Opinion ID: 2544598
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Melony's and Nicole's allegations

Text: On Tuesday, January 17, 1995, C.P. provided Schlosser with the names of other students whom she believed had been present in Norton's classroom at the time he allegedly rubbed A.C.'s chest. As a result, on Wednesday, January 18, 1995, Schlosser summoned approximately eight to ten students into his office and interviewed them in connection with A.C.'s accusation. Among these students were Melony and Nicole. Schlosser interviewed Melony and Nicole, as well as other students, a second time on the following day, Thursday, January 19, 1995. [24]
Schlosser interviewed Melony and Nicole separately on Wednesday. He issued excuse slips for them, summoning them to his office from their afternoon classes. Both girls felt nervous about being summoned to the principal's office, did not know why he had summoned them, and initially believed that they were in trouble. Neither had been called to the principal's office before. When he interviewed them, Schlosser asked each girl whether she had observed anything unusual in Norton's classroom during the lunch recess on Friday. He had each of them describe, using a diagram he had drawn of Norton's room, where Norton, A.C., and C.P. had been located at the time Norton allegedly touched A.C. Apparently, neither Melony nor Nicole had witnessed the incident. Melony and Nicole did not, during this initial interview, inform Schlosser that Norton had previously touched each of them in a manner that had made them feel uncomfortable.
On Thursday, January 19, 1995, Schlosser once again summoned Melony and Nicole to his office. [25] This time, he questioned both girls at the same time, asking them whether Norton had ever touched them. Both Melony and Nicole described Norton's practice of hugging them before they left to attend afternoon classes and reported that Norton had touched them in a manner that made them feel uncomfortable; each girl physically demonstrated the way Norton had touched her. In a subsequent criminal proceeding against Norton arising out of Melony's and Nicole's accusations, Melony testified that, in the course of a routine hug before she left for her afternoon class, Norton hugged her in a manner that she did not think was okay and that made her feel uncomfortable. This hug occurred at some point during the 1994 fall semester. She had been visiting Norton during the lunch recess; before leaving, she went to give him a hug, and, while hugging her, he put his hand down my back and then start[ed] to go down, and he touched me on my butt. Norton was sitting at the time, while she stood beside him; he hugged her with his left arm. This hug was different than other hugs she had received from Norton; it made her fe[e]l uncomfortable because his left hand, which he had cupped, came to a stop on her buttocks (over her clothes) for approximately five seconds until she walked away from Norton. Melony testified that she was really mad at Norton because of this hug, but that she did not tell anyone about it at the time because she didn't think it was against the law and she did not want to get Norton into trouble. As a result of the hug, Melony altered the manner in which she would hug Norton; instead of standing next to or in front of him, she would approach him from behind his chair and hug him over his back. At the same criminal proceeding against Norton, Nicole described three incidents during the 1994 fall semester and the first weeks of the 1995 spring semester in which Norton touched her in a manner that was uncomfortable. One of the incidents occurred in October 1994, approximately a week before Halloween. As he was hugging her, Norton placed two of his fingers inside the back pocket of her pants, rubbing her butt for approximately five to ten seconds, until she walked away from him. Throughout the course of this hug, Nicole kept her arms at her sides and did not return Norton's hug. Although she believed that Norton had been rubbing her buttocks intentionally, and despite the fact that the incident made her uncomfortable, she did not become angry because she did not realize that what Norton had done was wrong. As a result of the incident, Nicole also changed the manner in which she hugged Norton, shortening the amount of time that she permitted the hugs to last. Nonetheless, apparently on two other occasions, Norton rubbed her waist and buttocks in a similarly uncomfortable manner. Nicole identified one of the incidents during which Norton had rubbed her buttocks as having occurred in early January 1995 and as having involved much the same behavior as Melony had described. Norton had hugged her from a sitting position, while Nicole was standing before him. His hands dropped down her back and rubbed her buttocks back and forth for approximately five to ten seconds, until she walked away. She described a line forming so that the girls could all receive a hug before leaving for their afternoon classes. Although other girls were behind her in line, they were doing other stuff at the time and, apparently, did not observe Norton rubbing Nicole's buttocks. Like Melony, Nicole did not tell anyone about the incidents because she did not want to get herself or Norton into trouble. Moreover, Nicole did not know whether the touchings were big enough to tell someone about. Instead, Nicole tried to put it behind [her] and forgot about it. In the course of interviewing them on Thursday, January 19, 1995, Schlosser told Melony and Nicole that what Norton had done was criminal, but that neither of them were in trouble. However, at trial and in a pretrial deposition, Schlosser testified that he believed, at the time he heard their allegations, that the conduct they described constituted brushings, rather than inappropriate sexual touchings or fondling. Yet, in his deposition testimony, Schlosser admitted that he did not know what constituted a criminal sexual offense. Apparently believing that both girls had disclosed to their respective parents the incidents they had described to him, Schlosser did not inform the girls' parents that he had interviewed them, nor did he relay what the girls had stated to him regarding Norton. As it happens, however, neither of the girls had told their parents about Norton's hugs or about being called into Schlosser's office and interviewed. [26] Schlosser did not d[o] anything because he was waiting for the girls' parents to contact him. He believed that [i]t was inappropriate for [him] to conduct any type of investigation because it's [DOE] policy not to do that. Indeed, as he stated to H.D.'s parents, see supra note 25, who had contacted him on January 24, 1995 because H.D. had revealed to them that she, too, had been patted on the butt by Norton, he believed that he could not interview H.D. about her allegations. According to Schlosser, Chapter 19 [of Hawai`i Administrative Rules Title 8] ... states that in any kind of sexual misconduct [case], [the] school is not to do the investigation; that it is up to other agencies to do the investigation, because school level people are not trained adequately toโto deal with that very sensitive and unique issue. Thus, Schlosser asserted that, once he had initially interviewed students, he did not further investigate A.C.'s, H.D.'s, Melony's, or Nicole's allegations.