An Open Letter to Bosko Petricevic, Esq.

Mr. Petricevic,

You were in the room on December 2, 2022.

You represented ████████████ before Judge Wilson M.N. Loo. I saw Loo make a “no” head movement toward your sworn client before he answered. The Nod gives the full account, including my interrupted attempt to put the movement on the record.

I saw you looking toward Loo. That observation establishes an opportunity to perceive, not what you understood or concluded. This letter asks for your account; The Lawyer in the Room examines the reporting rule.

What did you see, what did you understand, and what did Rule 8.3(b) require if you saw and understood the sequence?

I am aware of no report by you to the Commission on Judicial Conduct or another appropriate authority. That does not establish that none was made, particularly through a confidential process.

During final remarks, after testimony had ended, your client repeated a false claim as established fact. The court did not strike the statement or admonish your client. It did not permit me to answer before the record was sealed.

You then requested sealing. The court granted your request.

The issue now is what followed after you were present for that sequence.

Hawaiʻi Rule of Professional Conduct 8.3(b) states that a lawyer who knows that a judge has committed a violation of applicable rules of judicial conduct raising a substantial question as to the judge’s fitness for office shall inform the appropriate authority.

When the rule is triggered and Rule 8.3(c) does not exclude the information from required disclosure, the duty is mandatory. The operative word is “shall.” Rule 8.3(b) requires actual knowledge; it does not require an ulterior purpose, an agreement, or an intent to assist or conceal misconduct.¹

If a judge intentionally communicated a desired answer to a sworn witness on a material question, that conduct would implicate core duties of impartiality and fairness and would present a serious judicial-fitness question. Hawaiʻi’s Revised Code of Judicial Conduct Rule 1.2 requires conduct promoting confidence in judicial independence, integrity, and impartiality; Rule 2.2 requires fair and impartial performance of judicial duties; and Rule 2.6 protects the right to be heard according to law. The interruption, the handling of the false claim during final remarks, and sealing matter insofar as the evidence connects them to the reported signaling; none establishes the Rule 8.3(b) predicate standing alone.²

I am directing the question to you because I saw you looking toward the judge. Presence and line of sight establish an opportunity to perceive; they do not alone establish actual knowledge. The question is whether you perceived the gesture and understood it as communicating a desired answer to the witness, and whether the surrounding circumstances support actual knowledge of qualifying judicial misconduct.

A contrary eyewitness account must be evaluated alongside mine for specificity, opportunity to observe, line of sight, timing, consistency with the audio and court file, and independent support.

Rule 8.3(b) analysis permits disagreement, preserves client advocacy, and respects lawful client interests. It still asks whether the sequence created a reporting obligation for a Hawaiʻi lawyer and officer of the court.

Subject to Rule 8.3(c), Rule 8.3(b) contains no exception for local professional risk, discomfort, or the institutional standing of a judge. Rule 1.6 may protect information about conduct observed in court if disclosure would reveal protected information relating to the representation. A confidential reporting channel does not itself authorize that disclosure. Hawaiʻi’s Rule 8.3 comment encourages seeking client consent where reporting would not substantially prejudice the client’s interests.¹

The questions are these:

1. Where were you looking when the LSD question was asked?
2. What did you see Judge Loo do before your client answered?
3. What did you understand my attempted record statement to concern?
4. Without disclosing protected information or private legal advice, was Rule 1.6 a barrier to any report otherwise required by Rule 8.3(b)?
5. If you can answer consistently with your confidentiality obligations, was a report made, to whom, and when?

These questions do not demand disclosure of protected information or private ethics advice. Failure to answer them publicly is not evidence of a violation.

The seal’s practical consequence was concrete. A sealed official record now contains the very exchange I tried to preserve and the false claim I was not permitted to answer. Institutional reviewers can encounter that sealed record before they encounter any public rebuttal, complaint, or investigative publication. Your sealing request was part of that sequence and restricted outside access to the record; it does not establish whether a report was required or made.

The Commission on Judicial Conduct later stated that Judge Loo had left per diem service as of July 2024 and that the jurisdictional window had closed. By the time the matter was presented again, the Commission’s ordinary review pathway had been procedurally foreclosed.

RSCH Rule 8.2(b) ties the Commission’s jurisdictional endpoint to reporting no later than ninety days after a judge leaves office, not ninety days after the hearing. Rule 8.3 itself specifies no fixed number of days for a lawyer to report. The later closure does not establish that you failed to report or caused the loss of jurisdiction.³

This letter is public because the institutional record remains sealed, the Commission’s ordinary review window has closed, and the question of professional responsibility remains.

The sealed audio exists. The court file exists. The audio-confirmable sequence can be reviewed by institutions with authority to retrieve the record.

When they do, your role in the sequence can be evaluated through the same conditional structure that governs this letter: what you saw, what you understood, whether Rule 1.6 limited disclosure, and whether any reporting duty was triggered.

Scope Boundaries

A reporting-duty finding requires evidence of qualifying judicial misconduct, your actual knowledge, a duty consistent with Rules 8.3(c) and 1.6, and failure to make the required report. The public record contains no adjudicated finding of a violation.

What Would Resolve This

The resolution path is procedural: review the sealed audio; review the court-file exhibit; reconstruct the courtroom layout and line of sight; ask the witness what he saw; ask Mr. Petricevic what he saw, understood, and did; and determine whether a report satisfying Rule 8.3(b) was made to an appropriate authority. Evidence establishing an applicable Rule 1.6 barrier, a report satisfying Rule 8.3(b), or materially contrary eyewitness facts could weaken or defeat the reporting-duty allegation. The absence of a publicly available ethics analysis does not establish a violation. All testimony should be evaluated for specificity, opportunity to observe and line of sight, consistency with the audio and court file, and independent support. A finding of a reporting violation would require evidence establishing qualifying judicial misconduct, your actual knowledge, a reporting obligation consistent with Rule 8.3(c), and failure to make the required report.

Response and Corrections

Mr. Petricevic and anyone with relevant records may respond through the site’s Corrections Policy.

Sources and Notes