The youngest of three Native Hawaiian men convicted of the 1991 Christmas Eve abduction, rape and killing of 23-year-old Dana Ireland in lower Puna is requesting that his conviction and sentence be vacated.
The California Innocence Project filed a petition Thursday in Hilo Circuit Court on behalf of Shawn Schweitzer.
Schweitzer is the younger brother of Albert “Ian” Schweitzer, whose kidnapping, rape and murder conviction in the Ireland case was overturned Jan. 24 by Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota.
The ruling came after a daylong hearing detailing new evidence Kubota said pointed to a man referred to as “Unknown Male No. 1” as the likely culprit.
“The court has reviewed the credibility of the evidence presented to it, which was not available to the trial in the year 2000 by the way of modern DNA testing, and recently produced evidence regarding the tire tracks left at the Waa Waa site where Miss Ireland was found and bite-mark evidence and testimony — and polygraphic examination of Mr. Shawn Schweitzer,” Kubota said before vacating Ian Schweitzer’s conviction.
During the polygraph test, Shawn Schweitzer denied involvement in the fatal assault on Ireland, and no deception was found by the polygraph examiner.
Ian Schweitzer, 51, was freed immediately following the Jan. 24 hearing after spending 26 years of a minimum 130-year prison term.
“I’m feeling good,” Shawn Schweitzer said Thursday about his chances of getting his own conviction overturned. “All the evidence is there, right?”
Shawn Schweitzer — who was 16 when Ireland’s sexual assault and murder took place and is now in his 40s — pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a deal with prosecutors. His sentence was reduced to time already served in the case.
The younger Schweitzer, a father of three, said his own conviction has affected him “tremendously.”
“When this all first happened, I couldn’t get a job. I couldn’t support my family,” he said. “Finally, I found a place that looked past that. They gave me one shot — and I still work there until today.”
He’s a paving supervisor for Loeffler Construction, where he’s worked for about two decades.
“I’m grateful for that, because I’ve had people I knew my whole life just kind of laugh at me and tell me, ‘I no can hire you.’ Straight to my face.
“And there’s nothing I could do.”
The third suspect, Frank Pauline Jr. — who implicated himself and the Schweitzers in a later-recanted confession — was murdered in 2015 in a New Mexico prison where he was serving a 180-year prison term.
The California Innocence Project’s petition notes that Shawn Schweitzer “has steadfastly maintained his innocence for 28 years.”
“Today, newly discovered forensic evidence provides powerful evidence of Mr. Schweitzer’s innocence and wholly discredits the state’s case,” the filing states, adding the three convicted men “are all excluded as the source of the DNA recovered from multiple pieces of probative evidence.”
That evidence includes a Jimmy-Z brand T-shirt with Ireland’s blood, and sperm samples recovered from Ireland’s body and hospital gurney sheet.
Experts also said an injury on Ireland’s breast wasn’t a human bite mark as had earlier been postulated, and that it was unlikely Ian Schweitzer’s Volkswagen Beetle made the tire track marks on Kapoho Kai Drive, where her bike was run over, or in Waa Waa, where the dying Ireland was discovered.
“(Shawn) Schweitzer has spent over two decades suffering from a wrongful conviction based on unreliable informant evidence and accident reconstruction testimony,” the petition states while requesting the conviction be overturned.
Shawn Schweitzer said he’s grateful to have his brother, Ian, back. Shawn Schweitzer said his brother is “trying to adjust, learning to be a functioning human being again” after spending about half his life in prison.
Shawn Schweitzer said that in his case, people who see him regularly witness how he handles his own business.
“I work, I go home, I take care of my family,” he said. “People look at that and go, ‘Oh, that’s not the picture (the media) was painting when we were going through all that stuff.”
No hearing date has been set for Schweitzer’s petition.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.