The Hawaiian gazette. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu, Hawaii]) 1865-1918, 1912-03-26
kauai SITUATION
CAUSES COMMENT
Blind Pigs at Bottom Of Murder
Incompetence at the
Bottom of All.
tFrOm Mondays Advertiser.l


Reporting a startling situation on
Kauai, most of those who would have
been actively engaged in the now fam
Gus Japanese murder trials" return
ed from the Garden Island on the Ma
una Loa yesterday. Among these were
Judge w. j, Robinson, NJ. f. Prosser,
who represented the fourteen indicted
japanese; S. Sheba, and Chester Doyle.
The situation, say some of the re-
turning principals, is not confined to
the immediate case of the Japanese
who were indicted for murder. 1t
hinges on some official incompetency,
particularly in the county attorney S
Office. This, and the liquor traffic, are
the secrets of it all.
The island is said to be fairly rotten
with blind pigs. So strong has become
this illegal network, that the first at
tempt to break some of them up re-
suited in the death of the informer for
the murder of whom the fourteen Japa-
nese were to have been tried had not
she county attorney nol-prossed all of
the cases.
The refusal of the Kauai county liq-
uor commissioners to grant any licenses
for saloons and the apparent failure
of the police to give them the backing
that such n resolution must have to
become successful is the prime cause
of the trouble, say the travellers.
Bridgewater Escapes.
Judge Robinson's trip to Kauai to
take Judge Hardy's place on the bench
resulted in only one thing of any i'm
portance. He succeeding in tanning the
Kauai editor, f. B. Bridgewater, who
stands at the editorial helm of the Gar
den Island.
Bridgewater escaped with a whole
skin, owing solely to the clemency of
the Honolulu judge, as the Judge very
carefully informed him, and he now
knows great deal more of the law
of contempt than he did before.
1.-THE court wishes to admonish you
to cease in future the publication of
articles upon matters over which the
court has jurisdiction and which may
have the effect of harassing and hamp-
ering the court in the discharge of its
functions Judge Robinson told him.
Publications of this kind are repre-
hensible. By the appearance of articles
such as these the procedure and duties
of the court are interfered with and
hampered, unnecessary expense is in
Cured by Jurors coming here with pre-
conceived ideas as to the guilt of the
persons alluded to in the article and
the proceedings heightened, and the
cost to the county of Kauai unneces-
sarily increased.
after the case is determined by the
court, You are at liberty to publish your
IDEAS or anything yop wish in connec-
tion with the proceedings and there is
MO possible objection to any criticism
of the court or the defendants or the
crime, but during its tendency the
court must insist that you do not pub.
lish anything which might in any way
prejudice or bias the minds of the
public in accordance with suggestions
made and appearing in the publication.
An "oxersight.'
While l do not think the appear
ance of this article is other than an
oversight on your part, it is unfortu-
nate, because it is likely to unduly in
fluence these jurors who will come
here. Newspaper articles always bear
more or less weight with those who
read them, and to form public opinion
as to matter of grave import, par
ticnlarly III a case of this magnitude,
can not be too strongly condemned. ]
do not say these things to you in a
spirit of eensnre, but to impress on
your mind the fact that this court does
not wish to control your opinions OF
views-you are entitled to your own
| ideas-except in so far as hindering
this court in the discharge of it's func
tions. You are discharged.
The particular phrase for which
Bridgewater was responsible and which
got him into trouble was one in a
Garden Island article and intimating
"that some one or more of those SC
indicted may be innocent is not al
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