After 23 years, six months and six days, 48-year-old Shawn Schweitzer was exonerated of the 1991 crimes he falsely confessed to in order to avoid facing a jury that would have likely convicted him of the rape, kidnapping and murder of Dana Ireland, a 23-year-old Virginia visitor.
“He’s ecstatic,” said his attorney, Keith Shigetomi. “It was something that he had to live with for almost his entire adult life, and now the cloud has been lifted. He sent me a text this morning of a picture of him holding up the newspaper saying ‘Schweitzer exonerated.’”
Hilo Circuit Judge Peter Kubota granted a stipulation Monday by the state and the defense that allowed Schweitzer to withdraw his guilty plea and vacate his conviction.
“I will say that with the evidence as presented, it is very likely that a modern jury would have come to a different decision, and that decision would be acquittal of Mr. Schweitzer,” Kubota said, according to court minutes.
Schweitzer was one of three men convicted of the crimes against Ireland who, while riding a bicycle, was struck by a vehicle, beaten, raped, then taken to another location where she was dumped, nearly dead, along a fishing trail.
The Hawaii Innocence Project and later the New York Innocence Project got involved in older brother Albert Ian Schweitzer’s case. And the California Innocence Project got involved and wrote the petition in Shawn Schweitzer’s case.
In January the 51-year-old, convicted in 2000 by a jury, was cleared of all charges and freed from prison after serving 23 years of a 130-year sentence after DNA evidence found did not match any of the three defendants, including evidence from a blood-soaked T-shirt.
Also an alleged bite mark on Ireland’s breast was questioned by two of three experts as to whether it was a human bite mark. And a tire tread expert testified in his case that the tire tread marks came from a larger vehicle than Ian Schweitzer’s Volkswagen Beetle.
After Ireland’s rape and slaying, police investigated the case and did not indict anyone until 1997.
In 1994, Frank Pauline Jr.’s half brother claimed Pauline witnessed the Ireland attack.
Pauline was serving a 10-year sentence for unrelated crimes and schemed to blame the Schweitzers so Pauline could get an early release and get drug charges against his half brother dropped. The plan backfired and he incriminated himself. He was convicted and later killed in 2015 by a fellow inmate in an Arizona prison.
Shigetomi said, “It was a very different time back when this all happened.” He said that it was the defense that found the DNA, and they agreed with the state to have the DNA tested at a mutually agreed-upon laboratory.
“The DNA found on the swabs from Ireland’s body as well as the gurney sheet did not match any of the defendants, and the state knew that,” Shigetomi said.
Despite the case against the Schweitzer brothers being dismissed and their release from custody, seven months later the state re- indicted them.
“Pauline went to trial. The DNA didn’t match. The jury didn’t care. They found him guilty,” Shigetomi said, adding the same happened with Ian Schweitzer.
“I believe that obviously, the risk was so great that if Shawn was convicted, he would also be sentenced to life in prison.”
Schweitzer was just 16 in 1991 when the crimes against Ireland occurred, and 25 in 2000, Shigetomi said. In a plea deal in 2000, Schweitzer’s original charge of second-degree murder was downgraded, and first- degree sexual assault was dropped.
He pleaded to manslaughter and kidnapping.
As part of the plea deal, the state required Schweitzer to take a polygraph test.
The polygraph results were inconclusive since the examiner couldn’t make a determination, Shigetomi said.
“He didn’t fail but he didn’t pass. … Nevertheless, he got the plea agreement,” he added.
No one can locate the original polygraph results or report, and the examiner died. “Only a blurb is in one of the detective’s reports saying a portion of the test results shows deception,” Shigetomi said.
Schweitzer was sentenced to a year in prison and five years’ probation.
In October 2022, Schweitzer recanted and passed the polygraph when he said he and his brother had nothing to do with the crimes, Shigetomi said.
