Speaker 1: You're listening to History on Trial, a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 1: Listener Discretion advised. Hello listeners, I'm starting a newsletter which
Speaker 1: will contain episode bonus content, reading and podcast recommendations, and
Speaker 1: other fun history related tidbits. To sign up, please visit
Speaker 1: our website History on Trial podcast dot com. On September twelfth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, Horace Da received a gift that would
Speaker 1: turn out to be a curse. It happened like this.
Speaker 1: Horace's older sister, Haro had a beautiful light tan model
Speaker 1: a Ford, which she'd saved up for for years, and
Speaker 1: that night she told Horace he could borrow it. She
Speaker 1: was going to be working and didn't need the car.
Speaker 1: As long as Horace promised to be careful, he could
Speaker 1: take his friends out in it. Horace was delighted. This
Speaker 1: was a rare treat. He put on a white silk
Speaker 1: shirt and dark trousers and headed out into the humid
Speaker 1: Honolulu night to find his friends. At a speakeasy, he
Speaker 1: ran into David Takai and Ben Ahacuelo. The three young
Speaker 1: men had grown up together in Sunday School. A missionary
Speaker 1: who'd taught them remembered they'd been mischievous and scrappy. Now
Speaker 1: all in their early twenties, they were settling down. Horace
Speaker 1: had just spent a year working in Los Angeles, David
Speaker 1: was about to do the same, and Ben's girlfriend was pregnant.
Speaker 1: But they weren't too old to have fun. On a
Speaker 1: Saturday night, They spent a while at the speakeasy, then
Speaker 1: considered where to go next. Ben knew about a luau nearby,
Speaker 1: so the crew headed over and gorged themselves on roast
Speaker 1: pig and beer. But there weren't many young people at
Speaker 1: the luau, so they decided to check out a dance
Speaker 1: at Waikiki Park. Horace spent the next two hours driving
Speaker 1: various friends to and from the luau and the dance.
Speaker 1: He didn't mind playing chauffeur. Driving Hariyo's car was such
Speaker 1: a joy. Eventually, two other childhood friends, Henry Chang and
Speaker 1: Joe Cahahavai, joined Horace. At midnight. When the dance ended, Horace, Henry, Joe, David,
Speaker 1: and Ben huddled outside Waikiki Park thinking of where to
Speaker 1: go next, their main criteria being free food and beer.
Speaker 1: The group decided to go back to the luau once more,
Speaker 1: driving down Bartania Street, they ran into a car full
Speaker 1: of friends, and the two cars drove side by side
Speaker 1: for a while, their occupants chatting. But by the time
Speaker 1: the men got to the luau around twelve thirty, the
Speaker 1: party had ended. It was time to call it a night.
Speaker 1: Horace dropped David off first, Then as he pulled out
Speaker 1: onto Lileha Street, Horace narrowly avoided colliding with another car.
Speaker 1: A woman in the other car shouted at Horace to
Speaker 1: watch where he was going. Joe shouted back, telling the
Speaker 1: driver to get out of his car. Joe was a
Speaker 1: champion boxer and football player and thought he could easily
Speaker 1: take the driver, a middle aged white man. But it
Speaker 1: was not the driver who got out of the car.
Speaker 1: It was the passenger, his irate wife, Agnes Peeples. Agnes,
Speaker 1: a formidable Hawaiian woman whose daughter described her as quote
Speaker 1: built like a Sherman tank, wasn't afraid of some tipsy
Speaker 1: young men. When Joe stepped towards her, she shoved him.
Speaker 1: He swung back, clipping her ear. Agnes grabbed Joe's throat
Speaker 1: with one hand and punched him with the other. Horace
Speaker 1: Ida groaned, it had been such a nice night, and
Speaker 1: now this e and Henry pulled Joe back into the car.
Speaker 1: Agnes's husband, Homer, calmed her down and everyone drove off.
Speaker 1: Horace hoped that that was the end of the issue
Speaker 1: and dropped Henry and Joe off at their homes. But
Speaker 1: two hours later, when Horace was fast asleep in his bed,
Speaker 1: someone knocked loudly on the front door of the house
Speaker 1: he shared with his sisters and mother. It was the police.
Speaker 1: They were taking him in for questioning. This seemed ridiculous
Speaker 1: to Horace. It had only been a brief fight, no
Speaker 1: one had really been injured, and anyway, that woman had
Speaker 1: hit Joe first, but he agreed to come to police headquarters.
Speaker 1: While he waited to be questioned at the station, Horace
Speaker 1: must have rude ever accepting Harrio's gift. What a price
Speaker 1: to pay for a single night out with his friends.
Speaker 1: But even then, Horace had no idea what truly lay
Speaker 1: in store for him. Earlier that night, a young white
Speaker 1: woman named Thalia Massey had reported to police that she
Speaker 1: had been kidnapped and raped by a group of men
Speaker 1: near Waikiki. The police had quickly connected Thalia Massey's attack
Speaker 1: with the police report filed by Agnes Peeples about her
Speaker 1: fight with Joe. In both cases, the suspects were a
Speaker 1: group of young men in a car. Horace was not
Speaker 1: in the police station to answer questions about a road
Speaker 1: rage run in. He was there to answer questions about
Speaker 1: the assault of Thalia Massi. Horace denied knowing anything about
Speaker 1: this assault. So did David Takai, Ben Ahaquelo, Joe Cahahavai,
Speaker 1: and Henry Chang. They had never seen Thalia in their lives,
Speaker 1: the young men said at the time she had been attacked.
Speaker 1: They had been driving down Bartania Street. People had seen them.
Speaker 1: They had alibis. But in the face of a political
Speaker 1: establishment that was determined to get convictions for Thalia Massey's rape,
Speaker 1: would the truth be a good enough defense. Welcome to
Speaker 1: History on Trial. I'm your host, Mira Hayward. This week
Speaker 1: The Territory of Hawaii v. Ben Ahaquelo et al. On
Speaker 1: the evening of September twelfth, as Horace Ida gleefully started
Speaker 1: up his sister's ford, Thalia and Tommy Massey got ready
Speaker 1: to go out. The Das and the Massis only lived
Speaker 1: a few miles apart as the crow Flies, but their
Speaker 1: neighborhoods were worlds apart. Horace Da lived in the part
Speaker 1: of Honolulu then known as Hell's Half Acre, a teeming,
Speaker 1: densely populated slum inhabited by a mix of ethnic groups,
Speaker 1: including Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino immigrants, as well as native Hawaiians.
Speaker 1: Tammi and Thalia Massi lived in Manoa Valley, a lush,
Speaker 1: lovely neighborhood that climbed up into the mountains northeast of Waikiki.
