The titles to all the aina were quieted with the first and then second mahele and the fact that these quieted titles are being buried under a bunch of paperwork that holds no legal or lawful value, affects directly every Kanaka Maoli, including Kanaka Maoli and their prison sentence.

There’s money to made in them thar kanaka’s!

As one commenter said, they would never be raped here because these guards would have to go home and probably face the families of these women at the grocery store some day.

Accusations not first at Otter Creek facility in Kentucky

By Mary Vorsino
Advertiser Staff Writer

Two female inmates from Hawai’i allege they were sexually assaulted by one or more corrections officers at a Kentucky prison, and police are investigating one of the incidents.

//

Honolulu attorney Myles Breiner said he is representing the two women, who allege the sexual assaults occurred while they were in isolation in a medical unit at the Otter Creek Correctional Center in Wheelwright, Ky.

One of the assaults was reported June 23 and allegedly involved a male corrections officer, Kentucky police said. The other incident, earlier this year, also allegedly involved a male corrections officer at the same prison, Breiner said.

Kentucky state police spokesman Mike Goble said last week that no arrests have been made in the June 23 case. He added that forensic tests have been conducted and that other evidence has been collected.

An October 2007 report of another sexual assault of a Hawai’i female inmate at Otter Creek by a corrections officer led to his firing.

There are 165 Hawai’i women at Otter Creek, a private prison operated by Corrections Corporation of America. In an e-mailed statement, spokesman Steven Owen said, “CCA has a zero-tolerance policy for any form of sexual misconduct and takes any such allegations very seriously.”

He said the company is “in the process of thoroughly reviewing” the allegations, adding that “any public discussion” of the allegations before the completion of an investigation “would be premature and inappropriate.”

Tommy Johnson, deputy director of the state Department of Public Safety, said investigations are under way at the prison in two separate incidents. He would not say whether those incidents are sex assaults, but confirmed that one stems from something that was reported June 23.

“At this point, they’re just allegations,” Johnson said.

Other incidents

The investigations come more than a year after Otter Creek officials said they would change their procedures following a sex assault case involving a Hawai’i inmate and corrections officer. In the October 2007 incident, the inmate alleged the corrections officer came to her room and demanded she perform sex acts.

The officer was fired, and subsequently convicted of a misdemeanor sex offense.

Johnson told that inmate’s relatives in a September 2008 letter that after the incident Corrections Corporation of America immediately changed its operating procedures at Otter Creek to require “whenever possible, a female correctional officer is paired with a male correctional officer in the housing dorms/units.”

The state renewed its $3.6 million annual contract to house Hawai’i inmates at Otter Creek in November. Johnson said the contract is set to expire in October.

Allegations of sexual misconduct involving corrections workers and Hawai’i inmates have surfaced before in other private prisons, including in Oklahoma in 2000 and Colorado in 2005. Those allegations were followed by the felony conviction of a corrections officer in Colorado and inmate lawsuits in both states.

Otter Creek Correctional Center, a 656-bed prison that houses minimum- and medium-security men and women, was also under scrutiny last year after a secretary got a .22-caliber pistol through the facility’s security system, including a metal detector, and then committed suicide in the warden’s office.

Here vs. there

Lawmakers and advocates for the inmates say the new sex assault allegations raise questions about the safety of the women at Otter Creek and the procedures in place to prevent assaults. The allegations could also reignite a debate about whether the state should be shipping female inmates to the Mainland at all.

State Sen. Will Espero, D-20th (‘Ewa Beach, Waipahu), chairman of the Senate Public Safety Committee, said, “We’ve always had issues with the women being so far away.” Espero added that he believes the women should return.

“There’s no reason why we can’t begin to bring some of them back,” he said.

The state pays about $50 million annually to CCA to house some 2,000 male and female inmates in Mainland prisons because there isn’t enough room for them in Hawai’i. All female inmates are at Otter Creek.

