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Doe Parents No. 1 v. State11/27/2002
cursory and biased as they may have been, were reasonably conducted through the point at which Norton was acquitted in the criminal proceedings arising out of T.Y.'s accusations. Neither Estomago nor Sosa was able to interview Norton or T.Y. concerning the latter's accusations until Norton was acquitted. Norton was counseled to invoke his right against self-incrimination in the face of Estomago's and Sosa's attempts to elicit his "version" of events. Similarly, the HPD instructed T.Y. and her mother not to discuss the incident with the school. Quite literally, there was very little that the DOE could do pending the outcome of Norton's criminal trial, other than, as it did, to remove Norton from a teaching position.
Nevertheless, once Norton was acquitted in the T.Y. criminal matter, the foregoing impediments to the DOE's administrative investigation into Norton's alleged misconduct were no longer present. For that matter, nothing precluded the DOE from observing the criminal proceedings. Instead of resuming its investigation after Norton was acquitted, however, the DOE inaccurately and naively assumed, apparently without consulting its legal advisors, that Norton's acquittal signified that a jury had determined that he was innocent beyond a reasonable a doubt. This assumption was patently unreasonable. See United States v. One Assortment of 89 Firearms, 465 U.S. 354, 361 (1984) (observing that "an acquittal on criminal charges does not prove that the defendant is innocent; it merely proves the existence of a reasonable doubt as to his guilt" and that a jury's verdict acquitting a defendant "in criminal action d not negate the possibility that a preponderance of the evidence could show" that the defendant had engaged in the activity for which he or she was criminally prosecuted and, thus, holding that "the difference in the relative burdens of proof in the criminal and civil actions precludes the application of the doctrine of collateral estoppel); accord State v. Tuipuapua, 83 Hawaii 141, 152 n.27, 925 P.2d 311, 322 n.27 (1996) (observing that HRS ยง 712A-11 (1993) "provides that ' n acquittal or dismissal in a criminal proceeding shall not preclude civil proceedings under this chapter'" (emphasis omitted)); Marsland v. International Society for Krishna Consciousness, 66 Haw. 119, 125-26, 657 P.2d 1035, 1039-40 (1983) (agreeing with other courts that had addressed the issue sub judice and holding that "an acquittal in a criminal prosecution for violation of a zoning ordinance is not resjudicata in a civil proceeding for the enforcement of the zoning ordinance"); and Mew Sun Leong v. Honolulu Rapid Transit Co., Ltd, 42 Haw. 138, 144, 472 P.2d 505, 509 (1970) (observing that " he fact that [a civil defendant] was acquitted in the criminal proceedings (brought against him in connection with the accident [that was the basis of the civil proceeding]) is not admissible in evidence, nor should be mentioned by counsel to the jury"). On the basis of its unreasonable assumption, the DOE believed that any further investigation that it might undertake was without purpose or justification and, thus, summarily reinstated Norton without conducting any further inquiry into the matter. The reinstatement, without more, was unreasonable, and the circuit court did not clearly err in so ruling.
We do not believe that a reasonably prudent parent would have done what the DOE did. At the very least, a reasonably prudent parent would have ascertained the legal significance of Norton's acquittal before allowing him unsupervised contact with his or her child. Upon discovering that an acquittal was not a finding or adjudication of innocence -- beyond a reasonable doubt, or otherwise -- and that, to the contrary, the acquitt
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