Speaker 1: Manoah had once been a favorite retreat for the Hawaiian
Speaker 1: royal family. Now restrictive racial covenants meant that almost all
Speaker 1: Manoa residents were white. Orderly bungalows lined the valley's streets,
Speaker 1: filled with Navy men and their wives. Twenty year old
Speaker 1: Thalia Massi was not popular in Manoa. She refused to
Speaker 1: socialize with other Navy wives, believing them to be beneath her.
Speaker 1: After all, Thalia was a Roosevelt. Yes, her father, Rollie Fortescue,
Speaker 1: was the illegitimate child of Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, but Robert
Speaker 1: had eventually married Rolli's mother, and the Roosevelts counted Rolly
Speaker 1: as one of their own. He had fought in the
Speaker 1: Spanish American War with his cousin Teddy, and then worked
Speaker 1: as Teddy's aid in the White House. And Thalia's mother, Grace,
Speaker 1: came from equally illustrious stock. She was a Belle as
Speaker 1: an Alexander Graham Bell and Belle Telephone later at and
Speaker 1: t Falia and her two younger sisters had grown up
Speaker 1: on grand estates. It was true that Rolli's drinking and
Speaker 1: refusal to work had left the Fortescuez in dire financial straits,
Speaker 1: and the Fortescue daughters were notoriously ill behaved. But despite
Speaker 1: all of this, Thalia and her sisters had been instilled
Speaker 1: with the belief that their heritage made them superior to others.
Speaker 1: So when the other Navy wives invited Thalia to their
Speaker 1: teas and luncheons, she declined, and she wasn't shy about
Speaker 1: telling them why. Even when she did attend the occasional
Speaker 1: dinner party, her behavior was appalling. She would drink heavily,
Speaker 1: tell inappropriate stories, and criticize everything around her, from the
Speaker 1: house's decorp to the hostess's dress. Tommy Massew regularly confided
Speaker 1: in his friends about how terrible his marriage was. Things
Speaker 1: hadn't always been like this. When Tommy had first met
Speaker 1: Thalia four years earlier, when she was a sixteen year
Speaker 1: old high school student and he was a twenty two
Speaker 1: year old cadet at the Naval Academy, life had been sunny.
Speaker 1: Tommy had spent a blissful summer with the fortesc Us
Speaker 1: at the Roosevelt estate on Long Island, charming the whole
Speaker 1: family with his affable personality. Tommy might not have come
Speaker 1: from as well known a family as Thalia's, but the
Speaker 1: Massis were a prominent family in Kentucky, and his stable
Speaker 1: career in the Navy meant that he would be able
Speaker 1: to provide for thee. When Tommy and Thalia married on
Speaker 1: November twenty fourth, nineteen twenty seven, their future had looked bright,
Speaker 1: and for a little while all was well. Tommy had
Speaker 1: several postings on the East Coast. People who knew the
Speaker 1: Massies then said they seemed happy, though there were rumors
Speaker 1: about Thalia being unfaithful. The couple tried to start a family,
Speaker 1: but Thalia miscarried. Thalia's health was poor. She had an
Speaker 1: untreated thyroid condition which caused weight loss, anxiety, and vision problems.
Speaker 1: To compensate for the frequent loss of vision in one
Speaker 1: of her eyes. Falia had developed a distinctive gait. She
Speaker 1: walked with her head tilted down into the side, and
Speaker 1: Tommy endured some professional setbacks. He dreamed of being a pilot,
Speaker 1: but at barely five foot five, he was rejected four
Speaker 1: times for being too short. When he finally got a
Speaker 1: heighth waiver, he failed the psychological exam, with the examiner
Speaker 1: calling him temperamentily not qualified, perhaps due to his quick
Speaker 1: temper and what some Annapolis classmates had called his quote
Speaker 1: cynical attitude. But Tommy had accepted the decision and pivoted
Speaker 1: his focus to submarines. In May nineteen thirty, he graduated
Speaker 1: from the Navy's Submarine School and was assigned to Squadron four,
Speaker 1: based at Pearl Harbor. To most people, this posting would
Speaker 1: have been a dream. In the nineteen twenties, a Hawaiian
Speaker 1: craze had swept the United States. Hawaiian inspired music played
Speaker 1: on the radio, theaters staged moch hula shows, and Hollywood
Speaker 1: studios filmed movie after movie on the island's beautiful beaches.
Speaker 1: At the same time, as tourists flocked to Hawaii, the
Speaker 1: United States Navy was increasing its presence there, massively expanding
Speaker 1: Pearl Harbor. Many of the military men who came to
Speaker 1: Awe who at this time, were disturbed by the level
Speaker 1: of racial integration on the island, which was comparatively higher
Speaker 1: than in the rest of the United States. One need
Speaker 1: only talk for five minutes with the average naval officer,
Speaker 1: wrote reporter Lilyan Symes around this time, to realize that
Speaker 1: he is straining at the leash to put Hawaii's brown
Speaker 1: and yellow peoples in their place. Nonetheless, most sailors still
Speaker 1: found Honolulu a lovely place to live, but not Tommy
Speaker 1: and Thalia Massey. As Thalia's bad behavior became more outrageous,
Speaker 1: Tommy too began to fall apart. He started drinking heavily.
Speaker 1: The couple fought loudly and sometimes violently. When Tommy went
Speaker 1: out on sea duty, Thalia would invite other men over.
Speaker 1: In the summer of nineteen thirty one, in the latter
Speaker 1: stages of pregnancy, Thalia lost the baby and fell into
Speaker 1: a depression that manifested itself in increasingly hostile behavior towards Tommy.
Speaker 1: She briefly saw a psychologist, doctor E. Loowel Kelly, but
Speaker 1: After Kelly recommended to Tommy that Thalia receives psychae care,
Speaker 1: Thalia stopped seeing him. In August, Tommy told Dalia that
Speaker 1: he wanted a divorce. Thalia begged him for another chance,
Speaker 1: not because she loved him, but because she did not
Speaker 1: want to have to go back and live with her parents.
Speaker 1: Tommy relented, but only conditionally. Thalia had three months to
Speaker 1: try harder or else he was done. He called it probation.
Speaker 1: Thalia promised to do her best. Agreeing to go out
Speaker 1: with Tommy and some of his Navy friends on September
Speaker 1: twelfth was part of her reform efforts. Thalia hated nights
Speaker 1: out like this, surrounded by drunken Navy officers and their
Speaker 1: boring wives, but knowing what was at stake, she slipped
Speaker 1: on a long green silk dress and matching jacket. She
Speaker 1: pasted a smile on as Tommy's friends and their wives arrived.
Speaker 1: After an hour of drinking, the group headed to the Aluwai,
Speaker 1: in a Navy haunt in Waikiki. When they arrived between
Speaker 1: nine thirty and ten te pm, Tommy split off to
Speaker 1: talk to some of his shipmates. Irritated at his abandonment,
Speaker 1: Thalia went upstairs, where she circulated and drank, waiting for
Speaker 1: Tommy to come find her. He never did. Around eleven thirty,
Speaker 1: Thalia got into a fight with a Navy officer who
Speaker 1: wanted her seat. After the man called Thalia alous, she
Speaker 1: slapped him. Tommy was summoned to calm her down. The
Speaker 1: couple talked for a little while, then Tommy went back downstairs.
