Two of three Native Hawaiian men convicted of the 1991 Christmas Eve abduction, rape and killing of Dana Ireland in lower Puna will have their day in court on Oct. 23.
That’s when Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota is set to hear petitions from Shawn Schweitzer and the attorney for the family of the late Frank Pauline Jr., requesting that their convictions in one of the state’s most notorious homicides be overturned.
Kubota on Jan. 24 overturned the kidnapping, rape and murder conviction of Schweitzer’s older brother, Albert “Ian” Schweitzer.
Ian Schweitzer had served more than two decades of a 130-year prison sentence for the brutal killing of Ireland, who was found battered, bloodied and barely alive on a remote fishing trail in Waa Waa and died just after midnight Christmas morning 1991 in Hilo Medical Center.
The Jan. 24 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.
His DNA, which didn’t match that of any of the three defendants, was the only DNA found on several key pieces of evidence in the case, including the bloody blue “Jimmy Z” brand T-shirt three witnesses testified was worn by Pauline the day of the murder.
Pauline, who had implicated the Schweitzer brothers in a confession he later recanted, was sentenced in 1999 to 180 years in prison after a jury convicted him of second-degree murder, kidnapping and first-degree sexual assault for the brutal fatal attack on Ireland.
Pauline was murdered in a New Mexico prison in 2015 on his 42nd birthday, a day after the Tribune-Herald reported that the Hawaii Innocence Project had taken the case of exonerating Ian Schweitzer.
Shawn Schweitzer was 16 when the crime occurred and pleaded guilty to manslaughter in a deal with prosecutors.
He was sentenced in 2000 to five years probation and time he had already served in jail.
The Innocence Project’s lawyers argued before Kubota in January that the Schweitzers and Pauline were exonerated by updated DNA testing, the discrediting of bite mark evidence, and expert testimony that Schweitzer’s 1953 Volkswagen Beetle couldn’t have made the tire tracks left at the site in Kapoho where Ireland’s bicycle was run over, and on the remote fishing trail where the dying young woman was discovered.
That was the evidence highlighted in the petition filed on Pauline’s behalf by Honolulu attorney Myles Breiner, which stated the grounds for the petition was Pauline’s “actual innocence.”
Keith Shigetomi, Shawn Schweitzer’s Honolulu-based attorney, noted that his client’s case is “a little different because he entered a plea.”
“Part of it is to withdraw the plea, if not to dismiss the case as what happened in Ian’s situation,” said Shigetomi. “At the very least, he should be allowed to withdraw his plea.”
“Shawn pled guilty to manslaughter by omission. You take a look at the plea form, it says ‘manslaughter by omission,’ and ‘(Shawn) failed to take steps to’ do whatever it is that Shawn failed to do,” Shigetomi continued. “But there’s no such offense. That’s one of the things they’re saying now, that that’s a bogus charge. You cannot commit manslaughter by failing to do something.”
Shawn Schweitzer is now 47, the father of three and a paving supervisor for Loeffler Construction, where he’s worked for about two decades.
“Shawn is excited,” Shigetomi said. “He saw what happened to Ian, and the handwriting’s on the wall. And he’s thinking, ‘I get to clear my name, as well.’
“It’s been a long, drawn-out battle. And, hopefully, we can clear up a lot of misunderstandings and mistakes. And Shawn is looking forward to it. He finally gets a chance to show and to establish that he had nothing to do with this.”
The Tribune-Herald reached out to Breiner, Hawaii County Prosecutor Kelden Waltjen and Hawaii Police Chief Benjamin Moszkowicz, but none responded in time for this story.
Email John Burnett at jburnett@hawaiitribune-herald.com.