By Dennis Oda,Star-Bulletin
Linna Huber places her handbag on the X-ray machine at Honolulu
District Court, where there is staffing for metal detectors. Rural
courthouses have the machines, but not the staff to operate them.
While the device did not explode in the courthouse, its very presence illustrates a weakness in the security systems of Oahu's Rural Division District Courts.
Unlike the Circuit Court, District Court and state Supreme Court buildings in downtown Honolulu, the Rural Division courthouses in Pearl City, Kaneohe, Waianae, Wahiawa, Waialua and Waianae do not have metal detectors in operation.
At least half, including the Pearl City courthouse, this year acquired the machines - costing about $2,000 apiece. They just don't have the staff to operate them.
"You get a metal detector, it's not going to do any good if you can't staff it," said state Judiciary spokeswoman Marsha Kitagawa.
But the state Department of Public Safety says the money isn't there for additional sheriff's deputies to run the equipment.
"It's a concern for the courts and a concern for the sheriff, but because of budgetary constraints it's really hard," said Ernest Moritomo, sheriff's office administrator for the Department of Public Safety. "Every time you put in a body, you're looking at $40,000-plus."
Moritomo said he does not foresee full staffing for the detectors in the near future. For the coming 1997-99 biennium, Public Safety is asking for five new deputies for the Big Island and one more for Kauai, but none for the Rural Division courts on Oahu, he said.
Kitagawa said the Judiciary will ask the Legislature for $435,000 in additional security funds over the next biennium as part of its long-range plan for improving courthouse security around the state.
The rural courthouses were built in a less security-conscious era and many have more than one public entry, Moritomo said. That means more than one security guard may be needed at each building.
Security is understandably tighter at the downtown courthouses, which handle felony cases, Moritomo said. But tensions sometimes mount over misdemeanors.
"In this new age in time, people are frustrated with the system and because of the drugs that they're taking, they're not in the right frame of mind," he said.
In the Pearl City case, the suspect was arrested Monday on a burglary charge while leaving the courthouse. Police said he handed his bag to his 61-year-old father, who unwittingly removed the bomb from the bag at his Salt Lake Boulevard home later that day. The device exploded, damaging his right hand and fingers.
"We're really concerned about the situation for our staff," said Jean Yamane, District Court administrator for Oahu. "Somehow we need to figure out ways to be able to take care of this adequately."