Speaker 1: This night was clearly not going as either of the
Speaker 1: Massies had hoped. Around one am, Tommy decided to head out.
Speaker 1: Salia was nowhere to be found, but since she often
Speaker 1: left parties when she was upset, Tommy assumed she'd already
Speaker 1: gone home. He tried calling the house, but no one answered,
Speaker 1: so Tommy and a friend drove back to Manoah headed
Speaker 1: to a friend's house where they'd heard a party was happening.
Speaker 1: When they got there, though, the host was not yet home,
Speaker 1: so Tommy and his friend decided to wait. Ten minutes earlier,
Speaker 1: at twelve fifty a m. Eustace Bellinger was driving his
Speaker 1: wife and their friends, the Clarks, down Ala Moana Road
Speaker 1: to get a late night snack. Suddenly, a woman appeared
Speaker 1: in front of the car, alarmed Bellinger pulled over. The woman,
Speaker 1: whose face looked swollen, told the Bellingers and Clarks that
Speaker 1: her name was Thalia Massey. She said that she'd been
Speaker 1: at a party earlier that night, but left around midnight
Speaker 1: to get some air. As she walked down john Ena Roade,
Speaker 1: Thalia said some men had grabbed her and pulled her
Speaker 1: into a car. They'd beaten her and then abandoned her
Speaker 1: in a deserted clearing off of Ala Moana. Missus Clark
Speaker 1: immediately suggested that they take Thalia to the police station
Speaker 1: or to a hospital, but she said she only wanted
Speaker 1: to go home. Just as Thalia got home, the phone rang.
Speaker 1: It was Tommy calling from his friend's house. Thalia picked
Speaker 1: up the phone and cried, something awful has happened. Come home.
Speaker 1: At one forty seven a m. Honolulu Police received a
Speaker 1: call from Tommy Massey requesting assistance. A woman had been assaulted,
Speaker 1: he said. Detective John Jardine, in charge of the night shift,
Speaker 1: dispatched two detectives, George Harbottle and William Fortado, to go
Speaker 1: to the Massie's home. Police had gone to the house before,
Speaker 1: usually responding to noise complaints from neighbors. When the massies fought.
Speaker 1: This call out was different. Thalia had not wanted Tommy
Speaker 1: to call the police in. When detectives Harbottle and for
Speaker 1: Todo arrived, they found her lying on a couch, crying
Speaker 1: and wearing a nightgown. Haltingly, Thalia told the detectives that
Speaker 1: four or five Hawaiian men had snatched her off the road,
Speaker 1: driven her to a remote spot, and then beat and
Speaker 1: raped her. For Toado and Harbottle were shocked. In the
Speaker 1: entire history of white settlement in Hawaii more than one
Speaker 1: hundred years, there had never been a recorded case of
Speaker 1: a Hawaiian man sexually assaulting a white woman. The detectives
Speaker 1: walked Thelia carefully through her account, trying to get more information.
Speaker 1: Nothing helpful was forthcoming. Alia said the night was so
Speaker 1: dark she could not see the men's faces and doubted
Speaker 1: she could identify them. However, when pushed by Fortado, she
Speaker 1: said she was certain that all the men were Hawaiian,
Speaker 1: not Chinese or Japanese. She could only describe their car
Speaker 1: as being old and dark with a torn cloth top.
Speaker 1: She had not seen a license plate. The night had
Speaker 1: been dark. She said. She did not mention that her
Speaker 1: bad eyesight rendered her nearly blind when she didn't wear
Speaker 1: her glasses, glasses that she had left at home that night.
Speaker 1: As Detective Harbottle continued the questioning, detective for Toado called
Speaker 1: Detective Jardine to report in Fortato, and Jardine agreed that
Speaker 1: Thalia's story reminded them of a case they had caught
Speaker 1: earlier that night. At twelve forty five am, Agnes Peeples
Speaker 1: had come to police headquarters to report that she'd had
Speaker 1: an altercation with a car full of young men, and
Speaker 1: that one of them, a Hawaiian, had assaulted her. Two
Speaker 1: incidents involving a group of young Hawaiian men seemed unlikely
Speaker 1: to be a coincidence, the detective's thought. As Thalia was
Speaker 1: taken to a nearby hospital to be examined, a car
Speaker 1: was dispatched to the Ida house. Unlike Salia, Agnes had
Speaker 1: seen a license plate five eight nine eight five, which
Speaker 1: the police had been able to trace to the Eda's car.
Speaker 1: Horace Ida denied having anything to do with Thalia's rape
Speaker 1: and initially refused to name the men he had been
Speaker 1: out with, but after hours of relentless interrogation, Horace identified
Speaker 1: his friends as the police brought in the other men,
Speaker 1: Joe Cahahavai, Ben Ahaquelo, David Takai and Henry Chang, and
Speaker 1: interrogated them. In turn, a problem emerged. The men's accounts
Speaker 1: of their night were consistent. Moreover, they could provide the
Speaker 1: police with the names of many other people who had
Speaker 1: seen or see spoken with them between ten pm and
Speaker 1: one am. There was no time for them to have
Speaker 1: committed the attack, which Thalia claimed had happened between midnight
Speaker 1: and twelve forty five. The men's strong alibis were not
Speaker 1: the only issue. Thalia had repeatedly said that she was
Speaker 1: sure that her attackers were all Hawaiian. Joe and Ben
Speaker 1: were Hawaiian, and Henry was half Hawaiian and half Chinese,
Speaker 1: but Horace Da and David Takai were both Japanese, and
Speaker 1: Haruya DA's car didn't match the description Thalia had given
Speaker 1: of an old, dark colored car with a ripped top.
Speaker 1: Haruyo's car was only two years old, with a light
Speaker 1: hand exterior and a pristine cloth top. But fortunately for
Speaker 1: the detectives, Thalia now seemed flexible on details. When John McIntosh,
Speaker 1: the chief of detectives, interviewed Thalia, at police headquarters after
Speaker 1: her exam, she now told Captain Macintosh that she had
Speaker 1: seen a license plate five eight eight oh five that
Speaker 1: was only one digit off from haruyo Eda's plate. Later
Speaker 1: at trial, a possible explanation for Thalia's sudden memory was provided.
Speaker 1: Throughout the early morning of September thirteenth, a police dispatcher
Speaker 1: had repeatedly broadcast a be on the lookout alert for
Speaker 1: a car with license plate five eight eight nine five
Speaker 1: which had been involved in an assault on a woman.
