Mercenary or Missionary: How Myles Breiner Broke the Mold and Became the BEST of Both |
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Summary:
-On Sunday 11/21/21, HPD fast tracked the service of a grand jury bench warrant traditionally assigned to the sheriff's office; the warrant was electronically filed Friday 11/19/21 at 5:48pm
-HPD refused to release the defendant, despite having already posted bail for $100,000 through A-1 Bail Bonds
-Although unretained for the case, Mr. Breiner spent an entire Sunday advocating for the release of the detainee, whom had special needs and now has PTSD as a direct result of the arrest. |
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On Missionaries versus Mercenaries; direct from the book above...
When Jeff Bezos, the greatest entrepreneur of all time, meets with a founder to discuss the purchase of a company, he tries to assess whether the prospective partner is
a) a mercenary, or someone for hire, chiefly interested in making money.
or
b) a missionary, someone with a true passion for serving clients
"The mercenaries are trying to flip their stock, while the missionaries love their product or their service and love their customers, and they're trying to build a great service."
-Jeff Bezos |
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I argue that Mr. Breiner breaks the mold and embodies the best parts of both the mercenary and the missionary.
Missionaries, especially in the criminal justice domain, are often inspiring, yet completely ineffective. Missionaries preach from the pulpit of the moral high ground to end pre-trial detention, yet as we see from this and many other examples, have yet to abolish the flaw in our current system that mandates a second arrest, simply when a case transfers from District court to Circuit court.
Mercenaries, are highly trained and highly effective. They'll get results, even on a Sunday, but before they go to work, you better have a credit card ready, cause it will cost you!
In a critical time of need, Mr. Breiner demonstrated the best of both the missionary and the mercenary. Although unretained for the matter, he still:
1) made numerous calls to the HPD brass to point out the detention violations taking place during the Sunday arrest.
2) threatened a civil rights lawsuit, since the detainee had special needs and had already posted bail, yet release from custody was refused.
3) provided indisputable evidence of the bail posting, which ironically was attached to the warrant HPD used to justify the arrest.
4) Did the impossible; forced HPD leadership to talk to me, a lowly bail agent, whom previously was refused the opportunity to be connected with the desk sergeant on duty. |
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How the Sunday arrest transpired...
Imagine coming home on a Sunday morning, to notice roughly 20 Honolulu Police Department officers were securing the perimeter of your house, jamming the exits and windows, and insisting that you turn over your son, whom suffers from ADHD and autism, for a $100,000 grand jury bench warrant.
You, your son, and other family members have literally just come home from church.
As a concerned mother, you've done everything in your power to protect your son. You've already posted a $100,000 bail bond just a few weeks ago, and you're still trying to pool your resources, so you can hire attorney Myles Breiner, one of the best criminal defense attorneys in Hawaii.
Yet that morning, HPD is telling you, your son needs to come with them, despite bringing out your bail receipt containing the exact same HPD report numbers, charges, and bail amount on their warrant. You've already posted his bail, and now that $100,000 bond isn't being honored for the release of your son.
That's what happened on 11/21/21; and now you've got to reach out to an attorney you're still in the process of hiring and hope he helps takes your call on a Sunday. |
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Above is a redacted copy of the "order pertaining to bail" attached to the bench warrant HPD served. Where the ⬆️ points, shows the notes confirming bail had been posted, and transferred to the very warrant HPD served. |
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Unfortunately, this isn't the first time a warrant generated upon transfer from the District court to the Circuit court has been mishandled by HPD. Attorney Eric Seitz details the true timeline of events, which was misrepresented by local media in the Erik Willis matter in 2020. In this particular case, the media created a public hysteria when falsely reporting defendant Erik Willis was "missing," "on the run," and "armed and dangerous." Not of the reporting was true, and I encourage you to click the link below, to hear Mr. Seitz detail what actually happened. ⬇️ |
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The Problem Nobody has Cared to fix...
A quirk of the Hawaii judicial system, is that when cases transfer from District Court to Circuit Court, a bench warrant is generated that needs to be served.
99% of the time, the sheriff's office serves these warrants, but typically their office needs a few days to enter, assigned, and welcome a defendant, whom is currently out on bail, but simply needs to be rebooked then released to satisfy the Judiciary's grand jury bench warrant creation. Typically the sheriff's office contacts the defendant or the bail agent, to request a "self surrender," which usually takes less than an hour to complete.
The 1% of the time that HPD intervenes and fast tracks the service of such warrants, bail clients are rarely afforded the luxury of self surrendering, and instead a bail agents is forced to either:
1) charge another fee and file a second bail bond with HPD after an often dramatic and over-resourced arrest takes place. Then subsequently fix the problem created the next business day when criminal assignments calls the bail agent to address the valid question of "why did you post a second bond and force the creation of a conflicting court date for a client whom already posted bail?"
2) leave your client in custody till court the next business day, so the judiciary correctly release your client.
3) spend several hours proving to HPD that bail has been posted and a second bond is not required. It's always unnerving for me to play unlicensed attorney and point out that when a bail bond is posted, then transferred to a new criminal number, that means bail is posted and shall be honored for release.
Believe it or not, there is a disconnect between what the court prints on a order pertaining to bail, and what HPD will honor for release. HPD booking officers universally understand that bail bonds posted can be transferred from one case to another. However, the key issue, is that leadership at HPD vary in their willingness to actually RELEASE defendants whom have already posted bail.
So in short, a bail bond posted and transferred to a new warrant, doesn't guarantee the release of a defendant after arrest. It seems impossible to acknowledge that bail has been posted, yet not release someone. Yet here we are, it happens commonly across each circuit in the State of Hawaii. |
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That Sunday, Mr. Breiner, famously known as both "a sword and a shield" was exactly that for me and the detainee. Through persistence and unique persuasion, he was able to turn the system upside down, and convince HPD leadership to release the detainee, after hours of obfuscation and refusal.
It took an entire Sunday, but around 4pm, the nightmare was over. Mr. Breiner secured the release, hallelujah! |
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