, will not be included in the paperless system, said Nakasato and Kitagawa.

— Jim Dooley