Comments don't nullify the force and effect of Apology Bill
The Maui News published my
letter
today regarding the significance of the
apology.
The Maui
NewsLetters to the
EditorThursday, February 19, 2004
Sen. Daniel Inouye was quoted as
saying the Apology Bill was "a simple resolution of apology" (Letters, Feb.
13). However, in that same
debate,
Sen. Slade Gorton, R-Wash., in arguing against the bill, stated that, regardless
of whether the senators from Hawaii agreed, "the logical consequences of this
resolution would be independence." The
apology is in legal terms an "admission against interest, " a confession if you
will. If a person signed a statement confessing to having committed a crime, but
said it was meant as "simply an apology," do you think that would stop a court
from allowing it as evidence in a criminal prosecution? Not
likely. The findings of fact and law
that were included in the bill are not limited in application by what the
senators say their intention was.
Scott Crawford Hana
Posted: Thu - February 19, 2004 at 11:47 AM