The practice of exporting women has been criticized because many of them have children and advocates say long separations can cause irreparable harm to families. Espero said the Hawai’i women on the Mainland should instead be housed at the Federal Detention Center near Honolulu International Airport.

In December, the state Public Safety Department said in a report to the Legislature that holding 164 female inmates at the Federal Detention Center would cost about $84 a day each. That’s $5 million a year — about $1.6 million more than the cost of keeping them at Otter Creek. The report said the detention center has enough space for the female inmates now housed on the Mainland, but they could be held at the facility for no longer than three years because the center isn’t set up for longer stays.

Johnson added that the annual costs of holding the women at Otter Creek is about half of the cost of keeping them in state facilities in Hawai’i. The report also pointed out that about 64 percent of women at Otter Creek had, as of October 2008, five or more years to go before they complete their sentences or are eligible for parole.

Reach Mary Vorsino at mvorsino@honoluluadvertiser.com.

To date, no proof has been forthcoming.

Take note:

1. There are no United States Land Patents here in Ko Hawaii Pae Aina.

2. There are Palapala Sila Nui and Palapala Hooko.

If there are no United States Land Patents that means that all the ingredients needed to meet the requirements to have our land transferred was not met.

Rubellite Kinney Johnson, Plaintiff-appellant, v. the United States, Defendant-appellee

United States Court of Appeals, Federal Circuit. – 976 F.2d 747

Aug. 10, 1992

There are no United States Land Patents here in Ko Hawaii Pae Aina.

There are Palapala Sila Nui and Palapala Hooko.

If there are no United States Land Patents then that must mean transfer of jurisdiction never occurred.

If transfer of jurisdiction never occurred then how can the United States enforce laws from their jurisdiction here in the original jurisdiction of Ko Hawaii Pae Aina?

The answer is: they cannot.

When I imagine a family, nice, mom and dad, 3 kids, a dog, work hard to provide the children with a nice comfortable life, a house, good school, food being held hostage by a couple of criminals at gunpoint (Bayonet Constitution) because these criminals want to now waltz in there and take everything that this hard working, loving family built for their children, for their future…that’s how picture the enormity and the graveness of what the United States did here in Ko Hawaii Pae Aina.

Pu`u O Hoku Ranch Donates Development Rights
According to the Maui Coastal Land Trust (MCLT) Executive Director Dale
Bonar last month, 2800 acres of East Molokai’s Puu O Hoku Ranch will remain forever in open space and agriculture thanks to a conservation easement agreement between MCLT and ranch owner Lavinia Currier.
Why? Several honorable reasons are possible, but legally, a landowner who
donates a conservation easement may be eligible for three federal tax benefits:

a charitable income tax deduction under [I.R.C.] ß170(h),

a charitable gift tax deduction under [I.R.C.] ß2522(d),
and an exclusion of up to 40 percent of the value of the land subject to
the  easement from the landowner’s estate for estate tax
purposes under [I.R.C.]
Why not just write land covenents in their own land deeds instead of MCLT?
Dale Bonar said this: “Per the covenants question, its and issue of legal standing.
When you put covenants on your lands it is only you (and your heirs) that
have legal standing to enforce them. So if you sell the lands and a future owner goes against the covenants, neither the county, nor the neighbors can enforce against those violations… The federal and state regulations which permit Land Trusts to operate give them the specific legal standing to be a third party enforcer of those covenants….So our job as the land trust is to ensure that those covenants are ALWAYS obeyed and enforced, regardless of who owns the land.”
What do you do when the lands are claimed by multiple parties, as in he case
of Paul Kauka Naki who obtained a Judgment from the Supreme Court of Hawaii?
Dale Bonar’s reply: The short answer is, we follow US law and title company
guarantees of title. As far as the US legal system is concerned, the titles to
Kainalu ranch are free and clear titles, and were insured by Title Guaranty.
We faced similar claims in our purchase of the Waihe`e Refuge lands here on
Maui. Both Akahi Nui and the Sovereignty folks Mahealani Ventura Oliver works with have claimed title, although we have, according to US legal titles, clear title to all but six small Kuleana parcels. (Incidentally, the claims by Akahi Nui for all of Hawaii are refuted by the other sovereignty folks who do not recognize his claim as rightful King of Hawaii).

