Trial has been set in the case of a man shot by police officers earlier this year in downtown Hilo, but it appears court proceedings are going anything but smoothly.
The snag is a lack of courtroom interpreters in Hilo who speak the man’s language, Bislama.
Hilo Circuit Judge Greg Nakamura on Friday ordered James Salai to appear for trial at 9 a.m. Feb. 16, 2016. Salai, a Vanuatu native, is charged with two counts each of first-degree terroristic threatening, first-degree criminal property damage and second-degree criminal property damage.
The 31-year-old Salai was shot and critically wounded just before midnight Feb. 28 in downtown Hilo after he allegedly took off during a traffic stop and damaged a police vehicle and another car at the corner of Mamo Street and the Kilauea Avenue extension, behind Pineapples restaurant.
He allegedly reversed his car toward two officers while trying to get away. Both officers discharged their weapons; a witness said she counted 16 shots.
Salai eventually was pulled over and taken into custody at the corner of Kinoole and Haihai streets.
Salai, who was previously hospitalized with gunshot wounds at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu, appeared in Friday’s hearing in custody, unable to post $34,500 bail. He pleaded not guilty to all charges on April 10.
An interpreter named Michael Lameier spoke by telephone from Honolulu to translate the proceedings for Salai. Although he could be heard in the courtroom, he had difficulties hearing the proceedings and on numerous occasions, Nakamura had to act as intermediary as well as arbiter, telling Lameier what was said at the prosecution and defense tables so Lameier could translate for Salai.
Salai appeared to understand what was said to him by Lameier and answered all questions posed to him, all of which were of the yes-or-no variety. Even so, the hearing, in which little was done other than to set a trial date, took almost 15 minutes.
Lameier also provided translation via telephone in Salai’s hearing on Aug. 3. According to court records, interpretation at Salai’s April 10 arraignment was handled by Maklen Kapalu, a Brigham Young University-Hawaii student from Vanuatu. According to the Laie, Oahu, school’s website, she is the only student from Vanuatu in the 2,700-member student body.
“We don’t have anyone who speaks Bislama on the Judiciary’s list of court interpreters. However, the Judiciary reached out to the Vanuatu Consulate to locate qualified individuals that could assist with interpretation services,” Judiciary spokeswoman Tammy Mori said in a Friday email. “The defendant was provided with the recommended interpreters in each of his hearings.”
Craig Severance, a retired University of Hawaii at Hilo anthropologist, said Bislama, the national language of Vanuatu, has few speakers on Hawaii Island, although there is a larger pool of speakers in Honolulu. Severance added Vanuatu, a South Pacific island nation about 1,100 miles east of Australia, “has a lot of different languages.”
Although the original inhabitants of Vanuatu are Melanesian and Bislama is described as a “Melanesian pidgin” in writings by the late linguist Terry Crowley, Severance noted “a lot of variance” in the archipelago’s population and languages.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.