Fighting Crime, Standing Up For Victims
Attorney General Mark Bennett, the first Republican appointee to that post in 40 years, says his job is to be the attorney for all the people of Hawaii
By Alice Keesing
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The AG crosses the
Honolulu Marathon finish
line
They make an unusual pair: the slight, bespectacled attorney general and the 5-foot-9-inch trenchcoat-wearing dog. But together, Mark Bennett and McGruff are taking a bite out of crime.
When he became attorney general in 2003, Bennett inherited the leash of McGruff, the crime dog. It’s something that he has, well, run with.
“McGruff is a valued employee of the Department of the Attorney General,” Bennett explains seriously. Then he nearly falls over himself declaring that he will not reveal McGruff’s real identity.
“It’s not me,” he swears, his eyes twinkling behind those round glasses.
For some reason you get the impression that this attorney general wouldn’t mind capering around in that hirsute suit. His is an important job, but Mark Bennett also appears to be having rather a good time. This, after all, is the AG who has a Grateful Dead poster hanging in his office.
When Bennett stepped into the job four years ago, he generated interest as the first Republican appointee to the position in 40 years. Since then he has won praise for a job well done, even if people on the other side of the political spectrum don’t always agree with his positions.
Bennett oversees what is essentially Hawaii’s largest law firm, with about 700 employees who tackle everything from missing children to flavored cigarettes to public corruption.
Bennett: ‘It was a real privilege to be picked’
“Irrespective of the fact that he was appointed by a Republican governor, he takes it very responsibly that he’s the attorney general of the state,” says Democratic state Sen. Colleen Hanabusa, who chairs the Judiciary Committee. “I kid with him and call him an activist attorney general. He is very hands-on, which attorneys general have perhaps not been in the past.”
Bennett has become a familiar face around the state Capitol, often turning up to testify personally. He’s even been known to get out on the streets and sign wave for constitutional amendments that he has supported.
University of Hawaii law professor Jon Van Dyke doesn’t always agree with the positions that Bennett and the Republican administration take - in fact the two have been debating the removal of the mandatory retirement age for judges - but he calls Bennett a talented attorney and experienced litigator.
“He’s been particularly effective in the Hawaiian rights area,” Van Dyke says. “He’s been working very hard on the Akaka Bill and ... he’s been vigorous and very effective in protecting OHA and the Department of Hawaiian Home Lands.”
Bennett himself describes his position as “the greatest job in the world.”
“In a very real sense being AG is being the lawyer for the people of Hawaii, and it was a real privilege to have been picked ... it’s a fantastic opportunity and I just love doing it,” he says.
A career highlight came when Bennett represented the state before the Supreme Court of the United States. He calls it “the greatest moment of my legal life,” and is cool enough to be openly impressed by the impressiveness of it all.
“I was lucky that my mom and dad were able to come watch, and my sister and my wife, and it was very exciting and it was fun,” he says. “What I decided was I really wanted to try to have a good time, to try to enjoy doing it because it was an experience that might not ever come again.”
That spirit is evident in a lot of what Bennett does. His wit is well-known in town. At the recent Hawaii Women’s Legal Foundation fundraiser, which was a Dancing With the Stars take-off, Bennett assumed a Simon-like judge’s role. He rolled up dressed in a cape and a funky hat and won accolades as the funniest judge.
On the personal side, Bennett has been married for 20 years to attorney Patricia Tomi Ohara. He plays tournament bridge, both here and on the Mainland. He’s an accomplished - although currently lapsed - viola player. And he likes to exercise his competitive spirit by running long distances.
Hailing from New York, Bennett earned his law degree at Cornell University in 1979. He then came to Hawaii where he clerked for Samuel King, who was then chief judge of the U.S. District Court. For close to 10 years, he served as an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, D.C., and then in Honolulu, before entering private practice as a partner in the local firm of McCorriston Miller Mukai MacKinnon for 12 years.
The things that Bennett saw while he was putting away the bad guys in federal court have led to his current emphasis on protecting the rights of crime victims.
“Having spent 10 years as a federal prosecutor, having actually gotten in the trenches and prosecuted murder cases and rape cases, I do feel that, as a state we need to be more cognizant of the rights of victims of crime,” he says.
To that end, the AG’s office has introduced several state constitutional amendments, including one that got the sex offender web-site up and running again.
Bennett is also very active at the national level on anti-trust issues. Just recently he co-hosted a Washington seminar for federal and state anti-trust regulators dealing with gasoline and gas
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