Since the “Supreme Court of the Hawaiian Islands” has no legal standing
under US law, we cannot legally accept their claims, as we are incorporated under specific IRS tenents of US law and are required to follow US law. This does not mean we do not pay close attention to these issues, nor summarily reject any claim. Our policy on lands which have clouded titles (as determined by US Title Company research and US law) is to exclude them from any easements we do.

On lands such as Waihe`e which we own, if any potential claimant for the clouded parcels comes forward we work them to perfect their claim, and if they do have a real claim, work them to either bring them into the conservation efforts, trade them for another more useful piece of land outside the conservation area, or purchase their interest.
Dale B. Bonar, Ph.D. has offered to discuss such issues in the future, and I
presume he will exchance communications with any Molokai resident or land claiment on Molokai, so his contact info follows.
Maui Coastal Land Trust , POB 965
Wailuku, Maui, HI 96793 808-244-5263
808-357-7740 (cell)
dale@mauicoastallandtrust.org
http://www.mauicoastallandtrust.org

Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Saturday, June 27, 2009

A&B first to pledge exclusive farmland
Perpetual agriculture use allows company to get aid in shoring up operations

By Andrew Gomes
Advertiser Staff Writer

Alexander & Baldwin Inc. has become the first owner of farmland in the state to voluntarily devote property to perpetual agricultural use under a controversial law passed last year.

The Honolulu-based company has preserved 30,878 acres on Maui and Kaua’i under cultivation of sugarcane, coffee, seed corn, rice, taro and cattle grazing.

The move, approved by the state Land Use Commission yesterday and in March, allows A&B to seek financial benefits from the state that could help shore up what have been money-losing agricultural operations for the company.

A&B, however, precluded itself from taking a controversial benefit allowed under the law that allows owners of prime agricultural land to convert land equivalent to 15 percent of the acreage protected for urban or rural use such as housing.

The Hawai’i Farm Bureau Federation applauded A&B for dedicating a “significant infusion” of high-quality ag land for perpetual farm use, and expected that more landowners large and small will use the so-called Important Agricultural Lands law.

“People often talk about how much they love agriculture, and want to see it stay in Hawai’i, but then do little to support the local farmers,” Dean Okimoto, president of the trade association and owner of Waimanalo-based Nalo Farms Inc., said in a statement. “Agriculture is a business — it’s not a lifestyle or a hobby. It has to be viable to survive.”

Sandra Lee Kunimoto, director of the state Department of Agriculture, called the A&B protections a historic moment culminating from years of effort by state leaders, farmers and landowners.
stems urban move

Supporters of the law say it’s good for farming and will encourage large landowners such as A&B, Kamehameha Schools, Maui Land & Pineapple Co., James Campbell Co., Castle & Cooke Hawai’i and Grove Farm among others to stop converting ag land for urban development as they have done over decades.

The law also will provide financial incentives to help small farmers who own their land.

So far, the worst fear of conservationists — that the law would accelerate the loss of prime ag land — has not come to pass. Still, it remains to be seen what the long-term impact of the law will be in terms of how much land it preserves and at what cost.

Lawmakers initially passed a law in 2005 that established a process for private landowners and county governments to designate prime ag land. That law fulfilled a mandate issued nearly 30 years earlier at the 1978 Constitutional Convention requiring the state to identify such land so it could be protected from development. But incentives to encourage protection didn’t pass the Legislature until last year as Act 233.
tradeoff in law

Some conservationists and farmers feared the provision allowing for urbanization of some prime ag land would speed its loss.

The tradeoff was an idea introduced by the Farm Bureau in partnership with the Land Use Research Foundation, a research and trade organization representing large landowners and developers.