Speaker 1: The dispatcher was referring to the assault on Agnes Peoples,
Speaker 1: but a lay listener would not know that these broadcasts
Speaker 1: had blared from police car radios stationed right outside the
Speaker 1: exam room. Thalia Massi was in an exam room with
Speaker 1: open windows when Captain McIntosh brought Haryo's car to the
Speaker 1: Massie's house around nine am on the thirteenth, identifying it
Speaker 1: to Thalia as quote the suspect's car. Thalia said that
Speaker 1: while she couldn't be certain that this was the exact car,
Speaker 1: it was quote a car like that, and when Macintosh
Speaker 1: brought jo Henry, David and Horace in front of Thalia
Speaker 1: later that day, she identified all of them except for
Speaker 1: David Takai, as being her assailants. By that time, news
Speaker 1: of Thalia's rape was public and causing an enormous uproar.
Speaker 1: No one was angrier than Admiral Yates Sterling, commandant of
Speaker 1: the fourteenth Naval District, an outspoken racist and an advocate
Speaker 1: for complete military control of Hawaii, Sterling was furious to
Speaker 1: hear about the attack. Notably, Sterling had been much less
Speaker 1: angry about the two sexual assaults committed by white sailors
Speaker 1: against Hawaiian women in the past five months. There is
Speaker 1: no record of the Navy punishing these men after demanding
Speaker 1: custody of them from the local police, But now Sterling
Speaker 1: called for quote quick action and adequate punishment for these
Speaker 1: quote dark skinned criminals. Sterling quickly organized a meeting with
Speaker 1: Honolulu's power brokers, including the mayor, the district attorney, the
Speaker 1: Navy's shore patrol commander, and the territorial governor, Lawrence Judd.
Speaker 1: The forty four year old jud had been governor for
Speaker 1: two years. This was an appointed position. The men who
Speaker 1: made the appointment were members of a small white or
Speaker 1: Howley elite, the descendants of the white missionaries and planters
Speaker 1: who had wrested power and land away from Native Hawaiians
Speaker 1: over the course of the nineteenth century, culminating in the
Speaker 1: eighteen ninety three overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, the eighteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight annexation of Hawaii, and the establishment of the
Speaker 1: United States Territory of Hawaii in nineteen hundred, all despite
Speaker 1: strenuous protests by Native Hawaiians. By nineteen thirty one, though
Speaker 1: there was an elected territorial legislature, the true political power
Speaker 1: in Hawaii belonged to the sugar cane corporations known as
Speaker 1: the Big Five, who appointed governors who would do their bidding.
Speaker 1: Governors like Laurence jud But the United States Navy had
Speaker 1: all so began to play an increasingly important role in
Speaker 1: the territory. Thanks to the Great Depression, revenue from tourism,
Speaker 1: sugar and pineapples was down. The Navy, which planned to
Speaker 1: invest millions into Pearl Harbor, offered economic relief, and so
Speaker 1: writes historian David Stannard in his book on the Trial,
Speaker 1: This first meeting between Sterling and jud Quote set the
Speaker 1: tone for all that were to follow. The Admiral was
Speaker 1: used to giving orders the governor was used to taking them.
Speaker 1: Before long, a full bore prosecution was underway. Judd and
Speaker 1: Sterling had the benefit of a compliant media environment. Two
Speaker 1: of Oahu's largest English language newspapers, the Honolulu Advertiser and
Speaker 1: the Honolulu Star Bulletin, were closely intertwined with the military
Speaker 1: and business elite's interests. Assisted by the police who readily
Speaker 1: provided them with information, these papers began conducting a trial
Speaker 1: by press, depicting the case against the five men as watertight.
Speaker 1: Behind the scenes, the case was anything but. The timeline
Speaker 1: made it almost impossible for the suspects to have committed
Speaker 1: the crime, and though Thalia's story now better fitted the suspects,
Speaker 1: the police lacked physical evidence to support this story. When
Speaker 1: police investigator's finger printed Haryo DA's car, they found plenty
Speaker 1: of prints, but not a single one belonging to Thalia Massey.
Speaker 1: And more troublingly, the police were struggling to find proof
Speaker 1: that Thalia had been raped at all. I will mention
Speaker 1: here that false reports of rape are very uncommon. The
Speaker 1: rate of false reports is difficult to measure since there
Speaker 1: are many ways to define false, such as stories that
Speaker 1: were proven false, suspected to be false or unable to
Speaker 1: be substantiated or to meet the threshold for prosecution. But
Speaker 1: the most comprehensive research indicates a rape of false rape
Speaker 1: reports in the United States to be between two and
Speaker 1: eight percent. We cannot know what exactly happened to Thalia
Speaker 1: Massey that night in nineteen thirty one, but the physical
Speaker 1: evidence did not corroborate her story of being beaten and
Speaker 1: raped multiple times. At her exam only several hours after
Speaker 1: the alleged attack, a doctor and nurse found that the
Speaker 1: only injury Thealia suffered was a facial one. Her jaw
Speaker 1: was broken, she had no vaginal abrasions or lacerations, and
Speaker 1: no seamen was present. Thalia told the doctor that she
Speaker 1: had douched after arriving home, but no seamen was found
Speaker 1: on any of the clothes that Thalia wore that night either.
Speaker 1: Her clothes were in fact nearly pristine. Besides a few
Speaker 1: drops of blood on the shoulder, likely from Thalia's split lip,
Speaker 1: the clothes looked, according to doctor Thomas Mossman, the assistant
Speaker 1: City and County physician, like they had just come from
Speaker 1: the dry cleaners. Even her shoes were not scuffed. It
Speaker 1: was hard to imagine that thealia could have been abducted, beaten,
Speaker 1: dragged through the woods, and raped without sustaining a single
Speaker 1: stain or rip or scuff. The lack of physical evidence
Speaker 1: was a particular problem for the prosecution because Hawaii had
Speaker 1: a law that required corroborating evidence in rape cases. A
Speaker 1: victim's testimony alone was not enough, but prosecutors, led by
Speaker 1: Assistant City and County Attorney Griffith White, were not deterred
Speaker 1: by these obstacles. Driven by increasing pressure from the Navy
Speaker 1: and an outraged public, White was determined to get a conviction,
Speaker 1: and when the men's trial began on November sixteenth, nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one, the lengths to which White would go to
Speaker 1: get his conviction would be revealed. When ben Ahaquelo's mother, Aggie,
Speaker 1: heard that her son had been arrested, she was terrified,
Speaker 1: so she did what any mother would do. She called
Speaker 1: a princess. As David's Darren explains, although the ravages of
Speaker 1: it introduced disease and consequent political upheaval did much to
Speaker 1: change Hawaiian cultural norms following European contact, one characteristic that
Speaker 1: endured was the expectation by rulers and rules alike that
Speaker 1: rulers were obliged to care for the common people. So
Speaker 1: Princess Abigail Kavana Nakoa, the current leader of Hawaii's deposed
Speaker 1: royal family, did not hesitate to answer Aggie Ahaquelo's call.
