Criminals vie for 'Babooze of the Week' title

By John Griffin

I started out to write a fairly light-hearted column about my experience on the state grand jury, but it grew more serious as I talked with people. Lawyers will do that to you.

So a few mixed thoughts to balance things out:

• Sometimes you think you're hearing a rerun of "Hawai'i's dumbest criminals." Between cases, we would discuss who should be "Babooze of the Week," and we ended up voting awards for the 2001 title.

One went to a shoplifter who scanned a store for security cameras — then stood directly under one while he stuffed a bottle of liquor under his waistband.

Then there was the woman in her 20s who used a stolen credit card imprinted with "Customer since 1960" and misspelled the first name when she signed the credit card slip.

Or how about the fellow who left his pager in the vehicle he stole? The police had an easy time tracking him down by calling back the number on the pager.

My favorite was the young fellow who returned to the upscale house he had just burglarized because he was hungry and wanted to raid the refrigerator. He got caught for that reason.

• Most cases we heard were relatively minor. Jurors occasionally dozed off. But then you would get hit with a riveting murder, rape or molestation case where a child victim testified in heartbreaking detail.

• We heard cases of police misconduct. We also saw many police witnesses whose testimony indicated what a tough job they sometimes have. I think about one especially friendly officer who was later killed in the line of duty.

• We joked about the low juror pay, usually $15 for a half-day of maybe six cases. Jurors often spent more than that to bring in many pies, cakes, malassadas, boxes of sushi and other goodies for recesses in the jurors' lounge. Call it the Justice Diet.

• Besides the grim, funny and boring cases, what sticks with me most is the pleasant Hawai'i mixture of our panel — waitresses, office workers, government and university people, a banker, a labor leader and a woman who hunted with bow and arrows. It made this coast haole emeritus glad to be part of it.

John Griffin is the former editorial page editor of The Honolulu Advertiser. He writes frequently for these pages.