By Madeleine Valera / May 29, 2025
Civil Beat
Honolulu police officers arrested more than 100 people in a two-year period on suspicion of driving under the influence, even though breathalyzer tests revealed the drivers had no alcohol in their systems, according to a class-action lawsuit filed Thursday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaiʻi.
The arrests are indicative of a pattern of Honolulu police detaining motorists for drunken driving when they are actually sober, according to ACLU attorneys and the Honolulu law firm Miyashita & O’Steen, who are representing the drivers.
Officers received various incentives to make drunken driving arrests, including being told they could go home and be paid for their full shift after conducting just one DUI arrest at a sobriety checkpoint, the lawsuit said. Most of the arrests resulted in no charges filed.
The Honolulu Police Department has initiated a review of all its impaired driving arrests dating back to 2021, spokesperson Kathleen Lee said in an emailed statement.
“The goal of this review is twofold — to identify any existing negative patterns and to uncover opportunities for improving our training and operational procedures,” the statement said. “Due to the thorough nature of this case-by-case review, the process is extensive and time-consuming. Nevertheless, we are committed to ensuring it is completed with the utmost care and integrity.”
The department also began a refresher training for officers involved in impaired driving enforcement this month.
“This proactive effort reflects our continued commitment to professional development and accountability,” the statement said.
Wookie Kim, legal director for the ACLU of Hawaiʻi, said the lawsuit’s goal is to ensure that the police department stops arresting people without probable cause and without due process.
“It’s really about stopping this pattern and practice within the department of making these very shoddy and unconstitutional arrests,” he said. “A lot of this stems from a culture that chases arrest stats at the expense of actually arresting drunk drivers.”
The class-action lawsuit was filed on behalf of three plaintiffs who were arrested and represents hundreds of other drivers.
‘I Haven’t Really Recovered’
One of those plaintiffs, Ammon Fepuleai, was the first driver to enter a police sobriety checkpoint in Waipiʻo on the night of Nov. 7, 2023 as he was returning home from his cousin’s bridal shower.
Fepuleai said he was “stunned” when Honolulu Police Officer David Ferreira, who is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, told Fepuleai he smelled alcohol on him.
“I don’t drink,” Fepuleai responded, according to the complaint.
Fepuleai agreed to perform a field sobriety test and took a breathalyzer test, which revealed he had a blood alcohol content of zero. Police on scene persisted with further field testing to determine whether Fepuleai was on drugs.
Officers made statements in their reports about Fepuleai’s behavior that body camera footage later showed to be false, according to the attorneys. For example, Ferreira wrote that Fepuleai turned in the “wrong direction” as part of his sobriety testing, but body camera footage showed the officer did not tell Fepuleai that he was supposed to turn in a particular direction.
Officers also wrote that he had red, bloodshot eyes and gave delayed responses during their interaction, something the footage did not show, the complaint said.
Fepuleai was ultimately arrested on suspicion of driving under the influence of marijuana and/or prescription medication, according to the lawsuit. His license was revoked, but later restored after a review by the Administrative Driver’s License Revocation Office.
Fepuleai, who lives in American Samoa, said he doesn’t feel safe anymore when he visits Hawaiʻi.
“Every time I come to Hawaiʻi, I’m looking over my shoulder,” he told Civil Beat during a phone interview. “I fear being on the road. I think I haven’t really recovered mentally in terms of the police.”
Many Arrests, Few Convictions
Between 2022 and 2024, police arrested 127 people who were later shown to have no alcohol in their system through breath or blood tests, the lawsuit said. Of those arrests, 15 people were given traffic tickets and three were charged with operating under the influence of drugs. The rest were not charged.
Of the thousands of arrests police make on suspicion of drunken driving, very few cases are actually prosecuted, the ACLU found. In 2023, the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office declined to file charges for about 80% of the 1,283 DUI arrests the department made that year.
The conviction rate for driving under the influence on Oʻahu is much lower than on the neighbor islands, state Judiciary data shows. Of 1,711 misdemeanor DUI cases that were finalized in the First Circuit Court on Oʻahu in fiscal year 2022-2023, 989 resulted in convictions for a rate of 57%. Some of the finalized cases were deferred or transferred out of district court and could have resulted in later convictions. The conviction rate that same year was 87% on Maui, 69% on Hawaiʻi island and 73% on Kauaʻi.
Attorneys with the ACLU claimed officers have been incentivized by various department policies that reward them for making DUI arrests.
For example, officers in the department’s “night enforcement unit” are allowed to go home after making just one drunk driving arrest and still get paid for their full shift, the lawsuit said.
In the case of Fepuleai’s arrest, officers dismantled the sobriety checkpoint after Fepuleai was taken into custody, the lawsuit said. His was the only arrest made at the checkpoint that night.
Supervisors also encourage officers to make DUI arrests by offering those with higher arrest counts more overtime opportunities and threatening to take away their subsidized patrol car if they don’t meet certain quotas, the lawsuit said.
The ACLU is seeking injunctive relief to end the police department’s practice of arresting drivers for DUI without due process or probable cause as well as a court order declaring the department’s actions “unconstitutional and unlawful.”
Story available at: https://www.civilbeat.org/2025/05/lawsuit-honolulu-police-made-127-dui-a...
ACLU-HI Press Release available at: https://www.acluhi.org/en/press-releases