Edward Werner said outside a state courtroom Thursday that now that his family and friends have gotten justice, it’s time to set the ashes of his son Kaulana free.
The Werner family carried a koa urn containing Kaulana Werner’s ashes to court every day of the trial of the driver accused of killing him in a hit-and-run crash in Nanakuli in 2016.
A state jury deliberated for less than two hours Thursday before finding Myisha Lee Armitage guilty of negligent homicide and fleeing the scene of a fatal traffic accident.
Armitage, 26, faces maximum 10-year prison terms for each charge at sentencing in November.
Circuit Judge Paul B.K. Wong told Armitage that
until then she is subject to
a 9 p.m.-to-6 a.m. curfew and must surrender her driver’s license.
Armitage’s lawyer declined to comment after hearing the verdicts.
The state says Armitage was drunk, speeding and driving recklessly when she hit Kaulana, who was crossing Farrington Highway near his family home.
Armitage testified Wednesday that she had just one mai tai and one shot of tequila during dinner before the crash and that she blacked out after something hit her car. She denied leaving the scene.
Deputy Prosecutor Duane Kokesch said he wasn’t surprised at the speed with which the jurors reached their verdicts. He said the evidence was overwhelming and that Armitage was “not credible. Everything she said contradicted a lot of the other evidence.”
Like Armitage’s blood
alcohol concentration, which measured 0.13 after the crash, even though she said she had just two drinks. The legal threshold for drunken driving is
0.08 BAC.
Armitage also testified that she was following another vehicle so closely while traveling at 50-55 mph that if the driver braked just a little, she would have slammed into the back of that vehicle. Yet it was only her car that struck Kaulana.
She also testified that when she regained consciousness after blacking out, her car was up the roadway and no longer running. The state says Armitage’s vehicle was nearly a mile up the highway past right- and left-hand bends in the roadway.
Werner said the three years and four months since his 19-year-old son’s death have been agonizing for his family. During that time, however, the Werners and their supporters have conducted roadside pickets urging drivers to slow down and to not drink and drive.
“We just ask everybody out there if you drink, get a designated driver. That’s all we can do. If they need to get somewhere, then leave little bit early,” Werner said Thursday, “Don’t need to speed. We live on an island. No one wants to be in our situation. All we ask is everybody, just drive slower.”
The Werners and their supporters also successfully lobbied state legislators into passing a state law last year allowing judges to double the sentences of drivers found guilty of negligent homicide if they also fled the scene.
The law took effect last year, so it won’t apply to
Armitage. However, she is facing sentencing for two crimes that carry maximum 10-year prison terms, and the court could run the prison terms back to back. The Werners pushed for the new law because that rarely happens.
