Victor J. Bakke

I hired Bakke for three occasions: a total waste! Bakke basically collects his money (flat fee) and does nothing about your case until the day prior to the court date. A flat fees is in his advantage as the corresponding hourly rate could not be justified. I paid USD 20K on a Thursday. The following ...Monday he told me a judge was out to get me and enticed me to plead guilty with nothing in hands (no police report, no forensic report). He then spent no more than 10 h on my case up to sentencing. His defense strategy at sentencing was based solely on a psychological evaluation but that evaluation had not even been submitted to the Court as he did not follow up on it. Basically his flat fee corresponds to a hourly rate of 2K/hour for no defense! At the time he justified the fee saying it included probation but when I violated probation, he asked me for an additional fee, which he even doubled after the first court hearing! Again he did nothing about the case until the day before the hearing and my probation was revoked by the judge that was after me from the start. That judge gave as reason I had another victim while that supposedly victim was trying to tell the truth about what had happened and had been shut down from the court proceedings, not even knowing about them and never contacted by Bakke. Bakke was unable to respond to the lies told by the prosecutor as totally unprepared, unaware of the case. When you call him about issues, he spends his time convincing you not to do anything. His motto is "we have to pick our fights"; the problem is that he picks none! The worst is that the prosecutor is aware of his non-action and takes advantage of it. In my case he did not request the prosecutor for evidence I was not only asking for, but also I learned later I was entitled to. He let the prosecutor not only lie in court, but also tamper with evidence as he never even looked at them (my forensic report was "officially" completed less than 24 h before my sentencing date and not even signed; a close look showed evidence I was asking for from the beginning had been tampered with by the AG office as not matching the police report). On top of that, he then let the prosecutor destroy these evidences while the sentencing judge had ordered to have them returned. When I asked him to act on it, he first asked me for another fee to do so and when I convinced him it was part of my probation fee, he told me he called the prosecutor and was old nothing was destroyed: what a surprise! At my parole board hearing, again, he acted the day before the hearing so that, again, the parole board had not received his report the day of the hearing; again, he let the prosecutor lie at many occasions and justify these lies with "supposed" documents that were not even on the record; when I asked Bakke to ask for these documents I know either did not exist or would have been again fabricated by the AG office, he again refused to do anything about it (so many "again"'s!). On top of that Bakke admitted to me letting that same judge that revoked my probation wittingly give to at least one of his client more prison time that the law allowed. This is how corrupted the law in Hawaii is: the judge saying "it is illegal but if you do not complain I will do it" and the attorney giving his blessing. The law is the law and no-one should stand above it, especially a judge or an attorney who have taken an oath to fight unlawful actions, not to commit them! Victor Bakke's (mis)representation is way below what you can expect from the worst public defender: no consideration of the case prior to the day preceding each of the three major court dates, not a single fight or challenge to the irregularities and crimes from the AG office, total obedience to a criminal judge bullying the legal system, systematic late submissions of supporting documents missing at every court appearance,...