Supporters of the law believe the tradeoff will spur landowners to lock up agricultural property that may, in the long run, be converted to urban use through conventional land-use laws. They say that the loss of high-quality ag land without the incentive would be greater than 15 percent.

To qualify, the land for protection and conversion has to be in the same county. Also, the land for protection has to be certified as prime farmland by the state Department of Agriculture, and approved by the Land Use Commission.

Any conversion for urban or rural use would ultimately have to obtain a County Council zoning change before nonagricultural use could take place.
veto was urged

Opponents of the provision — including Earthjustice, Life of the Land, Sierra Club Hawai’i Chapter and some farmers — fear the law will expedite conversion of farmland for development and lead to a proliferation of rural residential subdivisions that contribute to suburban sprawl.

“True farmland protection doesn’t come from giving away the farm,” the local Sierra Club chapter said on its Web site last year as part of a plea for Gov. Linda Lingle to veto the measure.

Some small farmers were particularly concerned that rural residential subdivisions will pop up next to farms that could inflate property values and produce incompatible neighbors that threaten to displace farming.

Incentives in the law include $7.5 million in annual tax credits for investments in agriculture facilities, a $2.5 million loan guarantee program, expedited ag processing facility permits and allowance of employee housing on prime ag land.
cost to state

The Agriculture Department said the primary cost of the incentives for the state will be the tax credits that may be claimed annually for five years.

A&B, as part of its petition to the Land Use Commission, waived all rights to seek any reclassification of land for urban or rural use in connection to the nearly 31,000 acres being preserved.

A&B could have sought to convert 4,632 acres for urban or rural use under the law.

A&B said it hasn’t determined what incentives it might pursue. “We are in the process of assessing what agricultural incentives we may seek,” company spokeswoman Meredith Ching said in a statement.

A&B said the decision to protect land under the law wasn’t easy.

“We believe this confirms the Legislature’s intent behind the IAL law — that using an incentive approach that supports the viability of agricultural businesses on agricultural lands will result in significant important agricultural lands being designated and protected in this state, sooner rather than later,” Ching said.
maui, kaua’i acreage

On Maui, A&B protected 27,105 acres in ag use by subsidiary Hawaiian Commercial & Sugar Co., the largest sugar producer in the state.

On Kaua’i, the company protected 3,773 acres in ag use mostly by subsidiary Kaua’i Coffee Co.

A&B’s agribusiness division last year lost $12.9 million, which compared with a $200,000 profit the year before.

The company largely attributes the loss to HC&S because of two years of record-low rainfall, suppressed raw sugar prices, increased costs, and decreased power sales revenue due to recent regulatory decisions.

Reach Andrew Gomes at agomes@honoluluadvertiser.com.

Kimo69 wrote:
The Kudo’s alloted A&B are completely absurd and, at best, a great publicity stunt… A&B is Hawaii’s biggest land developer and continues to build residential/vacation/second home subdivisions, condominiums/time-share projects, and related retail and industrial on far more valuable lands on far more important AG lands than any developer ever in Hawaii’s history… Addtionally, A&B makes a negative contribution to oudated Infrastructure, such as Sewage and waterways, and is a majority user of FRESH WATER, and it’s developments have a major impact on Ocean pollution… What a JOKE!
06/27/2009 7:01:11 a.m.

This was done in 1991 on land that belongs to the descendants of Keawehano.

Appeals court reverses Honolua Bay ruling
Pathway that Lahaina man was blocking not public right of way

By LILA FUJIMOTO, Staff Writer
POSTED: May 2, 2009
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WAILUKU – An appeals court has reversed a Lahaina man’s conviction for obstructing access to public property at Honolua Bay in 2006.

In its April 21 order, the state Intermediate Court of Appeals said the issue was whether a pathway used by the public to reach the bay was a public right of way.

According to testimony during his trial, 59-year-old Narciso Billianor Jr. at first told two undercover Maui police officers that they couldn’t go to the beach unless they paid a $5 donation. The officers were carrying bodyboards and posing as tourists. Later in the videotaped encounter, Billianor told the officers he didn’t care about the money and they could go to the beach.

