Reduced prison time angers victims’ families

Minimum sentences for more than a dozen murderers were cut by an average of 40 years after the cases had to be revisited because of past procedural errors by the Hawaii Paroling Authority, according to a Honolulu Star-Advertiser analysis of the agency’s data.

The 14 cases involved some of the most horrific killings in recent years, such as the 2006 shooting of a Big Island woman by her ex-boyfriend while their 2-year-old son watched.

Many also involved minimum sentences that, until changed, were well beyond the authority’s normal guidelines, largely because of the heinous nature of the crimes.

In the Big Island case, for instance, a prior parole board in 2008 set Jeffrey Boyd Santos Jr.’s minimum sentence at 100 years, double the maximum in the guidelines for a second-degree murder conviction. Because the prior board failed to justify in writing why it set such a high minimum, the current board had to revisit the case. Last year, it set the new minimum at 50 years.

Santos, who is serving a life sentence with the possibility of parole for shooting Daysha Aiona-Aka in the back of the head, becomes eligible for parole in 2056. He’ll be 73.

The original minimums in the 14 cases, all involving second-degree murder convictions, were set mostly in the 1990s and 2000s. The reconsiderations started after a 2007 Hawaii Supreme Court ruling invalidated some of the minimums and another high court ruling in 2012 essentially nullified others.

In six cases, the current parole board held new hearings, was free to set whatever minimums it could justify and decided on amounts that averaged 45 years less than the prior board’s decision, according to the newspaper’s analysis.

The other eight cases involved reviews by three different boards, with the second of those reviews resulting in higher minimum sentences. When the current board — the third one — weighed in, it had no choice but to reduce the minimums to the original levels because of the high court rulings, according to HPA officials.

The reductions have angered families of the murder victims.

"I just don’t think that’s right," said Hilo resident Bev Akimseu, the grandmother of Aiona-Aka. "We don’t feel the parole board should go back and change a ruling of the previous board. That’s not justice."

The new minimums don’t mean the inmates will be released at that point. Once the minimums are served, the prisoners only become eligible for parole, and the board considers multiple factors before deciding whether to approve their release.

And if the inmate is serving consecutive sentences for other offenses, the terms for those must be added to the murder minimum, meaning some inmates likely will never be released or may be freed only in their twilight years.

The minimum for Frank Pauline Jr., who was convicted for the 1991 rape and killing of Dana Ireland on the Big Island, was lowered last year to 50 years from 90 previously.

But because he must serve another 50 years consecutively for kidnapping and sex assault, Pauline, 40, won’t be eligible for parole until 2099. He’ll be dead long before then.

As a result of the reduced minimums in some of the other cases, inmates will be eligible for parole in their 60s and 70s, far sooner than when they otherwise would have been.

Relatives of the victims say the board’s decision to reduce a minimum disrespects the memory of their loved ones, creates more trauma over what happened long ago and shows that the authority is more concerned about the killer than the victim’s family.

"These guys should never be able to walk the streets again because of the nature of the crime," said Vernon Souza, 71, whose son, Vernon Jr., was murdered in 1994. His badly burned body was found in a remote area outside of Hilo.

The victim also had severe head wounds and a slashed throat.

The parole board last year set 40 years as the new minimum for Souza’s killer, Jason Santos, compared with 90 established by the previous board.

This was one of the eight cases in which the board had no choice but to go with the minimum originally set by the authority, according to HPA officials.

Because of the lower minimum, Jason Santos will be eligible for parole in 2040, when he’ll be in his late 60s, instead of 2090.

"That’s the part that really hurts me," Souza said.

Bert Matsuoka, chairman of the parole board, whose current members were appointed by Gov. Neil Abercrombie, said the panel makes decisions based on the circumstances of each case and tends to stay within the minimum-sentencing guidelines — 20 to 50 years for second-degree murder.

Staying within the guidelines adheres to the intent of the court-imposed sentence of life with the possibility of parole, he added.

In the six murder cases in which the board had the most discretion, the new minimums tended to be on the high end of the guidelines, Matsuoka noted.

For those six cases, the new minimums averaged 44 years, compared with 90 set by the prior board, according to the Star-Advertiser analysis.

Matsuoka acknowledged the difficulty in making decisions in such emotionally charged cases, particularly when family members of the victims are pleading with the board to keep the high minimums.

"For us, it’s highly emotional," he said. "We feel for them."

Part of the difficulty is trying to re-create factors that the prior board had in making its decisions, according to Matsuoka.

Many times the prosecutor who handled the original case no longer is around and the defense attorney is different. The passage of time — some murders happened at least 15 or 20 years ago — also presents a challenge, given fading memories and other issues.

"We’re not able to exactly replicate the first hearing," Matsuoka said.

Such explanations usually don’t sway the families and prosecutors.

Mitch Roth, prosecuting attorney for Hawaii island, said the substantial reductions are troubling given what the inmates did.

"To me, it sends the message that the value of the life they took has been cheapened," Roth said. "It really re-victimizes both the community and the family, who had closure and now these wounds are being opened again."

While the current board already has decided 14 murder cases as of the end of January and a prior board handled two, 10 more are in the pipeline.

Among the pending cases is one involving Kirk Lankford, who was sentenced to life in prison in 2008 for the murder of Japanese visitor Masumi Watanabe. Lankford, who in 2009 was given a minimum of 150 years, is scheduled to have a new hearing before the parole board next month.

These cases never would have been revisited had it not been for the two high court decisions and procedural missteps by prior boards.

In 2007, the justices ruled that HPA’s minimum sentences must be justified in writing, including detailing the level of punishment and the significant criteria upon which the decisions were based. The ruling, citing the authority’s own rules, came on an appeal by inmate Michael Coulter.

Most of the minimums that have been revisited or are pending started as so-called Coulter cases because a prior board failed to sufficiently justify its decisions in writing.

"We’re having to fix things," Matsuoka said.

He said he couldn’t address questions about the past missteps because he wasn’t on the board at the time.

In April 2012, the high court issued another ruling that triggered the paroling authority to re-evaluate more cases.

The justices ruled that the parole board cannot increase a previously set minimum sentence without written justification, including citing new information that was not known when the original minimum was set.

That ruling, which was made retroactive, came out of an appeal involving Raita Fukusaku, who was convicted of the 1994 murders of Japanese psychic Toako Kototome Fujita and her son, Goro.

The eight murder cases in which the board had to go back to the original minimums — two actually resulted in minimums lower than the originals — were Fukusaku-driven reviews, according to HPA officials.

Years removed from the killings and because prosecutors long ago cited all the pertinent factors to argue for a high minimum, "It’s almost impossible to come up with new information to justify the increases now," said Tommy Johnson, administrator for the authority.

The six cases in which the board had the discretion to set whatever minimums it could justify were Coulter cases.

Of the 16 murder cases that have been decided so far, only two did not result in reductions. Those two decisions came under the prior board appointed by Gov. Linda Lingle, raising the question of whether the current Abercrombie board is softer on crime.

Johnson, the HPA administrator, said who appoints the members is not relevant to minimum-sentencing decisions.

So far, 40 Coulter and Fukusaku cases, including nonmurder ones, have come before the HPA.

More could surface given that 5,800 inmates are in the prison system, and not all of those cases have been examined to determine if the minimums were properly set.

Akimseu, the grandmother of Aiona-Aka, said she hopes other families don’t have to suffer through a revisiting of their loved one’s murder case only to see the killer reaping the benefits.

"We feel traumatized by this," Akimseu said. "We’re just reliving everything."