Speaker 1: The princess listened to Aggie's story and then said that
Speaker 1: she would contact one of her friends, the accomplished attorney
Speaker 1: William H. Heen, to see if he could help. William
Speaker 1: Heen was prominent in Hawaii's legal and political circles. Half
Speaker 1: Chinese and half Hawaiian, the forty eight year old Heen
Speaker 1: had worked as a prosecutor, a defense attorney, and a judge.
Speaker 1: He was currently balancing his law practice with his duties
Speaker 1: as a senator in the territorial legislature. Keen agreed to
Speaker 1: look into the case for Princess Kavana and Nakoa. Aware
Speaker 1: of the racial aspects of the case, he decided to
Speaker 1: recruit a white attorney to assist him. Bill Pittman was
Speaker 1: the perfect fit. An excellent atonejourney, the Mississippi born Pittman
Speaker 1: was passionately anti racist. He also happened to be a
Speaker 1: descendant of Francis Scott Key, who was decidedly more racist,
Speaker 1: as we saw in episode three of History on Trial.
Speaker 1: Heen and Pittman wanted to be sure that they had
Speaker 1: a solid case, so they conducted vigorous interrogations of the defendants.
Speaker 1: At the end, the lawyers were convinced that the men
Speaker 1: were innocent and decided to represent them. They divided up
Speaker 1: the defendants, with William Heen representing Ben Ahaquello and Henry Chang,
Speaker 1: and Bill Pittman representing Horace da and Joe Cahahavai. Robert
Speaker 1: Murakami later joined the defense as well, representing David Takai.
Speaker 1: Hawaii's Howley Elite were disturbed by the news that such
Speaker 1: formidable lawyers had signed on. They began to question whether
Speaker 1: Griffith White was the right man to lead the prosecution.
Speaker 1: After all, the forty one year old had only four
Speaker 1: years experience as a lawyer. But White insisted he could
Speaker 1: handle the case, and the prosecution also had to reason
Speaker 1: to hope that the judge would be sympathetic to their cause.
Speaker 1: Judge Alva E. Steedman, thirty seven, had married into one
Speaker 1: of the Big five Sugarcane families right before the trial.
Speaker 1: Steedman announced that this would be his last trial, as
Speaker 1: he would be accepting a job with his wife's family company.
Speaker 1: The defense worried that Steadman, about to leave the bench,
Speaker 1: would be less concerned with impartiality than he would be
Speaker 1: with satisfying the Big Five and the Navy. Their fears
Speaker 1: seemed to be confirmed. As the trial began. Steadman denied
Speaker 1: nearly all of the defense's motions. Most critically, he denied
Speaker 1: their motion to get a bill of particulars, which would
Speaker 1: enumerate exactly what crimes each defendant was charged with. This
Speaker 1: ruling was a particular blow to David Takai. Thalia Massey
Speaker 1: had always denied that he was one of her attackers,
Speaker 1: and Takai had no idea what he was even on
Speaker 1: trial for. At ten thirty am on November eighteenth, Griffith
Speaker 1: White delivered a brief opening statement, focusing on the heinousness
Speaker 1: of the crime. Then he called Thalia Massey to the stand.
Speaker 1: Thalia was dressed conservatively and spoke softly. Her testimony was emotional.
Speaker 1: When she began describing the attack, she broke into tears,
Speaker 1: prompting Judge Stadman to call the recess. Her testimony was
Speaker 1: also thorough and precise. She provided detailed descriptions of her assailants,
Speaker 1: who she now said had referred to each other by
Speaker 1: name during her assault. She described seeing the license plate
Speaker 1: and the car, both of which she had initially claimed
Speaker 1: not to have seen, and these weren't the only changes
Speaker 1: to her story. Thalia now said that she might have
Speaker 1: left the alloway in as early as eleven thirty five
Speaker 1: p m. The most moving part of her testimony came
Speaker 1: when Thalia spoke of discovering a month after the alleged
Speaker 1: assault that she was pregnant. In truth, Thalia had only
Speaker 1: suspected she was pregnant when she went to the hospital
Speaker 1: and had a dilation and curetage performed. No evidence of
Speaker 1: pregnant she was discovered, but that fact never emerged at trial,
Speaker 1: and the horror of her ordeal moved many in the
Speaker 1: court room. On cross William Heen gently but insistently pushed
Speaker 1: Thalia on the details of her attack and on the timeline.
Speaker 1: When he asked about the discrepancies between her testimony and
Speaker 1: her initial report to the police, such as the ethnicity
Speaker 1: of her assailants or the description of the car, Thalia
Speaker 1: claimed she couldn't remember what she'd said when with Thalia's
Speaker 1: testimony entered. Griffith White now worked to introduce corroberative evidence.
Speaker 1: He called Thalia's personal physician, doctor John Porter, to describe
Speaker 1: the injuries to Thalia's face. Then he presented a series
Speaker 1: of police officers. The first police witness was Detective John C. Clooney.
Speaker 1: Clooney had been one of Horace DA's arresting officers. Shortly
Speaker 1: after bringing Horace in, Clooney said Boris told him that
Speaker 1: quote one of the boys in his cars struck Missus Peeples,
Speaker 1: but as far as the striking of this white woman,
Speaker 1: he said he didn't know anything about it at the time.
Speaker 1: White asked Clooney, had you mentioned to him that a
Speaker 1: white woman had been struck? I had not. Clooney said
Speaker 1: the implication was clear. The only way that Horace DA
Speaker 1: could have known about the attack on Thalia at this
Speaker 1: point was if he had committed it. William Heen was shocked.
Speaker 1: He had never heard any mention of this exchange on cross.
Speaker 1: He asked Clooney if he had written a report that night.
Speaker 1: Clooney said he had, but that he didn't have the
Speaker 1: report on him, so the detective was excused to fetch
Speaker 1: the report In the meantime, White called his next police witness,
Speaker 1: officer Claude Benton. Benon had conducted a search of the
Speaker 1: crime scene in the early hours of September thirteenth, shortly
Speaker 1: after the assault was reported. At the scene, Benton had
Speaker 1: found several items that Thalia Massey identified as hers, including
Speaker 1: a pocket mirror and a pack of cigarettes. But Benon
Speaker 1: had also found something much more important. He now revealed
Speaker 1: on the stand tire tracks three good Rich Silverton Chords
Speaker 1: and one good Year all Weather. Benton explained, with the
Speaker 1: Goodyear tire on the left rear. These were, of course
Speaker 1: the same tires as those on Haruo DA's car. Benon
Speaker 1: had even taken Horace Da in his sister's car to
Speaker 1: the crime scene to compare the tracks. White clarified when
Speaker 1: the comparison visit had happened Sunday morning, he asked, Benon said, yes,
Speaker 1: William Heen knew how damaging this testimony sounded, but he
Speaker 1: thought he might be able to undermine it. His first
Speaker 1: step was asking for Benton's written report. Keen received it
Speaker 1: right before he began his cross examination of Benton that
Speaker 1: afternoon and had to quickly scan it. Then he began
Speaker 1: questioning Benton. After reviewing the tire evidence, Heen asked Benon
Speaker 1: what exactly he had found at the crime scene. Benon
Speaker 1: walked through the event, recalling the brands of the cigarettes found,
Speaker 1: the various matchboxes, and the pocket mirror. It was clear
Speaker 1: that he was a detail oriented, methodical officer, unlikely to
Speaker 1: miss things or make mistakes. Having established this, Heen dropped
Speaker 1: the hammer. Now, mister Betton, why didn't you include the
Speaker 1: tire marks in your written statement? Keen read Benton's report
Speaker 1: aloud in court. There was no mention of the tire tracks.
