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Two-time killer Fred Silva III will not be sent to prison for the rest of his life when he is sentenced next month for murder for stabbing his girlfriend in the back at a homeless camp in Nanakuli in 2015.
Deputy Prosecutor Thalia Murphy asked state Circuit Judge Karen Nakasone on Tuesday to find Silva eligible for an extended-term sentence of life in prison with no opportunity for release on parole to protect the
public from him. Silva has prior felony convictions, including for assault and manslaughter.
A state jury found Silva, 58, guilty in November of second-degree murder in the Feb. 4, 2015, stabbing death of 44-year-old Calvine Nakatani.
Murphy said Nakatani was trying to get away from Silva and that Silva had said, “If I can’t have her, nobody can.”
The normal penalty for second-degree murder is life in prison with the possibility of parole.
Nakasone said she denied Murphy’s request to consider sentencing Silva to life without parole for practical reasons. She pointed to Silva’s age and the likelihood that the state parole board will require him to remain in prison at least until he’s in his 80s before he will even be eligible for parole.
“A life term with a possibility of parole is just that: It is just a possibility,” Nakasone said. “Given his record, including the prior record of violence and nature of the current offense, the possibility of parole is extremely, extremely remote.”
Even if Nakasone had found Silva eligible for life without parole, she could have chosen not to impose it. She will sentence Silva
to a life prison term with
parole on Feb. 8.
Silva pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 1989 for fatally beating a man three years earlier.
He was sentenced to another 10 years in prison in 1992 after a state jury found him guilty of felony assault for beating a man whose girlfriend had taken him in after finding him living in a shack outside their home.
Silva has other felony convictions for auto theft, drug promotion and possession of drug paraphernalia.
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