LIHUE — The already-heated Coco Palms case got moreso today when a bailiff tried to physically carry a woman, screaming, from the courtroom of District Court Judge Michael Soong.
LIHUE — The already-heated Coco Palms case got moreso today when a bailiff tried to physically carry a woman, screaming, from the courtroom of District Court Judge Michael Soong.
The tense situation came about when two people were ordered to be removed from the courtroom during this morning’s civil proceedings about Coco Palms.
But after a short recess, they returned to the courtroom, where there was a dispute over the man’s cell phone, which had been confiscated. He was ordered to leave without the phone, but his mother verbally objected.
The bailiff tried to pick up the woman, dropped her, then ordered the courtroom to be cleared as the woman sat in the far corner of the courtroom.
The case took a recess and was scheduled to resume at 1:30 p.m.
At stake, Soong is hearing arguments in a contested court case between a developer who claims ownership of the famed Coco Palms Resort in Wailua and is planning a $175 million resort development, and a group of Native Hawaiians who say they have historical and genealogical rights to the land they’ve been occupying for nearly a year.
