Our Criminal Mayor Left Me to Die Rather than Agree to the Rule of Law

On October 13, 2014, I commenced a protest hunger strike. For almost four weeks I sat in a lawn chair on the grassy area of the Wailuku courthouse, Hale Hoapili, on Main Street across from McDonald’s.  Next to me was my 8-foot high sign that said “Hunger Strike to Death (if necessary) for Justice.” It stated the date the fast started, my weight then, the current day of the fast and my current weight. I stayed there for about five hours each week day through November 7. The fast lasted 26 days. Scores of people read my flyer, visited my blogs, and had conversations with me, some lasting more than an hour. No one disagreed with me and most people strongly agreed and offered their support. Some offered me money to print more flyers. Even attorneys, and lower-level state and county employees expressed support.

I hand-delivered a letter to the Office of Corporation Counsel of County of Maui, the county’s lawyers, explaining my protest and making one simple demand, the same one I have been making for 20 years: end the county’s illegal perjury decriminalization policy, which harms victims of perjury and undermines the integrity of the justice system.

I demanded that the mayor or the chief of police, speaking for the county, take three concrete steps to initiate the reform.

1) Issue a press release informing or reminding the public that perjury is a felony and we all have a right to complain to the police about perjury that harmed us, the same as we would if we had been assaulted or robbed.

2) Send a memo to all police officers informing or reminding them that it is their duty to log and investigate complaints of perjury the same as they do other crimes.

3) Change the TRO Petition form with one or two sentences emphasizing that lying on the form is perjury, a felony which will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

Deputy Corporation Counsel Moana Lutey replied with the same brazen lie they have told for two decades: there is no perjury decriminalization policy. In 2012 Lutey suborned perjury in federal court by ex-chief of police Thomas Phillips who swore under oath that the county does not maintain a perjury decrim policy.

They apparently feel justified in saying this because there is no such written policy. But it has been firmly established in law that if a county has a long and consistent habit, custom or pattern of handling an issue in a certain way, it is thereby maintaining a policy, whether or not the policy is stated in an official memo or policy manual. It does not have to be in writing to be an official policy.

Lutey and her bosses, including the mayor, have repeatedly shown themselves to be arrogant, ignorant, ruthless and contemptuous of our basic rights. Their strategy on this issue is to simply lie about it – brazenly, preposterously and stubbornly lie. They cannot name a single case of prosecution of perjury in the last several decades, yet they want the public to believe the lie they repeatedly told the federal court, that perjury is investigated and prosecuted the same as any other crime. They have to say this because without this pretense there cannot be an appearance of the rule of law. And that is all we have here, an appearance of the rule of law.

I have tried to get the media to investigate my allegations and cover the story, but they are unanimously silent. They rushed to report the announcement that a Hong Kong protest leader was commencing a hunger strike, but ignored my announcement of my protest fast. They believe that the rule of law is important in China, but not in Hawaii.

This is an example of the Flower Curtain that the local media maintain around the island to minimize bad news from spreading. Information that tarnishes the image of “the world’s best island” is self-censored in the interest of advertisers. The papers and broadcasters are capitalists, but the end result is akin to that of the old Soviet Union. Think Pravda and Izvestia, spouting the party’s sunny line and keeping quiet about the big problems.

We should all keep in mind that Hawaii’s nice climate and beautiful scenery do not guarantee a bright future. Haiti also has a nice climate and beautiful scenery, but few people would call it a great place to live or even visit. It has long been an environmental and human disaster area, thanks to poor governance, corruption, tyranny and overpopulation. Maui especially seems to be moving in the same direction.   

My Letter to Lutey

 Here is the text of my letter to Maui county attorney Moana Lutey in reply to her latest lying claim that there is no perjury decrim policy.

Dear Ms. Lutey:

This is regarding your recent letter to me claiming that perjury has not been decriminalized in Maui County. Saying it does not make it so. You and the county have been lying about the issue of perjury for many years.