Speaker 1: Benen could only offer vague explanations, saying that he didn't
Speaker 1: realize the tire tracks mattered until he knew about harya
Speaker 1: IA's car. On redirect, Griffith White tried to clean things
Speaker 1: up by asking more questions about the visit Betton had
Speaker 1: made to the crime scene with Horace da It had
Speaker 1: only been a few hours after his first inspection of
Speaker 1: the scene been confirmed. This redirect didn't add much to
Speaker 1: Beton's damage credibility, and worse was still to come, but
Speaker 1: for now, Officer Bennon was dismissed and Detective Clue Pony
Speaker 1: returned he told the court that he was unable to
Speaker 1: find his report. This would become a pattern. The defense
Speaker 1: would ask for a police report, only to be told
Speaker 1: it was missing. However, in this case, Keen could still
Speaker 1: question Clooney about the contents of his report. He asked
Speaker 1: Clooney if he had recorded Horace DA's reference to a
Speaker 1: white woman anywhere. Clooney said he had not. When he
Speaker 1: asked why, Clooney admitted it was because quote, I was
Speaker 1: instructed to keep it under cover. Who had instructed him
Speaker 1: to do this? Griffith White, the prosecutor, Clooney said. Clooney
Speaker 1: also admitted that he had only remembered the alleged exchange
Speaker 1: five weeks after Horace Edo was first brought in. Clooney's
Speaker 1: suspicious recollection of this exchange aside, this story was much
Speaker 1: less damaging than it sounded. When Clooney had brought Horace
Speaker 1: to the police station, he had briefly left Horace alone
Speaker 1: while he searched for Captain Macintosh. Police officer Cecil Rickard
Speaker 1: would later admit, months after the trial ended, that he
Speaker 1: had approached Horas during this period and asked him about
Speaker 1: the assault. So Horace had a legitimate reason to know
Speaker 1: that the victim was a white woman. After White introduced
Speaker 1: a few more police witnesses who had helped administer Thalia's
Speaker 1: identification of the suspects, Keen asked for Officer Benton to
Speaker 1: be recalled to the stand. His questions this time around
Speaker 1: focused on Benton's visit to the scene with Horace da
Speaker 1: White had made a point of having Benton emphasized that
Speaker 1: his visit had been on Sunday morning, only hours after
Speaker 1: his first visit, the implication being that the only way
Speaker 1: the tire tracks could have gotten there was during the
Speaker 1: commission of the crime. But he now asked, hadn't this
Speaker 1: second visit actually happened on Monday morning? Yes, Beton admitted.
Speaker 1: Not only had Betton omitted the supposedly crucial tire marks
Speaker 1: from his report, he had now also been caught lying
Speaker 1: on the stand. The prosecution's other main police witness, Captain
Speaker 1: John McIntosh, proved to be no more helpful than Benten
Speaker 1: or Clooney had been. As Chief of Detectives, McIntosh had
Speaker 1: supervised the investigation almost from the beginning. A veteran of
Speaker 1: colonial police forces in South Africa and New Zealand and
Speaker 1: a former sugarcane plantation overseer McIntosh had been brought onto
Speaker 1: the police force, in his own words, quote by the
Speaker 1: business interests and the politicians. McIntosh provided little new evidence
Speaker 1: during his direct examination. His cross, however, was illuminating. Under
Speaker 1: questioning by Heen, McIntosh admitted that Thalia's fingerprints had not
Speaker 1: been found in her ruyo Eda's car, that no seamen
Speaker 1: had been found on Thalia's clothing or on the defendant's clothing,
Speaker 1: and that there were a number of discrepancies between the
Speaker 1: story that Thalia had first told and the one that
Speaker 1: she had told on the stand. White's only other witnesses
Speaker 1: were a few police officers who had helped administer Thalia's
Speaker 1: identification of the defendants, none of whom had much to add.
Speaker 1: After three days and twelve witnesses, White rested the prosecution case.
Speaker 1: White's case was flimsy at best, but as we've seen
Speaker 1: so often, what is happening outside the courtroom can have
Speaker 1: an enormous impact on a jury's decision. Though Judge Deadman
Speaker 1: instructed jurors to avoid reading press coverage of the trial,
Speaker 1: it would be difficult for them to avoid it entirely.
Speaker 1: Many papers put the case on the front page of
Speaker 1: every issue, and often their reporting was highly biased towards
Speaker 1: the prosecution. The Honolulu Advertiser, for example, titled a story
Speaker 1: on Heen's cross examination of Benton quote, defense fails to
Speaker 1: shake officer's story at trial. Not every newspaper was so biased.
Speaker 1: George Wright, a reporter who managed the English language section
Speaker 1: of the Japanese language newspaper Hawaii Hochi, for example, had
Speaker 1: been questioning the predominant narrative of the case from the start.
Speaker 1: As David Stanner describes, quote, two completely different accounts of
Speaker 1: what happened to Thalia Massey on Saturday night, September twelfth
Speaker 1: made their way through the homes and streets and workplaces
Speaker 1: of Honolulu, which, rendition, people believed dependent in large part
Speaker 1: on the newspapers they read, and what they read was
Speaker 1: a consequence of who and what those people were. The
Speaker 1: split in opinion that now was emerging cut right down
Speaker 1: the middle. Howley's on one side, almost everyone else on
Speaker 1: the other. Even if most of the jurors were not
Speaker 1: white themselves, all of them depended on the how the
Speaker 1: elite for their livelihoods, and they were aware of how
Speaker 1: badly their bosses wanted a conviction. As Ben Ahacuello later noted,
Speaker 1: quote all the big guys in town, the guys working
Speaker 1: for the big firms, came and sat in court and
Speaker 1: stared at the jury. What they were saying with their
Speaker 1: eyes was that if this doesn't come out right, you're
Speaker 1: going to get fired. So despite the seeming weakness of
Speaker 1: the prosecution's case, the defects still had a battle ahead
Speaker 1: of them. Fortunately they came prepared to fight. On the
Speaker 1: afternoon of Monday, November twenty third, nineteen thirty one, William
Speaker 1: Heen delivered the defense's opening statement. His argument was simple,
Speaker 1: these defendants could not have committed this crime. To prove
Speaker 1: this argument, the defense presented dozens of witnesses who testified
Speaker 1: to the whereabouts the defendants on the night in question.
