PROSECUTOR: NO QUID PRO QUO IN HEMP CASE

HONOLULU - Former Deputy Prosecutor Kay Iopa testified Tuesday that she
never suggested that two hemp advocates would have to stop writing
pro-marijuana letters to the editor before she would drop or reduce drug
charges against them.

Aaron Anderson is suing Hawaii County in Federal Court for alleged civil
rights violations, claiming that he was the subject of selective
prosecution because of his views on marijuana.

He is asking for $1 million in damages for lost revenues in his hemp
business and for emotional distress from being the subject of a lengthy
felony prosecution.

A grand jury indicted Anderson and Roger Christie on commercial possession
of marijuana charges in 1992 after drug-sniffing dogs alerted authorities
to a 25-pound shipment of hemp seeds at the Federal Express office in Hilo.
Anderson said he ordered sterile hemp seeds to use in food products.

Christie was eventually dropped from the case, and Circuit Judge Greg
Nakamura dismissed Anderson's charges after his 1998 trial ended in a hung
jury.

Last week, Deputy Public Defender Neilani Graham testified in the federal
lawsuit that she heard Iopa tell defense attorney Steven Strauss in 1997
that any plea agreement would have to include the stipulation that Christie
and Anderson would stop writing letters to the editor about the case.

"That's not how I recall that at all," Iopa said Tuesday at the federal
jury trial before Judge Kevin Chang in Honolulu.

"As an officer of the court, I would hope or assume that Ms. Graham is
accurately relaying her perception of what happened," Iopa said. "This is
not my recollection."

Iopa said she recalls attending a scheduling conference in Circuit Judge
Greg Nakamura's chambers with Graham and Strauss, who at that time were
representing Anderson and Christie, respectively. The judge asked if the
parties could settle the case and mentioned that in civil cases, parties
often agree not to discuss details of a settlement, Iopa testified. "I took
it to be a suggestion," she said during questioning by Strauss, who is now
representing Anderson in the federal lawsuit against Hawaii County.

After the lawyers left the chambers in 1997, Iopa told Strauss on Tuesday,
"You said that I had better drop the case or you were going to sue me ...
By my perception that didn't seem like a good basis for negotiation ... I
didn't want to engage in any further negotiations. I left."

Iopa acknowledged, however, that she had a concern about Anderson and
Christie's writing letters about the criminal case if it were settled. "My
concern was that the public would be misled as to the legality of marijuana
seeds," she said.

Iopa said that when she sought the indictment against Anderson and
Christie, she knew they were advocates for the legalization of marijuana
because of information in the police report. "Prior to that case coming to
me for a charging decision, I had never heard of either one of them," she
testified.

Iopa testified that her boss, Hawaii County Prosecutor Jay Kimura, was
involved in the criminal case as early as 1992. She said Kimura sat in
court, participated in plea negotiations and "ratified" the decision to
dismiss charges against Christie.

Strauss asked Iopa why she didn't prosecute Miranda Country Store for
selling hemp seeds purchased from the same mainland distributor that sold
Anderson his seeds. Iopa said it was because the store's owners were
unaware that hemp could be marijuana.

"You didn't tell them all marijuana seeds are illegal?" Strauss asked.

"There's a distinction here," Iopa said.

"Enlighten me," Strauss said.

After an objection by Deputy Corporation Counsel Joseph Kamelamela to
Strauss' "argumentative" manner, Iopa said a key element in charging
someone with a crime is the person's intent. She said the Miranda Country
Store's situation was different from Anderson's because the store was
selling the seeds as birdseed and had no intent to sell marijuana.

By contrast, Iopa said, Anderson and Christie knew that the seeds were
illegal. "Circumstantial evidence that they knew this product was illegal
was that they had been trying to make it legal," she said.

Iopa said knowledge that seeds were marijuana was also the motivation
behind her advising an investigator for the public defender's office about
his right against self-incrimination when he bought hemp seeds from Miranda
Country Store to use as evidence at a court hearing. Because Lane Yoshida
had been a botanist and a criminalist, Iopa said, "I knew that he was
qualified to look at seeds and make a distinction about what they were,
unlike Miranda Country Store."

"Did you or your boss ever advise Wayne Miranda and Miranda Country Store
that by selling their hemp seeds they could be subjecting their customers
to criminal prosecution?" Strauss asked.

"I didn't," Iopa said "I don't know whether Mr. Kimura did."

Iopa said she never asked police to test Miranda Store's seeds to see if
they would sprout because there was no criminal investigation against its
owners. "My job was to do my cases and not run around the island being Seed
Police," she said.

Kimura is one of the witnesses scheduled to testify today at the conclusion
of testimony by Iopa, who is now an attorney in private practice.

Both Kimura and Iopa were originally named as defendants but were dropped
from the case because they were engaged in their official duties during
Anderson's prosecution. Hawaii County remains the sole defendant in the
lawsuit.