Police set up the sting operation Nov. 26, 2006, to investigate reports of “extortion activity” at the popular West Maui snorkeling and bodyboarding spot.

Lahaina District Judge Simone C. Polak acquitted Billianor of attempted fourth-degree theft and found him guilty of obstructing access to public property, a violation, on Jan. 28, 2008.

He was ordered to perform 100 hours of community service, but the sentence was stayed while he appealed the conviction.

“While the District Court concluded that Billianor did prevent members of the public from traversing a public right of way, the state concedes that there was no evidence that the pathway was a public right of way and requests that Billianor’s conviction be reversed,” according to the Intermediate Court of Appeals order.

The order said, “It appears the evidence was undisputed that the pathway was the private property of Maui Land & Pineapple Company Inc. and not a public right of way.”

Attorney Michelle Drewyer, who represented Billianor, said she and the defendant were pleased with the order reversing his conviction.

“Testimony at trial was really clear – it was privately owned and no easements have been granted to any government entity,” she said. “The statute only pertains to public right of way. It’s a civil case, not a criminal case. Jurisdiction didn’t lie with the criminal courts.”

Billianor had set up a donation table about 30 yards from the shoreline. He said he was collecting money to pay for portable toilets, which he had arranged for, to keep the area clean.

He is among those who have claimed an interest in the land, which is the subject of a separate, pending quiet-title court action.

Billianor’s son, who was 16 years old at the time, also was arrested after allegedly flicking a knife while blocking the way to the beach. Family members said the boy was acquitted of felony charges during a closed Family Court proceeding.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.
Subscribe to The Ma

LAHAINA – Carrying bodyboards and a video camera hidden under a towel, two undercover police officers were walking toward the Honolua Bay shoreline when they were called back to a “donation” table set up on the trail last year.
Behind the table was Narciso Billianor Jr., who stood up and motioned for the officers to approach the table, said Lahaina patrol officer Steven Gunderson.

After he and the other officer said they weren’t interested in making a donation, Billianor’s young son motioned to his teenage brother to approach the officers, Gunderson said.

The 16-year-old boy “took a wide stance, he had a knife of some sort,” Gunderson said. “He kept flicking it open, staring us down.”

At the same time, Billianor “was telling us we need to make a donation because he owns the land and he takes care of the port-a-potties and the upkeep of the trail,” Gunderson said.

“I figured we weren’t going to be going to the beach,” he said. “I’d say it was a threat.”

Gunderson testified Monday in Billianor’s trial in Lahaina District Court.

The 58-year-old is charged with obstructing access to public property and attempted fourth-degree theft in the Nov. 26, 2006, incident, which was captured on videotape.

After at first telling the officers, “This is private property,” and asking for the donation, Billianor later is heard saying, “I don’t care about your money.”

Police organized the undercover operation to investigate reports of “extortion activity” at the popular snorkeling and bodyboarding spot, Gunderson said.

Randall Endo, vice president of community development for Maui Land & Pineapple Co., testified that the table with a sign saying “private property” and “$5 donation” was set up without permission on company land. He said the table was set up 30 to 40 yards from where the water meets the shoreline.

A similar “private property” sign also was put up without company permission on its locked gate along an upper portion of the trail just off Honoapiilani Highway, Endo said.

He described the unpaved trail as a “historical pathway” that goes downhill through vegetation and crosses Honolua Stream to a flat area near kuleana parcels by the shoreline. The key to the gate was given to Billianor as a “potential owner” of one kuleana parcel, which is the subject of a separate pending quiet-title court action, Endo said.

He said Maui Land & Pineapple Co. hasn’t restricted access on foot to the bay, where hundreds of tourists go to snorkel and swim daily. But he said there was no legal grant of easement for public use of the trail.