In order for the county to maintain the illegal policy it must deny that the policy exists. You have done this so brazenly that you insult our intelligence. Maria De Leon’s perjured TRO petition (and the automatic ex parte order) followed by her false police report landed me in jail for 30 days. The judge who finally heard the case called her a liar, dissolved the ex parte order and denied the petition. I tried for two years to have her prosecuted for the perjury and false reporting that led to my arrest. I was always either ignored or told that the police do not investigate complaints of perjury. That was only one of four cases in which the county refused my attempts to have perjury prosecuted. Are you claiming that the county investigates all complaints of perjury except mine? Surely you know that would amount to an illegal vendetta. 

When I filed a lawsuit in federal court over the issue you and Richard Rost suborned perjury by Chief Phillips, who swore to the court that perjury is investigated and prosecuted the same as other crimes. The time limit for prosecution had not yet expired in the De Leon case, and I continued to urge an investigation throughout the federal court proceedings and for months afterward. But all my appeals to the chief and to the prosecutor fell on deaf ears. You and Chief Phillips spit in my face and in the court’s face. And when I requested examples of perjury prosecution the county supplied none. But you know all this. Who do you think you’re fooling with your preposterous lie? 

The problem is that you are a pathological liar and almost certainly a genuine psychopath as clinically defined by psychiatric criminologist Robert Hare in his classic book Without Conscience. Your crimes against me, especially your felonious obstruction of justice in Kurt Butler vs. MDDR, stole my First Amendment right to free speech, ruined me financially, and condemned me to live in abject poverty and pain (I won’t be able to afford more shoulder surgery) through my senior years. And they cost the taxpayers more than one hundred thousand dollars. All this to save MDDR’s insurance company about the same amount. But you are utterly oblivious to the harm you caused, completely unrepentant and lacking remorse, a defining characteristic of the psychopath. 

I don’t know to what extent you act on your own, but surely the mayor and your boss in the department are aware of your actions and are therefore, at the very least, complicit in your crimes. I strongly suspect bribery in the MDDR case, but I don’t know who was paid off. Was it the two cops, you, your boss, or the mayor? Or all of you? I know MDDR, which mints money with criminal lies that rip off and endanger the victims of its scams, can easily afford to make very generous payoffs. 

One last point: if the county does not maintain a perjury decriminalization policy, why not agree to my demands? What harm could come from issuing a memo reminding police officers that it is their duty to investigate complaints of perjury the same as any other serious crime, something they are obviously unaware of? 

Why not remind the public, with a press release, that people have a right to have their complaints of perjury investigated, and prosecuted if warranted by the evidence? To save face you could say that there has long been a misunderstanding about it. And why not tweak the TRO petition forms to warn potential perjurers and to inform respondents of their rights? The county’s refusal to meet these demands supports my contention that there is a perjury decriminalization policy, and that the county wants to keep it and keep lying about it.

The vast majority of people who read my flyer, including many local lawyers, agree with me. The support for my protest and my demands is overwhelming.

I will continue my public protest and hunger strike until my demands are met. 

Sincerely,   Kurt Butler 

About My Fast

It’s easy to think about not eating, but hard to go very long without eating. You start out with I’ll-show-them determination and enthusiasm, but when hunger becomes constant you waver and all kinds of excuses to quit the fast pop into your head. In the beginning I thought about Gandhi and Bobby Sands, the IRA protester. At first they inspired me. Gandhi did protest fasts about 20 times over many years. His longest was 21 days, which he did three times. Bobby Sands went 66 days without eating.

After a week of hunger I dwelled more on the facts that I was 70 while Sands was 27 and he died of starvation; and even Gandhi was at least a decade younger than I during his last fast. I thought about the permanent damage I might do with a prolonged fast at my age and almost scared myself out of continuing.

What is fasting? Some people refer to a “juice fast”, which is really not a fast since you can get 1500 or more calories a day from juice. I don’t know whether Gandhi and Sands took any kind of supplements, at least a little salt with their water or something for fiber, but it is reasonable to define a fast as a period of extreme restriction of calories from any source while allowing water, minerals and vitamins. 

