Massie Trial
The Massie Trial, for what was known as the Massie Affair, was a 1932 criminal trial that took place in Honolulu, Hawaii Territory. Socialite Grace Fortescue, along with several accomplices, was charged with the murder of the well-known local prizefighter Joseph Kahahawai. Fortescue was the mother of Thalia Massie, who had brought charges that Kahahawai was one of a group of men who had raped her.
Background
Massie family
Grace Hubbard Fortescue, née Grace Hubbard Bell, was the granddaughter of Gardiner Greene Hubbard, the first president of the National Geographic Society. Her father, Charles James Bell, was first cousin of inventor Alexander Graham Bell. Her marriage to Major Roland Granville "Rolly" Fortescue, an out-of-wedlock son of Robert Barnwell Roosevelt, did not leave her as financially successful as she would have wished, but she nevertheless kept up appearances and raised her daughter, Thalia, with an American upper class lifestyle.Thalia Fortescue married Lieutenant Thomas Massie, a rising United States Navy officer. In 1930, Massie arrived at Pearl Harbor, where Thalia considered herself "above" the rest of the officers' wives and soon became an outcast. The marriage, apparently not terribly successful to start with, degenerated into heavy drinking and public fights. Thalia had a second miscarriage shortly prior to the incident, and was "on probation" with her husband, who wrote an informal set of conditions under which he would continue the marriage.
Honolulu Police
In 1931, the Honolulu police force was bitterly split between two factions: the McIntosh faction, led by Captain Nelson McIntosh, which consisted mostly of white officers; and the Hao faction, led by Deputy Sheriff David Hao, which consisted mostly of police officers of Hawaiian heritage. Both factions had political backing McIntosh was the choice of Hawaii's business elite, while Hao had the backing of still politically powerful Hawaiian royalty. McIntosh was regarded as a racist by indigenous Hawaiians, while Hao's faction was considered corrupt by McIntosh's faction. Patrick K. Gleason, the sheriff of Honolulu, tried to keep peace within his department as he needed the votes of both factions to win re-election.Things got particularly heated in August 1931, when Hao was forced into retirement. While the retirement itself was not finalized, McIntosh temporarily took over his position, with all of the detectives formally reporting to him. However, as McIntosh was hostile to detectives from Hao's faction, Sheriff Gleason would give some of them direct assignments, thus retaining the parallel command structure.
The accused
Two of the accused – Joseph Kahahawai and Ben Ahakuelo – were well known local sportsmen. Kahahawai was a boxer, and Ahakuelo both participated in boxing and played in semi-professional football leagues.Events of September 12–13, 1931
In the evening hours of Saturday, September 12, 1931, the Massies, the Browns, and the Bransons – all Navy couples – attended a Navy event at the Ala Wai Inn, a Waikiki nightclub. At about 11:30 p.m., Thalia had an argument with a Lieutenant Stogsdal, which ended with her slapping an officer and then storming out. Thomas, not having witnessed the event, assumed she was tired and had gone home, and stayed at the nightclub. Meanwhile, at some time between 11:30 and 12:00, Thalia left the Ala Wai Inn. She claimed to have walked towards Waikiki Park – a dance hall a few hundred meters from the nightclub, which had a dance that night as well. The dance was normally scheduled to end at 11:45, but ended closer to 11:55 that night.At some time between 12:20 and 12:45 Sunday morning, Thalia was picked up by a car driving along Ala Moana Road, then a relatively isolated road that connected Waikiki to Honolulu which was often used as a lover's lane by locals. The car was occupied by the Berringer and Clark families, who were the first to definitely recognize Thalia after she left Ala Wai Inn. According to their testimony, Thalia claimed that she was assaulted and robbed by several Hawaiian men. She declined police intervention and asked to be taken home; she got there at about 1 a.m. However, the driver made several mistakes while driving there, so it was not the shortest route. As Thomas was still not home and she did not have keys, Thalia had to break through the back door to get inside.
The last dance at Ala Wai Inn was supposed to stop at midnight; however, the patrons did not let the orchestra stop until 1 a.m. At that time, Thomas tried to look for his wife once more, but gave up and went for an after-party at Rigby's home, where the Navy officers were supposed to meet after the evening. He was accompanied by Lieutenant Branson, whose wife left with their car. However, there was no party at Rigby's, so Branson fell asleep there, and Thomas went for some late snacks. Thomas tried to call his wife to make sure she had arrived safely—after several calls she finally answered. She told Thomas to come home immediately, as something terrible had happened to her. Thomas took the car and left, leaving the sleeping Branson behind.
