Posted on: Friday, August 6, 2004

Pretrial inmates settle in right-to-vote case

By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer

On the day of the 2000 general election, William Remmers Jr. was being held at the O'ahu Community Correctional Center awaiting trial on a felony drunken driving charge. He had signed up to vote, but when he asked for a ballot, the prison staff told him they didn't have one and to file a grievance.

Remmers did more than that. With the encouragement of late U.S. Rep. Patsy Mink and with help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawai'i, Remmers filed a lawsuit in 2002 alleging violations of the constitutional right to vote for him and at least 10 other inmates.

Recently, the ACLU and the state reached an out-of-court settlement that would pay up to $5,000 to Remmers and other OCCC pretrial detainees who were denied a chance to vote in the 2000 elections.

The maximum amount for any detainee would be $1,000.

"They know the rules and regulations and they got caught and it costs taxpayers money," Remmers, 47, a Palolo resident, said yesterday. "It's kinda ignorant that with all the rules and regulations they are well aware of, they don't abide by them."

The settlement also calls for state prison officials to ensure that people in jail awaiting trial will be able to vote in future elections. The settlement must be approved by a federal judge

Nov. 16, but state officials say they will be making sure detainees will be able to vote by mail in the Sept. 18 and Nov. 2 elections.

Under the law, felons serving prison time aren't entitled to vote, but Remmers and the other detainees were awaiting trial and had not been convicted of the charges.

Although OCCC held more than 600 pretrial detainees in 2000, only a handful who expressed a desire to vote and qualified to vote would be entitled to part of the $5,000. Ronald Verga, the Honolulu lawyer who filed the suit in behalf of Remmers and the ACLU, estimated that only a few dozen might qualify.

"I think it's fair," Verga said yesterday. "I think the ACLU achieved what they set out to achieve and in the future the rights of pretrial detainees to vote will be preserved."

John Cregor, state deputy attorney general who estimated about 30 detainees might qualify, also called the settlement "fair." He said a "last-minute procedural problem developed" that included prison officials not getting certified people to assist in the voting.

"Obviously, something went wrong," he said. "The buck stops at the state so we're standing up to our responsibility."

He said the state felt the $5,000 was reasonable. Court cases indicate the denial of a right to vote requires more than "nominal" compensation and they suggest it ranges from $100 to $1,000 for each person, he said.

Remmers was convicted later in November 2000 of the DUI charge, a felony because it was his third offense. He spent a year in jail and said he won't be able to vote this fall because his probation won't be completed until next year. But he intends to vote in 2006.

A heavy equipment operator and a graduate student in global management at the University of Phoenix here, Remmers said he's been sober for five years and regrets the drinking that landed him in jail. "It caused too much pain and drama," he said.

But he has no regrets about his suit. "I just wanted to show the public they should be doing the right thing," he said.

A legal notice has been published asking anyone who wants to be part of the settlement to call Verga's office at 524-2000.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.