I drank plenty of water, sometimes with a pinch of salt, and, for vitamins and minerals I ate three to four sheets of nori and drank a half glass of V-8 Juice each day. During the last week I sometimes had a cup of near-zero calorie soup made with cabbage, onion, garlic, and various spices plus the half-glass of V-8. In the 26 days I never exceeded more than 5 percent of my normal calorie intake. For fiber I stirred a teaspoon of psyllium seed husk into a glass of water and choked it down.

At 3:30 a.m. at the beginning of what was to be the 27^th day of the fast, I was awakened by strange sounds coming from the kitchen-area sink. By the time I got the light on the sink was overflowing with bathtub water from upstairs (due to a drain clog downhill from my sink). My entire studio apartment was flooded and my carpets soaked.

I had no choice but to sop up some of the water. After an hour of strenuous work, sopping and squeezing a large towel into a bucket, I experienced symptoms that seemed to be typical signs of the beginning of a heart attack, though the pain in my left arm could have been from overexertion. In any case, I realized I had to eat or I could die, perhaps that very day. My determination and enthusiasm for my cause faded. My thinking changed from I’ll defy them by not eating to, they want me dead so I will defy them by eating.

I broke the promise of my protest, my promise to fast for justice, to death if necessary. I’m sorry for that, but I am sorrier that I failed in my effort to inspire a little reform, just a slight nudge toward the actual rule of law in Maui County.

However, I am not giving up. I have a new, even taller sign that I will be displaying around central Wailuku, mostly around the courthouse and the county building. It has a provocative message that is sure to ruffle some feathers. I don’t expect to ever personally get justice in my cases, but I do hope to inspire reforms that will spare others such injustices.

Finally, I must emphasize that I will never again voluntarily desist from normal eating for more than a day or two. I strongly advise against prolonged fasting because it causes the breakdown of healthy tissue.  This can damage any organ and disrupt every normal function of the body. It can take months or years to heal from the trauma. Several weeks after ending my fast I still feel a little weak and a lot fuzzy. My muscles have not fully recovered, and my brain and eyes have hardly begun to heal. My memory and vision are blurred and my emotions volatile. These functions seems to be recovering, but all too slowly.

Links to all my blogs: www.KurtButlerBlogs.blogspot.com. 

Maui's future foretold: Barbarians in Paradise -- Terror comes to Maui. This is a prophetic flash novel about a future police state and those who rebel against it. Available in paperback and e-book on Amazon.com.

Reviews, comments:

"Diabolical and outrageous. Should be banned." Linda Lingle, ex-Maui mayor, ex-Hawaii governor.

"A wet dream of vengeance for victims of government abuse." Anonymous reader.

"A prophecy too plausible to ignore but too terrible to contemplate." Anonymous.

"Maui's future? America's future?" Anonymous.

"Profound and potentially dangerous." Kirtus Reviews.

For detailed critiques of various forms of quackery, including naturopathy, see my book A Consumer’s Guide to “Alternative Medicine”. It was expertly edited by legendary quack buster Stephen Barrett, MD.  The critics say:

"Superb!" -- Dr. Victor Herbert in the New England Journal of Medicine.

"Excellent" -- National Council Against Health Fraud.

"Five Stars" -- Cooking Light.

"Thought provoking; a great book" -- American Journal of Health Promotion.  

When the book was published almost 30 years ago it was strongly praised by responsible health experts and the rare responsible media, but trashed by new-age critics and even vandalized in bookstores by new-age fanatics. It is as true and relevant as ever, and has been mostly vindicated by time. Yet my courageous and far-sighted publisher, the venerable Prometheus Books, is still sitting on lots of copies. Please help validate their integrity by buying a copy. Or two or more as gifts. Perhaps 10 for your local school library and health classes. See their website for assorted discounts. Make them an offer. (My royalties are insignificant; this little promo is for the benefit of one of the world's great publishers, Prometheus Books.) 

The cartoon below was contributed by Kai Lani. 

Hunger Strike to Expose Maui's Broken Justice System

The Truth that Maui Government Criminals, the Maui Visitors’ Bureau, and their Lackeys in the Media Don’t Want You to Know about Maui’s Broken Justice System

During July and August I spent about 100 hours on sidewalks at high-traffic spots in downtown Wailuku displaying large signs that make outlandish defamatory allegations about Mayor Alan Arakawa. I called him a “pedophile” and a “cannibal,” followed by the words “I swear this is true under penalty of perjury.” I had made the claims up.

