Yvonne Almond was supposed to be in court to face one of 233 charges she has been hit with in the past year for being homeless in Honolulu. But when the judge in Courtroom 7D called her name, she was nowhere to be seen.
The judge promptly dismissed her case anyway, for lack of evidence. In barely a minute and with a few key strokes by the court clerk, the case was closed and Almond’s latest charges — sitting or lying on a public sidewalk and littering — went away.
That had been the outcome for Almond dozens of times already this year and would be again just a week later…