A judge orders the release of a Hawaiian in a 1991 rape and murder case.

HONOLULU. On Tuesday, a judge ordered the man’s release from prison immediately after his lawyers presented new evidence and said he did not commit the crimes for which he was convicted and spent more than 20 years in prison: a 1991 murder, kidnapping and sex crimes. attack on a woman visiting Hawaii.

Albert “Jan” Schweitzer, convicted in 2000 and sentenced to 130 years in prison, should be “immediately released from his shackles,” Judge Peter Kubota ruled.

This drew applause in the Hilo courtroom and hugs from Schweitzer, who was flown to the Big Island for hearings from the Arizona prison where he was serving his sentence.

“My feelings were all over the place,” Schweitzer told AP during a phone interview, recalling the moment of his release. “Nerves, anxiety, fear.”

The justice system is “imperfect,” he said, describing himself as one of the many jailed for crimes they didn’t commit. He previously told reporters he was “thankful” to the judge for an “honorable act”.

The petition, filed late Monday night, outlined further evidence for one of Hawaii’s biggest murders, which took place on Christmas Eve 1991 on the Big Island.

Dana Ireland, 23, was found barely alive in the bushes along a fishing trail in Pune, a remote part of the island. She was sexually assaulted and beaten and later died at Hilo Medical Center. The crippled bicycle she was riding was found a few miles away, and it appears to have been hit by a car.

The murder of a blond, blue-eyed visitor from Virginia attracted nationwide attention and remained unsolved for years, putting intense pressure on the police to find the killer.

“Whenever you have a white female victim…she gets a lot more attention than people of color and native Hawaiians,” said Kenneth Lawson, co-director of the Hawaii Innocence Project. “The parents, understandably, became more and more furious… There was overwhelming pressure to solve this case. And when that happens, mistakes are made. Some intentional, some unintentional.”

With the help of the Innocence Project in New York, a co-counsel on the case, Lawson’s group represented Schweitzer, the last of three Native Hawaiians convicted of Ireland’s death who remained in prison.

The DNA evidence previously presented in the case belonged to an unknown man, and all three convicts were excluded from the sources.

New DNA evidence, according to the petition, shows that the “Jimmy Z” T-shirt found near Ireland and soaked in its blood belonged to the same unknown man, and not to one of the three men, as prosecutors claimed.

In addition, a new tire tread analysis showed that Schweitzer’s Volkswagen Beetle left no tire marks in any of the locations where Ireland and her bike were found. The forensic dentist also concluded that the injury to her left breast was not a bite mark, as previously thought, the petition says.

“At a new trial today, the jury finds Mr. Schweitzer not guilty of the sexual assault and murder of Ms. Ireland,” the petition reads. “In fact, the prosecutor will most likely not even arrest Mr. Schweitzer for this crime.”

The possibility that all three men participated in the sexual assault and left no trace of biological evidence, including the lack of evidence found through extended forensics, is “extremely unlikely,” the petition says.

Ireland’s relatives could not be contacted for comment on the petition and Schweitzer’s release. Prosecutors did not immediately comment on Schweitzer’s release.

In 2019, Schweitzer’s attorneys and Hawaii District Attorneys entered into an “incorruptibility agreement” to reinvestigate the case. Lawson said this was the first time in Hawaii that an agreement of this type has been negotiated, which is increasingly being used to review questionable sentences and protect against future mistakes.

“Over the past three years, we have exchanged information and re-examined forensic data. Regardless of the outcome of these post-conviction proceedings, we remain committed to identifying Unknown Male #1 and seeking justice for Dana Ireland and her ohana,” Hawaii District Attorney Kelden Waltien said in a pre-judgment statement, using the Hawaiian word for “families”.

However, Deputy Prosecutor Shannon Kagawa asked the judge to dismiss the motion, saying that new evidence would not change the outcome of the new trial.

Kubota disagreed, stating that based on the new evidence, the jury would acquit Schweitzer.

Much of the background to Ireland’s case is detailed in a document filed with the petition, which lists the facts found by defense lawyers and prosecutors.

In 1994, the police made what they considered a major breakthrough. According to a fact-finding document, a man facing charges of involvement in a cocaine conspiracy contacted police and claimed that his half-brother, Frank Paulin Jr., had witnessed the Ireland attack.

Police questioned Polina, who was in her third month of her 10-year sentence for unrelated sexual harassment and theft. He claimed that the brothers Jan and Sean Schweitzer attacked and killed Ireland. But he was interrogated at least seven times and gave contradictory statements each time, eventually incriminating himself, the agreement says.

Despite no evidence linking them to the murder, the two Schweitzers and Polina were charged in 1997.

At some point, the charges were dropped because all three men were ruled out as a source of semen found in Ireland and on a hospital gurney sheet. They were charged again after another informant claimed that Jan Schweitzer confessed to him in prison that Pauline had raped and killed Ireland.

Pauline later said that he gave the police details about the murder in Ireland in order to clear drug charges against his half-brother.

In a prison interview with A&E’s American Justice, Pauline compared her story to that of a boy who yelled “wolf.” “It wasn’t me,” he said in a thick Hawaiian pidgin accent. But when he began to tell the truth, he said that no one believed him.

Sean Schweitzer agreed to a deal to plead guilty to manslaughter and kidnapping – and receive a loan for about a year of his sentence and five years of probation – after he saw Pauline and his brother convicted by a jury in 2000.

In October, Sean Schweitzer met with prosecutors and testified. According to the agreement, he pleaded guilty because his “parents didn’t want to risk losing another son and urged Sean Schweitzer to do what he needed to do to get home and not suffer the same fate as his brother.”

Sean Schweitzer “continues to feel tremendous guilt for agreeing to confess and plead guilty to a crime he did not commit and falsely accusing his brother,” the document says.

A polygraph test in November showed he was telling the truth when he denied involvement in the murder, the document says.

Polina was killed in a New Mexico prison by an inmate in 2015.

Back in Hawaii “tastes great,” Schweitzer told the AP.

“The air is good,” he said. “Water is good.”

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