The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1904-12-09
WOULD GIVE LEPER
SUSPECT A JURY TRIAL
CONTENTIOUS FORwA UNITE ESTATES DIS
TRICT COURT THIS MORNING ATTORNEY AsHFoRD-HE
CLAIMS THAT HAWAIIAN LAWS REGARDING sEGRE
LEPERs ARE UNC CONSTITUTIONAL.

That a person accused of being a lep-
err is entitled to trial by judge and
jury before being forcibly taken from
home and friends and sent to the set
Element at Molokai was the burden OF
the plant made by Attorney c. w. Ash
ford in his appeal to Judge Dole this
morning for a writ OF habeas corpus to
secure the release of Mrs. Mikala Kali
pu from the detention station at Kalihi.
Attorney General Andrews, on the
other hand sought to prove to the courts
satisfaction that the rights of the
Board of Health were fully guaranteed
under the provision for the enforcement
of police law and justified the detention
of Mrs. Kaipu on the broad ground that
the health of the people is the supreme
law.
After two hours of argument, Judge
Dole asked for the submission of briefs
and counsel engaged to have these
ready by Monday morning.
The case came up this morning when
Attorney Ashford began argument in
support of his demurrer to the return
made by the Attorney General to his
application for a writ of habeas corpus.
Ashford was accompanied by the young
girl, Emma L. Kaipu, whose anxiety to
save her mother from a lifetime at Mo-
lokai caused the launching of the liti-
cation now in hand. President Pink
ham of the Board of Health, and sew
eral of the medical men of the Board,
as well as different local physicians
followed the argument throughout with
evident interest.
Ashford stated i'm opening that he de-
INJURED to the return of the Attorney
General because it did not raise or pre-
sent issues of law or fact but simply
stated conclusions without giving the
reasons on which they We're based. 1t
was claimed that the detained woman
was willing to go to MolOkai, but even
if this were a fact, instead of merely
being a statement, the Board of Health
would not be justified in sending her
there.
The entire set of laws respecting
leprOsy on these Hawaiian Islands is
unconstitutional and invalid" declared
Ashford. There is nothing under their
provision to prevent one person depriv-
ing another of freedom under the pre-
tence of properly carrying out the law.
What authority has the Board of
Health under the law for the forcible
arrest and detention of persons sus-
pected of being a leper or a person cap
able of spreading the disease of lep-
rosy? How are we to know who is a
leper or who is capable of spreading the
disease?
Before the Board of Health has a
right to detain anyone it must prove
that the person so detained is really
leprous or capable of spreading the dis
ease. There must be some tribunal to
pass on the state of the suspected per-
sons, they are not to be railroaded TO
that hell at Molokai merely at the
mandate of the Board of Health"
There were some smiles of amuse
ment when Attorney Ashford admit ID
that though in the past years he had
been more or less concerned in thu pre-
Taration of leprosy legislation tho real
STATE of affairs had not occurred to him
until he had gone into the present cas-"
and he had now discovered that the law
was full of wounds, bruises and putre-
flying sores"
Persons accused of being lepers had,
he insisted, the right to trial by jury.
The act provided that persons sent
to the leDer settlement might be re-
quired to do reasonable amount of
labor and that provision in itself would
invalidate the law. Here We're people
who had committed no fault, taken
from their homes by force, given no
hearing or trial. sent to a place foreign
to them, herded among people suffer-
ing from the most loathesome disease.
This Ashford claimed was utterly in
consistent with the principles of con-
stitutional liberty. All that was neces-
sary was to get the certificate of four
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