Deliberations in UH rape trial to restart with second new juror

The jury considering sex assault charges against former University of Hawaii student Tyler Strong was instructed Tuesday afternoon to start over with deliberations after a juror was excused and replaced.

Circuit Court Judge Randal Lee excused a female juror as deliberations entered a second day without a verdict. She was replaced with an alternate female juror, who sat through the trial.

Strong’s attorney, Jeffrey Hawk, objected to the alternate as a replacement and asked for a mistrial, according to court minutes. Deputy prosecutor Kristen Yama­­moto objected to Hawk’s motion, which the court denied.

The jury, which is made up of eight women and four men, was instructed around 2 p.m. to restart deliberations with the alternate juror.

This marks the second time a juror was excused since the trial started March 12. A day into the trial, Lee excused a male juror due to a medical condition.

Strong, 19, is charged with two counts of first-degree sexual assault, which carries a mandatory 20-year prison sentence, and one count of third-degree sexual assault, which carries up to five years in prison, for an incident that occurred in the early morning hours of Sept. 21 in his UH-Manoa dorm room.

The state had argued that Strong, who now lives in Eugene, Ore., forced himself on an 18-year-old woman and raped her amid her pleas for him to stop.

The woman testified through tears that she told him to stop six times.

Strong testified during the trial that the sex was consensual and that she never told him "no" or to stop at any time. She "was being very passionate with me," he said.

The woman said that after a night of partying and drinking, she went to Strong’s room expecting she might make out with him to get back at another guy she liked — Strong’s next-door neighbor — whom she had quarreled with earlier in the night.

When asked what she thought was going to happen in his room, the woman said, "Kissing and cuddling was probably a possibility for that night. … It was kind of like, like a revenge thing."

Strong said the woman came to his room around 5 a.m. Sept. 21 after he sent her text messages including, "Baby I wanna give it to you come back" and "Baby hurry."

"I wanted to sleep with her," Strong said of the messages.

Strong said after they had sex, she "began to cry out of nowhere" and abruptly left.

The woman’s friend testified that she found her friend on the front lawn of Johnson Hall B, the dorm where Strong lived, "crying hysterically." Two campus security officers and a responding Hono­lulu Police Department officer also testified that the woman was crying and emotional for several hours.

Jury deliberations are set to resume Wednesday morning.