Download the Plea Offer [PDF].

James J. Alfini, BA, Columbia University JD
Northwestern University School of Law
President, Dean and Professor of Law First Amendment expert spoke with a news reporter regarding the County of Kauai's PLEA OFFER for Pinkerton:

"the prosecution is not forcing Pinkerton to take down his site, it is overstepping its bounds of authority.

"It's banishment," Alfini said. "The point is to get him out of
their hair which suggests that he may have something on them."

A lot of criminal defendants often accuse police of brutality while in custody. But Alfini said the prosecutor's requests for Pinkerton to leave the island, take down his site and drop civil suits against the city do give his case a good amount of credence.

He added that the prosecution, with this proposed agreement is looking to take care of their interests rather than the interests of the defendant, which should be the focus of any plea deal.

"I don't see subsidiary restorative or rehabilitative aspect of it," Alfini said. "The sum total of what they are doing is asking the defendant to give up some rights. I think this is improper."

There may be no legal precedent about the legality of the
prosecution's request, Alfini said. The fact that Pinkerton's Web site is both a personal journal and a medium makes the case somewhat difficult.

"This is a whole new era," he said. "It gives people the
opportunity to put out their message like they never have before."

Source: Houston, TX. "Daily Court Review"

Read between the lines.  This is not your ordinary plea agreement.  This plea offer is proof that prosecutors wish to suppress evidence and suppress the defendants'  Constitutional Rights.

From Honolulu Advertiser June 16, 2006. Online

Krstafer Pinkerton is making his case - including the posting of
screen shots from police computers - on his personal Web site.

Pinkerton says he is a computer and network analyst who has done work with law enforcement, financial institutions and nonprofit groups. He also has been arrested three times in recent months, and charged with impersonating a police officer, with terroristic threatening and drunken driving, among other charges.

He maintains he has been targeted by a few police officers who have a  grudge against him personally, but that he is a supporter of law enforcement and has friends within the police department. He outlines his side of the issue at www.kpinkerton.com.

In the most recent turn of events, the county prosecuting attorney's office, after conferring with Pinkerton's then-attorney, William  Harrison, agreed to drop all charges if Pinkerton would agree to several conditions - including leaving town, taking down the Web site, revealing how he acquired images from police computers, and  writing letters of apology to three police officers.

Pinkerton refused, and the offer expired May 25.

"That's why my lawyer is no longer representing me. He told me to take the deal," Pinkerton said.

Prosecutor Craig De Costa said he intends to prosecute Pinkerton on the charges that have been brought against him.

Harrison said he could not discuss some issues in the case, but said that he participated in negotiating the plea offer that Pinkerton rejected.

De Costa said the plea agreement was "mutually composed" by  Harrison and De Costa's staff, and while he would not directly address its specific requirements, he suggested that some provisions may have been offers by Pinkerton's side rather than demands of the prosecutor.

"We would never ask someone to leave town. However, if their attorney tells us they intend to leave town, that might make its way into an agreement," De Costa said.

Pinkerton said he might have suggested that he would be willing to
leave the island to have the charges dropped. Harrison said he made the offer because Pinkerton told him he would be willing to leave the island to get the charges dismissed.

Kaua'i attorneys not involved in the case say such a plea deal seems odd to them.

"I've never seen a plea offer before that required the removal of a Web page, or that required someone to leave the island," said attorney Daniel Hempey.


Former prosecuting attorney Ryan Jimenez said he never made such requirements a part of plea agreements when he was in office.

"That seems very unusual to me," Jimenez said.

But Harrison said he has participated in such agreements in Hawai'i before, deals in which "someone agreed to leave the community in which the offense took place."

De Costa said his concerns about the Web site involve possibly
revealing private information about individuals.

He added that the site displays the contents of screens of police
computers. It is not clear to authorities whether Pinkerton was given screen snapshots by someone inside the department, or he was able to break into the police records management system electronically. In either case, it worries law enforcement.

"I'm concerned if he did gain access to RMS, how he did it, and whether it is a security breach," De Costa said.

Acting police Chief Clay Arinaga said police are conducting their own investigation.

"We have some concerns about some of the information he had access to," Arinaga said. "Some of that is not available to the public."

Pinkerton said he was given the screen snapshots by officers he will not identify.

"A couple of police officers came to me and said, 'Take these.' You can't hack into that system. It's a closed network. At least, I don't have the capability of getting into it," he said.

As for the Web site, Pinkerton says he wants the charges dropped, an apology from the county and "a fair settlement."

"This (Web site) is going to continue to sit there if they continue to maliciously prosecute me," he said.

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