Speaker 1: These witnesses, who had either spoken to or seen the defendants,
Speaker 1: could account for almost every minute of the men's movements
Speaker 1: between ten pm and one am. What was more, the
Speaker 1: defense also had witnesses who had likely seen Thalea that
Speaker 1: night at the very time she claimed she had been abducted.
Speaker 1: George and Maimie Goas had attended the dance at Waikiki Park,
Speaker 1: then walked down john Ina Road for a late night
Speaker 1: stack at five, ten minutes after midnight, they saw a
Speaker 1: white woman in a green dress who appeared drunk walk
Speaker 1: past them. Like Thalia, this woman had a distinctive gait.
Speaker 1: She walked with her head tilted down and to the side.
Speaker 1: A white man in a dark suit walked several paces
Speaker 1: behind her. Alice Aramaki, who worked in a barber shop
Speaker 1: on john Ena Rooade, saw what looked like the same
Speaker 1: man and woman a little further down the road a
Speaker 1: few minutes later. The goas and Aramaki also testified that
Speaker 1: they had provided this information to both the police and
Speaker 1: Griffith White as soon as they learned of the attack
Speaker 1: on Thalia. They had provided sworn statements, but the prosecution
Speaker 1: and the police never investigated further. He now followed the
Speaker 1: thread of police incompetence, recalling Captain John Macintosh to the stand.
Speaker 1: Though he had already succeeded in seriously undermining Officer Benton's
Speaker 1: testimony about the tire tracks, Keen had one last blow
Speaker 1: to deliver. He asked Macintosh whether he had gone to
Speaker 1: the scene of the crime after Officer Benten first examined it.
Speaker 1: Macintosh tried to evade the question, but when Heen would
Speaker 1: not relent, he admitted, quote, after I left Massey's home,
Speaker 1: I went down to the premises with Eda's car. Did
Speaker 1: you drive the DA car into these premises? Keen asked,
Speaker 1: I did not. Macintosh replied, but then continued, Sato drove
Speaker 1: the car in there. Henri Satto was the patrolman who
Speaker 1: had driven Macintosh to the scene. Those tire marks that
Speaker 1: the prosecution had made so much of they had been
Speaker 1: made by the police. Keen also asked Macintosh about two witnesses,
Speaker 1: Tatsumi Matsumoto and Robert Vieira. Matsumoto and via were in
Speaker 1: the car that Horace had pulled alongside on Bartania Street
Speaker 1: around twelve fifteen a m. On the thirteenth. Police had
Speaker 1: spoken to both men early in the investigation. Keen wanted
Speaker 1: to know how the police had learned of Matsumoto and Vieira.
Speaker 1: Macintosh said that Griffith White had told police to question
Speaker 1: the men. So William Heen called Prosecutor Griffith White to
Speaker 1: the stand. White was an unhelpful witness. He acknowledged that
Speaker 1: he must have heard about Matsumoto and Vieira from one
Speaker 1: of the defendants, but claimed that he couldn't remember which one,
Speaker 1: but what White actually said didn't matter so much. It
Speaker 1: was the principle of it. White was admitting on the
Speaker 1: stand that from the very beginning of the investigation he
Speaker 1: had been aware of numerous witnesses whose sworn testimony made
Speaker 1: it very unlikely that the defendants could have committed the crime,
Speaker 1: and yet he had still continued with the prosecution. If
Speaker 1: White thought that having to testify in a trial he
Speaker 1: was prosecuting was rock bottom, there was still lower to sink.
Speaker 1: While cross examining Joe Cahabai, one of the defendants, White
Speaker 1: asked Joe about what Horace Eat was wearing on September twelfth.
Speaker 1: Failia had claimed to recognize a leather jacket when identifying Horace.
Speaker 1: When Joe denied that Horace had worn this jacket, White
Speaker 1: brought a transcript of Joe's statement, in which Joe had
Speaker 1: apparently said that Horace had worn the jacket. Do you
Speaker 1: remember saying that? White asked, smugly, that is what you
Speaker 1: put in there? Joe shot back, flustered, White said, not
Speaker 1: what I put in here and tried to change the subject.
Speaker 1: William Heen was only too happy to return to this
Speaker 1: exchange during his redirect. After confirming with Joe that Horace
Speaker 1: had not been wearing a leather jacket, Keen asked, how
Speaker 1: did you happen to say to mister White that he
Speaker 1: did well? Joe said, he put it in the statement,
Speaker 1: and then after I signed the statement, I scratched it out.
Speaker 1: Keen turned to White and asked to see his copy
Speaker 1: of Joe's interview. White, caught in his own net, handed
Speaker 1: over the paper, admitting, quote, it is scratched out. Another
Speaker 1: example of White tampering with the defendant statements soon emerged,
Speaker 1: thanks once again to White himself. Defended, David Takai testified
Speaker 1: that he was the one to tell White about seeing
Speaker 1: Matsumoto on cross White asked, quote, why didn't you put
Speaker 1: in the fact that you saw Matsumoto's car in the
Speaker 1: written statement? I told you this matter, David replied, then
Speaker 1: you told her the stenographer not to put it down.
Speaker 1: Another brilliant own goal by Griffith White. By now, Keen
Speaker 1: had clearly shown prosecutorial and police misconduct, but he also
Speaker 1: wanted to show that many police officers involved with the
Speaker 1: case would back up the defense's account. Not all of
Speaker 1: these police witnesses were enthusiastic about testifying for the defense,
Speaker 1: but they were forthright. After Captain Macintosh had taken over
Speaker 1: the case, he had replaced all the non white detectives
Speaker 1: with white officers. Those replaced included the four detectives who
Speaker 1: had responded to the initial call out to the Massy house.
Speaker 1: All four of these men testified to Thalia's original statement
Speaker 1: in which she said she could not see any faces
Speaker 1: or any details of the car, and Detective Lucciano Machado
Speaker 1: revealed that Thalia had been unsure of her identifications when
Speaker 1: ben Ahacuello was brought in front of her. Thalia had
Speaker 1: only confirmed he was one of her assailants after Captain
Speaker 1: Macintosh whispered to her that he was. After a week
Speaker 1: of testimony from fifty two witnesses, the defense was satisfied
Speaker 1: that they had proven not only that the defendants could
Speaker 1: not have committed the crime, but that the police and
Speaker 1: the prosecutor had lied and manufactured evidence. Given this, Griffith
Speaker 1: White would need to appeal to emotion, not evidence in
Speaker 1: his closing argument, delivered on the morning of December first,
Speaker 1: and emotion White could do this is one of the
Speaker 1: worst cases we have ever had. He began describing how
Speaker 1: Thalia Massey, a quote, young inexperienced girl, had just been
Speaker 1: taking a walk when quote she was assaulted by beasts.
