Yoshimi Hayashi

The case involved a nursing student at the University of Hawaii at Hilo who sued individual instructors and administrators under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, claiming their actions arbitrarily forced her withdrawal from the program and violated her Fourteenth Amendment substantive due process rights to continued enrollment. The circuit court denied the defendants' motion to dismiss or for summary judgment based on qualified immunity. After the U.S. Supreme Court vacated the prior Hawaii Supreme Court ruling and remanded for reconsideration in light of Siegert v. Gilley, the court reversed and ordered dismissal of the § 1983 claim. The core reasoning was that the threshold question under Siegert is whether the plaintiff alleged violation of a clearly established constitutional right at the time of the conduct, prior cases had only assumed without establishing a protected property interest in university enrollment, and no such clearly established right existed here.

civil rightsprocedure

In State v. Meyers, the defendant was convicted of terroristic threatening in the first degree after placing a phone call from California to her probation officer in Hawaii, during which she made multiple threats to harm a judge and his family. The sole issue on appeal was whether Hawaii had subject matter jurisdiction to prosecute the offense, given that the calls originated outside the state. The Hawaii Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, holding that jurisdiction existed under HRS § 701-106 because the threats were communicated and received in Hawaii, satisfying the requirement that either conduct or a result constituting an element of the offense occur within the state. The court reasoned that both the utterance and communication of threats are integral to the offense, and a phone call constitutes conduct in the jurisdiction where it is received.

criminal lawprocedure

In this case, police used a trained narcotics detection dog to sniff packages at a Federal Express cargo facility known as a high-volume drug conduit, with the carrier's consent but without individualized suspicion or the permission of senders or recipients. The dog alerted to a package addressed to Alan Snitkin, leading to a search warrant, discovery of cocaine, and Snitkin's arrest and indictment for promoting a dangerous drug. The trial court suppressed the evidence, finding the routine dog sniff violated constitutional protections, but the Hawaii Supreme Court reversed on appeal. The court held that the dog's sniff of the airspace around closed packages was not a search under the Fourth Amendment or the Hawaii constitution, and that the government's interest in detecting drug traffic through a known conduit outweighed any minimal individual privacy interest. It further reasoned that precedent permitted such sniffs without prior suspicion of specific packages, and emphasized that a warrant was still required to open any identified containers.

criminal lawprocedure

The case involved a dispute between Aiea Lani Corporation, a real estate developer, and Hawaii Escrow & Title Inc. over a contract for title insurance services where the developer paid an upfront fee and was to receive a reimbursement upon unit sales. The trial court ruled in favor of the developer, enforcing the reimbursement of $6,774. The Hawaii Supreme Court reversed, holding that the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) applied to the transaction and prohibited the reimbursement as an illegal kickback or thing of value for referring settlement business.

business & regulatoryproperty