On August 18 I filed a petition in district court for a temporary restraining order (TRO) alleging that the mayor had phoned me several times and threatened me with violence if I continued to defame him. My signature certified that my statements were true, sworn under penalty of perjury. My phone records show that calls were made to me from a pay phone in the county building at the times I alleged that the mayor had called me. But a check of the security camera near that phone would show me making those calls.

A few days later I sent an anonymous letter to the county prosecutor along with a copy of the TRO petition, which I said had been obtained by the broadcast station where I worked. As an Arakawa supporter and friend, I said, I am outraged and want Kurt Butler prosecuted for perjury. I explained how perjury might be proved by evidence from Butler’s phone records and from the mayor’s schedule log and his staff. I served myself up to the prosecutor on a silver platter.

Now, months after my criminal prank, I still have not heard from the police or the prosecutor. To my knowledge, no charges have been filed against me and probably none will be. Of course they would love to charge and jail me, but their own long-standing perjury decriminalization policy, an illegal policy that undermines the integrity of the justice system, makes prosecution impossible.

Three times in the last decade I was arrested on the basis of perjured TRO petitions. I spent a total of 35 days in jail, incurred legal expenses and major hassles, and suffered defamation as bad as my recent defamation of the mayor. The taxpayers paid thousands for all this. When the criminal lies were exposed I tried to have the perjurers prosecuted but I was always told that the police, by policy, do not investigate complaints of perjury, and that the prosecutor does not take action unless the police investigate first. Others have told me similar stories and, to my knowledge, the county has never prosecuted a case of perjury. Because of this illegal policy, we are all at the mercy of criminal liars, trials are a farce, and unjust verdicts are very common.

The de facto veto by the county government of the anti-perjury law passed by the state legislature is patently unconstitutional, a violation of separation of powers. The mayor, the police chief and the prosecutor take oaths to uphold and enforce the law. They have no right to pick and choose which laws to enforce. For years I have complained to county officials and council members about the policy and the harm it does to innocent people and to the justice system itself, but I have never received a reply from any of them.

If common people are not protected from the crime of perjury, why should the powerful people responsible for the policy be protected? I defamed and pranked the mayor and others in an attempt to force a showdown on this issue.

The county government must finally do what I have been urging it to do since 2001: admit that its perjury decriminalization policy is unconstitutional as well as harmful to its victims and to the integrity of the system, then initiate serious reforms. These must include: (1) a press release announcing an end to perjury decriminalization and informing people that police officers will investigate complaints of perjury the same as any other serious crime; (2) a memo to all Maui police officers directing them to investigate and file reports on complaints of perjury as they would any other serious crime; (3) change the standard TRO petition forms to emphasize the seriousness of perjury and the right of respondents to a fair investigation should they complain of perjury in the petition.

I resolve to strictly fast (0 calories/day) until the county initiates these reforms. This protest fast started at noon on Monday, October 13, 2014.

This protest is also against the local media (Maui News, et al) all of which stubbornly refuse to investigate the issue or publish my comments on it. If the county government criminals and the MVB don’t want a particular can of worms opened, their media stooges won’t open it. Is this democracy?

Strict fasting by someone my age (70) can cause blindness and coma in as little as 3 weeks and death in as little as 5 weeks. The government criminals have not moved one inch in 12 years of my complaining and protesting in every way I can think of. They will even tolerate my repeatedly defaming them in public demonstrations rather than reform their illegal policy, so I don’t expect them to move now. I expect to die. 

How You Can Help: Buy Barbarians in Paradise/Terror Comes to Maui, a dramatic flash novel about the likely future of Maui if we don’t get real reforms. Available in paperback and e-book. And buy gift copies for friends. Do this and I may be able to get my website back up with a provider less likely to censor it at the insistence of Maui government criminals (which my ex-provider, Wix, did). Then the truth can continue to be told even if I die.                 

 Kurt Butler

Why Political Assassinations on Maui Are Inevitable

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