Speaker 1: Would the jury further victimize Thalia by rejecting her testimony
Speaker 1: and labeling her a quote unmitigated liar. He knew they
Speaker 1: would not. They would quote be men, he insisted, and
Speaker 1: they would consider what they would want done if their
Speaker 1: wives were harmed. You would want to go down and
Speaker 1: shoot the men, White said, to avenge not just Thalia,
Speaker 1: but Tommy Massey too. They must find the defendants guilty.
Speaker 1: All three defense lawyers gave closing arguments. Robert Murakami, representing
Speaker 1: David Takai, focused on the defendant's alibis, saying that in
Speaker 1: the face of the timeline quote, I doubt that the
Speaker 1: prosecuting attorney, as a reasonable man, can honestly believe that
Speaker 1: these are the men. In his closing Bill Pittman was
Speaker 1: less generous towards the prosecute. This entire case, Pittman stated,
Speaker 1: is a frame up. A prosecutor's job was to seek truth,
Speaker 1: not a conviction that any costs. He continued and though
Speaker 1: he thought rape was a terrible crime, Pittman thought that
Speaker 1: there was quote a worse crime, one more heinous, and
Speaker 1: that is sending innocent men to the penitentiary. Pittman concluded,
Speaker 1: by exhorting the jurors not to commit this crime. You
Speaker 1: cannot if you are honest and upright men, convict these men.
Speaker 1: I know these men are innocent, and I know this
Speaker 1: jury will not swerve from its duty of acquitting them.
Speaker 1: William Heen gave the final defense closing, he combined Murakami
Speaker 1: and Pittman's approaches, walking through all the evidence that proved
Speaker 1: his clients were innocent and incapable of committing the crime.
Speaker 1: The only crimes that this trial had proven, Keen said,
Speaker 1: were those committed by the police officers like Officer Ben,
Speaker 1: who had perjured themselves. They had only done so, Heen believed,
Speaker 1: because of quote the public clamor to crucify the defendants
Speaker 1: on a cross of prejudice and sentiment. He pointed out
Speaker 1: that other police officers had resisted this pressure and testified honestly.
Speaker 1: Wasn't their word worth as much as anyone else's? Or?
Speaker 1: He asked, quote, are we to disregard the testimony? Of
Speaker 1: these witnesses simply because they are Hawaiian, Chinese, Japanese or Portuguese.
Speaker 1: He concluded by asking the jurors to be quote honest
Speaker 1: and courageous in reaching your verdict and return a verdict
Speaker 1: of not guilty. Griffith White came out swinging in his rebuttal.
Speaker 1: If anyone has been crucified, he said, it is this
Speaker 1: lovely girl who crucified herself to protect other women of Honolulu.
Speaker 1: White briefly addressed the evidence again, calling the officers who
Speaker 1: testified for the defense quote traders and said that Off
Speaker 1: Benton's testimony quote still stands unchallenged. But for his final
Speaker 1: message to the jury, he fell back on emotional appeals.
Speaker 1: What we call upon you, the gentlemen of the jury,
Speaker 1: for White said, is to vindicate Hawaii, to show that
Speaker 1: you will protect your women, stand together for a true verdict,
Speaker 1: and thus justify your manhood. The jury received the case
Speaker 1: around nine pm on Wednesday, December second. People thought it
Speaker 1: would be a quick deliberation, but for very different reasons.
Speaker 1: Many navymen and other Howleys thought that the prosecution had
Speaker 1: it in the bag. Many others thought acquittal would be immediate.
Speaker 1: Both groups were wrong. The jury deliberated for nearly one
Speaker 1: hundred hours. Tempers got so heated that several jurors got
Speaker 1: into a physical fight. William Heen called for a mistrial.
Speaker 1: Judge Steadman admonished the jurors. Eventually, they claimed they could
Speaker 1: not reach a verdict. Stedman told them to keep trying,
Speaker 1: but finally, at ten p m. On Sunday, December sixth,
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty one, he accepted that the jury was deadlocked.
Speaker 1: In the case of the Territory of Hawaii v. Ben
Speaker 1: Ahacuello at Al, Judge Deadman declared a mistrial. Chaos irrupted
Speaker 1: at the news of the mistrial. Some people were thrilled
Speaker 1: with the outcome, others were furious. Admiral Yates Sterling called
Speaker 1: the result quote a stupid miscarriage of justice which could
Speaker 1: have been avoided if the territorial government had shown more
Speaker 1: inclination to sympathize with my insistence upon the necessity of
Speaker 1: the conviction. The defendants, he concluded, were not men who
Speaker 1: should have been given the benefit of a reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1: Grace fordescue Thalia's mother, vehemently agreed. She had traveled to
Speaker 1: Hawaii shortly before the trial and had been horrified by
Speaker 1: what she saw as immoral racial integration. She had made
Speaker 1: a habit of calling the police on her Hawaiian neighbors
Speaker 1: and had requested that only white nurses treat thelia. The mistrial,
Speaker 1: in grace Fordescue's mind, was yet another symptom of the
Speaker 1: dangerous erosion of white supremacy in the territory. She could
Speaker 1: not bear the thought of a second trial ending without conviction.
Speaker 1: If the legal system could not guarantee her the outcome
Speaker 1: she wanted, she thought she'd just have to take matters
Speaker 1: into her own hands, and so grace Fordescue bought a
Speaker 1: gun and she began to plot to find out what
Speaker 1: happens next. Join me next week for part two of
Speaker 1: the Massy Case. Thank you for listening to History on Trial.
Speaker 1: If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating
Speaker 1: or review. It can help new listeners find the show.
Speaker 1: To see images the people and places in this episode,
Speaker 1: check out our instagram at History on Trial. My main
Speaker 1: sources for this episode were David E. Stannard's book on
Speaker 1: Our Killing, Race, Rape and Clarence Darrow's Spectacular Last Case,
Speaker 1: and the trial transcripts published by the University of Minnesota's
Speaker 1: Clarence Sterow Digital Collection. For a full bibliography, as well
Speaker 1: as a transcript of this episode with citations, please visit
Speaker 1: our website History on Trial podcast dot com. History on
Speaker 1: Trial is written and hosted by me Mira Hayward. The
Speaker 1: show is edited and produced by Jesse Funk, with supervising
Speaker 1: producer Trevor Young and executive producers Dana Schwartz, Alexander Williams,
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick, and Mira Hayward. Learn more about the show
Speaker 1: at History on Trial podcast dot com and follow us
Speaker 1: on Instagram at History on Trial and on Twitter at
Speaker 1: Underscore History on Trial. Find more podcasts from iHeart Radio
Speaker 1: by visiting the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your favorite shows.