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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, May 7, 2009

Pflueger may face overlapping trials

By Diana Leone
Advertiser Kaua'i Bureau

LIHU'E, Kaua'i — Retired car dealer Jimmy Pflueger could be engaged in overlapping criminal and civil trials regarding the March 14, 2006, Kaloko dam breach that killed seven people.

Kaua'i Circuit Court Judge Kathleen Watanabe yesterday refused to postpone the Sept. 8 start of a wrongful-death civil trial in which Pflueger, the state of Hawai'i, Kaua'i County and numerous other parties are defendants.

The complex civil trial is expected to take months, and is expected to overlap with the Oct. 26 start of Pflueger's criminal trial on seven charges of manslaughter and one of reckless endangering.

Kaua'i Circuit Judge Randal Valenciano had moved Pflueger's criminal trial to Oct. 26 from a previous June 15 start, at the request of Pflueger's attorneys last month.

In refusing yesterday to move the civil trial in her courtroom to early 2010, Watanabe noted that she has moved the trial dates for both wrongful-death and property-damage lawsuits in connection with the Kaloko dam several times. She has given the cases scheduling priority, Watanabe noted.

Pflueger's constitutional right under the Fifth Amendment is "extremely important," Watanabe said in making her ruling yesterday. But the current dates for the civil trials will remain at Sept. 8 and May 2010.

David Fairbanks, an attorney for plaintiffs in the wrongful-death lawsuit, argued that Pflueger can't complain about the overlapping trials, since his attorneys "knowingly agreed to set a criminal trial within the previously set civil trial date they had agreed to in the first place."

Valenciano agreed on April 22 to move Pflueger's criminal trial from June 15 to Oct. 26, at the request of Pflueger's attorneys.

Pflueger's attorney, David Minkin, yesterday argued unsuccessfully to Watanabe that "to force the civil trial before the criminal trial" wouldn't be fair to Pflueger.

No attorneys involved in the cases would comment to The Advertiser yesterday about the complexity of simultaneous criminal and civil cases. There is precedent for such overlap, one noted, but it is not common.

Reach Diana Leone at dleone@honoluluadvertiser.com.