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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Thursday, October 10, 2002

Justices won't re-address Felix issue

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

The Hawai'i Supreme Court has declined to answer a question from a federal judge on whether the state attorney general's office is in conflict of interest because it represents various parties in the Felix Consent Decree.

U.S. District Judge David Ezra asked the state justices last month to decide whether the Hawai'i Constitution and related statutes allow the office to represent competing interests in the same case. Specifically, Ezra cited the attorney general's representation of the Legislature and the executive branch in the Felix matter.

But in declining to answer the question, the Hawai'i Supreme Court said recently that it has already ruled on the issue in three previous cases. Those cases, the unanimous court said, "provide clearly controlling precedent by which to determine whether, under Hawai'i law, the Office of the Attorney General should be disqualified from representing any or all of the state parties in the proceedings before the U.S. District Court."

The court did not specify what that precedent was, but Attorney General Earl Anzai said the earlier cases affirmed that his office was not in conflict of interest.

"We've been doing it for years, and we have all these cases that say it's OK," Anzai said.

"We're not like a private law firm. We don't have a choice; our clients don't have a choice. They can't go elsewhere."

Anzai said he does not know how the Hawai'i Supreme Court's position will affect Ezra's ruling on a contempt-of-court matter.

An attorney for one of the Felix plaintiffs filed a motion with Ezra to find the state in contempt of court on the conflict-of-interest issue. Shelby Floyd had said that disciplinary rules governing all attorneys don't allow the attorney general's office to be on two sides of the same issue.

Floyd could not be reached for comment yesterday.

The state's special-education system has been under federal court oversight since 1994, when the state signed the Felix decree and agreed to improve services to children with mental health needs.