Endo said he didn’t know of a closing time for the bay, although Lahaina police officer Timothy Hodgens photographed a sign indicating that the bay was closed from 4:30 p.m. to 7 a.m. Hodgens said the “closed” sign was put up by Billianor family members after police arrested Billianor shortly after 4 p.m. that day.

Sgt. Ricky Uedoi recovered a cash box containing $256 that he said was on the table within arm’s reach of Billianor.

The trial is scheduled to continue Jan. 28 before Judge Simone C. Polak.

Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.

U.S. Supreme Court

DAMON v. TERRITORY OF HAWAII, 194 U.S. 154 (1904)

194 U.S. 154

SAMUEL M. DAMON, Plff. in Err., v. TERRITORY OF HAWAII. No. 207. Argued April 12, 1904. Decided April 25, 1904.

Messrs. Francis M. Hatch, Reuben D. Silliman, and J. J. Darlington for plaintiff in error.

Mr. Lorrin Andrews for defendant in error.[ Damon v. Territory of Hawaii 194 U.S. 154 (1904) ]

Page 194 U.S. 154, 157

Mr. Justice Holmes delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an action at law, somewhat like a bill to quiet title, to establish the plaintiff’s right to a several fishery of a peculiar sort, between the coral reef and the ahupuaa of Moanalua on the main land of the island of Oahu. The organic act of the territory of Hawaii repealed all laws of the Republic of Hawaii which conferred exclusive fishing rights, subject, however, to vested rights, and it required actions to be started within

Page 194 U.S. 154, 158

two years by those who claimed such rights. Act of April 30, 1900, chap. 339, 95, 96 (31 Stat. at L. 141, 160). At the trial the presiding judge directed a verdict for the defendant. Exceptions were taken but were overruled by the supreme court of the territory, and the case comes here by writ of error.

The right claimed is a right within certain metes and bounds to set apart one species of fish to the owner’s sole use, or, alternatively, to put a taboo on all fishing within the limits for certain months, and to receive from all fishermen one third of the fish taken upon the fishing grounds. A right of this sort is somewhat different from those familiar to the common law, but it seems to be well known to Hawaii, and, if it is established, there is no more theoretical difficulty in regarding it as property and a vested right than there is regarding any ordinary easement or profit a prendre as such. The plaintiff’s claim is not to be approached as if it were something anomalous or monstrous, difficult to conceive and more difficult to admit. Moreover, however, anomalous it is, if it is sanctioned by legislation, if the statutes have erected it into a property right, property it will be, and there is nothing for the courts to do except to recognize it as a right. Wedding v. Meyler, 192 U.S. 573, 583, ante, p. 322, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 322.

The property formerly belonged to Kamehameha IV., from whom it passed to his brother, Lot Kamehameha, and from him by mesne conveyances to the plaintiff. The title of the latter to the ahupuaa is not disputed. He claims the fishery also under a series of statutes and a royal grant. The history is as follows: In 1839 Kamehameha III. took the fishing grounds from Hawaii to Kauai and redistributed them,-those named without the coral reef, and the ocean beyond, to the people; those ‘from the coral reef to the seabeach for the landlords and for the tenants of their several lands, but not for others.’ The landlord referred to seems to have been the konohiki, or overlord, of an ahupuaa, or large tract like that owned by the plaintiff. It is not necessary to speculate as to what the effect of this act of the king would have been standing alone, he then

Page 194 U.S. 154, 159

having absolute power. It had, at least, the effect of inaugurating a system, de facto. But in 1846, the monarchy then being constitutional, an act was passed, article 5 of which was entitled ‘Of the Public and Private Rights of Piscary.’ By the 1st section of this article it was provided again that the same fishing grounds outside the reef should be free to the people, etc.; and then by the second it was enacted that the fishing grounds from the reefs to the beach, or, where there are no reefs, for one mile seaward, ‘shall in law be considered the private property of the landlords whose lands, by ancient regulation, belong to the same; in the possession of which private fisheries the said landholders shall not be molested except’ etc.