As Thomas arrived home, Thalia told him about the assault. Over her objections, Thomas immediately phoned the police, who arrived to take her statement. Initially she could not provide any details at all, stating that it was too dark to identify any of the men or to see any details of the car they emerged from. However, Thalia changed her story several hours later, not only describing the assailants as "locals", but giving police a license plate number.
Within hours the police arrested a Japanese American man named Horace Ida. Ida was not entirely surprised at first, as only a few hours earlier he had been involved in a near collision while driving his sister's car with several friends, including Kahahawai and Ahakuelo. Although there was no damage, an argument broke out with the couple driving the other car, which culminated in Kahahawai slugging the woman. Upon his arrival at the police station, the charges with the altercation were never brought up - instead he found to his dismay that he was being charged with rape.
''Territory of Hawaii v. Ben Ahakuelo et al.''
At first glance, the story seemed to be credible. Thalia's license plate was off by only one digit and her description of the men, Ida and his friends, was fairly accurate. However, it later became known that the police taking Thalia's statement had in fact "told her" both pieces of information, apparently after hearing the name and description from the initial complaint filed by the woman driver. Attorney Charles Riccio, a legal advisor with the Colorado State Patrol, offers the following account of the incident involving Horace Ida:Horace Ida, a young Japanese man, had borrowed his sister's two-year-old car and had attended a luau accompanied by his pals Joe Kahahawai, Benny Ahakuelo, David Takai and Henry Chang. At about 12:30 a.m., Horace suggested they call it a night. He and his friends piled into the car and left the luau.
As the car passed through an intersection in downtown Honolulu, Horace barely missed colliding with an automobile coming from the opposite direction. There was no contact between the two cars, but both drivers stopped and everyone piled out to argue the fine points of Hawaiian motor vehicle law.
The occupants of the other car were a Mr. and Mrs. Peeples. Mrs. Peeples was voicing her opinion of Horace Ida's driving skills when Big Joe Kahahawai hauled off and punched her in the face. Mrs. Peeples was equal to the challenge. She gave as good as she got. She clenched her fist, wound up, and to Big Joe's surprise, slugged him in the mouth! The incident was about to become a donnybrook. However, cooler heads prevailed, and the Peeples drove off to the police station to report the incident.
At the station, the Peeples gave Horace Ida's license plate as 58-895, and the police put out an all points bulletin for the car and its occupants. At about the same time, the police learned of the rape in Ala Moana Park, so it was only natural that they would assume that the occupants of the Ida car were more than likely the perpetrators of the assault on Thalia Massie.
Horace Ida and his friends were eventually located through the car's license plate and were brought before Thalia at the police station. She was unable to identify Horace Ida, who was wearing a brown leather jacket when she saw him. When asked the license number of the assailants' car, she did not remember it, but she later heard the plate number 58-895 being broadcast at the police station.
The next day, under further questioning, Thalia's story began to change. She now "remembered" that one of her assailants had been wearing a brown leather jacket and the license plate of the assailants' car was 58-805. To the police, the case against Horace Ida and his friends began to look stronger. The five men insisted they were not part of any assault on a lone white woman walking through the darkness of John Ena Road. They explained their movements on the night at length. But the police were not persuaded. The five young men were indicted and charged with rape and assault.
Rear Admiral Yates Stirling Jr., Commandant of the US Navy's 14th Naval District, indicated that his first inclination was to lynch the accused assailants, but that they must give "the authorities a chance to carry out the law and not interfere."
As the case developed, cracks in Thalia's story immediately appeared. In order to have assaulted Thalia - an event so far unproven to have even occurred - it would have been extremely difficult to have then been involved in the near accident across town. The police themselves were split on the case; many of the detectives were locals who saw the case was a sham and, when they were denied access in the courtroom, started to talk directly to the press.
Riccio:
While the good citizens of Honolulu waited for the trial to begin, rumors began to develop and spread through the city. There were those who whispered that Thalia had not been raped at all. It was said that she was having an illicit relationship with one of the five beach boy suspects, and that she was on her way to a rendezvous with him when she found him in the company of four drunken friends.
It was also speculated that Thalia was having an affair with one of Tommie's shipmates. When Tommie came home after the party, so the gossip went, he found his wife and his friend in flagrante delicto and it was Tommie who beat up his wife and broke her jaw.
Grace Fortescue, enraged by the stories and what she saw as an attempt to sully the name of her daughter and the family, started a public campaign to attack the defendants. However, the case quickly fell apart in court. After a three-week trial and lengthy jury deliberation, the jurors declared themselves deadlocked and a mistrial was declared.