Driver gets 4 years in prison for killing 2 in head-on crash

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COURTESY HONOLULU DEPARTMENT OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY This photo shows the crash scene on Kamehameha Highway in Kahaluu on July 1, 2016 after a pickup driven by Joshua Thompson crashed into a Corvette driven by Mark Matsushima. Matsushima and passenger, Sefilina Gray, both were killed.

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COURTESY HONOLULU DEPARTMENT OF THE PROSECUTING ATTORNEY The photo shows the Corvette driven by Mark Matsushima after it was run over by a pickup driven by Joshua Thompson on Kamehameha Highway in Kahaluu on July 1, 2016. Matsushima and his passenger, Sefilina Gray, both were killed.

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COURTESY PHOTO

Joshua Thompson.

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A state judge commended Joshua Thompson for staying out of trouble with the law despite a difficult upbringing but said she cannot sentence him to probation for killing two people in a 2016 drunken driving head-on collision that he caused while speeding.

“It would undermine the seriousness of the harm he caused, not just to one, but to two separate victims,” Circuit Judge Karen Nakasone said Thursday.

Nakasone sentenced Thompson to four years in prison for two counts of second- degree negligent homicide. Thompson, 25, was facing maximum five-year prison terms for each count.

Other reasons Nakasone said she couldn’t give Thompson probation are a 2018 arrest for reckless driving and a citation in May this year for driving 86 mph in a 55 mph zone.

Thompson pleaded guilty to driving 79 mph and paid the maximum $200 fine in the speeding case.

He was never charged in the reckless driving case even though the police officer said in the arrest report that after Thompson was pulled over for speeding, the officer smelled alcohol and marijuana on him.

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Thompson went to trial in July for two counts of first-degree negligent homicide, which carry maximum 10-year prison terms, for causing the deaths of driver Mark Matsushima, 55, of Honolulu and passenger Sefilina Gray, 33, of Laie. Thompson drove his Toyota Tacoma pickup truck over Matsushima’s 1986 Chevrolet Corvette. The crime involves causing the death of another person by operating a vehicle in a negligent manner while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Nakasone did not allow the state to present the jurors the results of Thompson’s blood test, which showed a blood-alcohol concentration of 0.14 and traces of the active ingredient of marijuana, because police did not get a search warrant before ordering a sample of Thompson’s blood when he was at The Queen’s Medical Center. The legal threshold for drunken driving is 0.08 BAC.

The jury found Thompson guilty of second-degree negligent homicide, which does not involve operating a vehicle while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.