By 3 ‘the landholders shall be considered in law to hold said private fisheries for the equal use of themselves and of the tenants on their respective lands; and the tenants shall be at liberty to use the fisheries of their landlords subject to the restrictions in this article imposed.’ Then follows a statement of the rights of the landlord as they have been summed up above, and a provision that the landlords shall not have power to lay any tax or to impose any restrictions upon their tenants regarding the private fisheries other than those prescribed.

The Civil Code of 1859, 387, repeated the enactment of 2, that the fishing grounds within the reef or one mile seaward ‘shall, in law, be considered the private property of the konohiki,’ etc., in nearly the same words, and other sections codified the regulations just mentioned. There was a later repetition in the Penal Laws of 1897, 1452, etc., and this was in force when the organic act of Congress was passed, repealing, as we have said, the laws conferring exclusive fishing rights, but preserving vested rights.

The foregoing laws not only use the words ‘private property,’ but show that they mean what they say by the restrictions cutting down what otherwise would be the incidents of private property. There is no color for a suggestion that they

Page 194 U.S. 154, 160

created only a revocable license, and if they imported a grant or a confirmation of an existing title, of course the repeal of the laws would not repeal the grant. The argument against their effect was not that in this case the ahupuaa did not belong to the fishery, within the words ‘landlords whose lands, by ancient regulation, belong to the same’ (the land seems formerly to have been incident to the fishery), but that citizens have no vested rights against the repeal of general laws. This is one of those general truths which become untrue by being inaccurately expressed. A general law may grant titles as well as a special law. It depends on the import and direction of the law. A strong example of the application of the rule intended by the argument is to be found in Wisconsin & M. R. Co. v. Powers, 191 U.S. 379, ante, p. 107, 24 Sup. Ct. Rep. 107, where a railroad company was held to have no vested right to exemptions proclaimed in a general tax act. The statute was construed not to import an offer, covenant, or grant to railroads which might be built in reliance upon it. But if a general law does express such an offer, as it may, the grant is made. If the Hawaii statutes did not import a grant, it is hard to see their meaning.

However, in this case it is not necessary to invoke the statutes further than to show that, by the law in force since 1846, at least, such rights as the plaintiff claims, and which, as is shown by the evidence, he and his predecessors in title have been exercising for forty years, have been recognized as private property. Such is the view of the leading case, decided in 1858 and acquiesced in, we believe, ever since. Haalelea v. Montgomery, 2 Hawaiian R. 62, 66. In the present instance the plaintiff claims under a royal patent, admitted to have been effective as to whatever, by its true construction, it purported to convey. This patent describes the ahupuaa by metes and bounds, and then the granting clause goes on: ‘There is also attached to this land a fishing right in the adjoining sea, which is bounded as follows,’ again giving boundaries, and continuing: ‘The islands of Mokumoa, Mokuonini, and Mokuoco are a part of Moakalua and are included in the above area.’

Page 194 U.S. 154, 161

The description of what is intended to be conveyed could not be plainer. But the habendum is ‘to have and to hold the above granted land,’ and it is said that, as the fishery of an overlord or konohiki, unlike the rights of tenants, did not pass as an incident of land, but must be distinctly granted, the fishery was not included in the patent. Haalelea v. Montgomery, 2 Hawaiian Rep. 62, 71. Again, we must avoid being deceived by a form of words. We assume that a mere grant of the ahupuaa without mention of the fishery would not convey the fishery. But it does not follow that any particular words are necessary to convey it when the intent is clear. When the description of the land granted says that there is incident to it a definite right of fishery, it does not matter whether the statement is technically accurate or not; it is enough that the grant is its own dictionary and explains that it means by ‘land’ in the habendum, land and fishery as well. There is no possibility of mistaking the intent of the patent. If declares that intent plainly on its face. There is no technical rule which overrides the expressed intent, like that of the common law, which requires the mention of heirs in order to convey a fee. We are of opinion that the patent did what it was meant to do, and therefore that the plaintiff is entitled to prevail.

Judgment reversed.