Hawaii Circuit Court Judge Karl Sakamoto declared that records relating to police misconduct should be public under Hawaii’s Uniform Information Practices Act. Sakamoto hearkened back to a 1996 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling that found police have no special right to privacy when it comes to bad acts. The judge told HPD to release the records in a ruling that could help reverse decades of nondisclosure by police. The case was brought by Civil Beat which was represented by the new Civil Beat Law Center for the Public Interest. Political cartoonist John Pritchett was struck (no pun intended) by the fact that history repeated itself on this no-brainer issue nearly 20 years later.

About the author: John Pritchett is a longtime award-winning political cartoonist. He has been penning artwork in Hawaii for decades, including 20 years at the Honolulu Weekly. Find more of his work on the web at pritchettcartoons.com.