Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 8, Number 6, 1 June 1991 — The fate of Walter Ritte [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

The fate of Walter Ritte

The issue of OHA's "sovereignty" in relation to the state of Hawai'i split the Board of Trustees right down the middle in July 1984 when Trustee Walter Ritte was convicted of a felony involving night hunting and illegal gun possession on his home island of Moloka'i.

By state law, convicted felons cannot remain in elected office. The state Attorney General's office sought to remove Ritte from his OHA trusteeship onee he was convicted, arguing that OHA's trustees are subject to state law. There were those, including Ritte and fellow trustees Rod Burgess and Hayden Burgess, who disagreed, who felt that only OHA or the Hawaiian people themselves could remove a trustee. According to them, the state had no jurisdiction. They saw the case as a fundamental test of OHA's independence. It was no secret to anyone that Walter Ritte was an outspoken advocate for OHA entitlements and other Hawaiian rights, and that he had often led OHA's charge against the state government in pursuit of those ends. At one point, he wore a Tshirt that said, in large letters, "Ariyoshi Resign."

Ritte was pictured wearing the shirt in both of Honolulu's two major daily newspapers at the height of the controversy. It was also no secret that the charges against Ritte were circumstantial and far from irrefutable. (In fact, the conviction was overturned on appeal for laek of evidence, but not before the damage had been done.) Some thought the aggressive pursuit of a conviction by the Maui district attorney was engineered solely to remove Ritte from his influential position. In a guest editorial in the Honolulu Advertiser dated May 25, 1984, writer and Hawaiian activist Stephen K. Morse, a distant cousin and close friend to the embattled trustee, echoed that suspicion when he wrote, "Implications as to why the government went to such pain to convict Walter should be obvious. He was a poliheal threat, a thorn in its side, one who cha!lenged the party line . . . Walter's conviction was neither fair nor just. It was merely a convenient excuse for the government to get him out of its hair . . . a political power play to silence him and render him ineffective as a leader of Hawaiian people." On Moloka'i, Ritte organized a straw poll, or referendum, on whether he should be allowed to keep his trusteeship and on other questions about OHA's "independence." Ritte vowed that he would step down if the voters asked him to. Out of 504 Hawaiian who voted, 375 thought Ritte should keep his seat; 419 thought it should be left up to Hawaiians whether Ritte kept his seat; and 446 thought Hawaiians should determine their own destiny.

Despite the sentiment of Moloka'i and elsewhere within the Hawaiian community, the OHA trustees were divided. Trustee-at-large Gard Kealoha was a vocal advocate for removing Ritte from office; other trustees were less vocal but were inclined to listen to legal opinion from the Attorney General's office. Finally, after several meetings and intense public attention and debate, six trustees issued a statement announcing their decision to side with the Attorney General. But Ritte held on. He finally agreed to step down when he failed to get a court injunction against his remova! from the board. The trustees appointed Louis Hao, a Maui County employee, to fill the vacancy. "To me," Ritte said at the time to reporters, "(the judge's ruling) was predictable. The outcome was predictable." Months later, Ritte's conviction was overturned, but it was too late. Vindicated by the courts, Ritte has mellowed, and he now says he understands how difficult it was for the trustees. "It was so emotional and fastmoving," he says, "and there were so many things going on. It was a difficult decision for eaeh trustee to make. It was so touch-and-go right down to the final decision. The emotions were so strong, they cloud my memory." Trustee Moses Keale, who sided with the majority of trustees against Ritte, now says that he would have supported Ritte, given hindsight, given Ritte's eventual acquittal, knowing what he now knows. "When you look at the horse from the back." Keale says, "after it's gone, it's easier to understand. If we look at sovereignty and the importance of the move toward some kind of sovereignty for OHA, yeah, I should have supported him, but my vote then was part of my upbringing. It was drummed into me that you obey the law. The polieeman is always right." To be continued

Curt Sanburn, educated at 'Iolani School and Yale, writes on Hawai'i affairs.

Trustee Walter Ritte wears his infamous tshirt shortly before his conviction for hunting violations on Moloka'i.

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