Arakawa's defense begins
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
Former police officer Clyde Arakawa had nine beers, but was not drunk the night he was involved in a fatal traffic crash that killed a 19-year-old University of Hawai'i student, his lawyer said in Circuit Court yesterday.
After the prosecution rested its case in Arakawa's manslaughter trial, defense lawyer Michael Ostendorp gave his opening statement saying he will present evidence to refute allegations that Arakawa was drunk, speeding and ran a red light when his car collided with one driven by Dana Ambrose.
Ostendorp did not tell the jury whether Arakawa will take the witness stand.
Ambrose died of injuries, including a broken neck and severed spinal cord, received in the late-night crash on Oct. 7, 2000, at School Street and Pali Highway.
According to the witnesses presented by city Prosecutor Peter Carlisle, Arakawa had more than twice the legal limit of alcohol in his system, drove up Pali Highway toward Kailua at more than twice the 25-mph speed limit and clearly ran the red light before the collision.
But Ostendorp said yesterday that no one really knows how much alcohol Arakawa had in his system at the time of the incident, and that estimates given by prosecution witnesses were based on faulty assumptions.
According to Ostendorp, Arakawa had the nine beers over a span of seven hours at two bars prior to the collision.
Ostendorp said he will call an accident reconstruction expert who will put the speed of Arakawa's 1993 Ford Thunderbird at 35 to 38 mph. Ambrose's 2000 Honda Civic was going at least that fast on School Street and perhaps as fast as 50 mph, the defense lawyer said.
Ostendorp also said he will call a witness who will testify that Arakawa entered the intersection on a yellow light, not red, and that a short-circuit within the stoplight at the intersection led prosecution witnesses to wrongly conclude that Ambrose had the green light when the collision occurred.
Ostendorp's opening statement was delayed by about an hour after one of the jurors reported to Circuit Judge Karen Ahn that another juror was making comments about the case that could be heard by others around her.
Although all of the jurors except for the one who reported the matter to Ahn denied hearing any of the other jurors' comments on the case, Ahn dismissed the juror in question and replaced her with an alternate after Carlisle urged her to do so.
With the jury out of the courtroom, Ostendorp told Ahn that he questioned her motivations.
"There is an ongoing pattern — there is a certain amount of bias flowing to this side of the courtroom," Ostendorp said, adding that Ahn should take herself off the case.
Ahn said she would not step down and called Ostendorp's request that she do so "ridiculous."
The first two witnesses called by Ostendorp were police officers who said they had responded to previous collisions at the intersection. The two said they checked off boxes on accident-report forms listing the speed limit on Pali Highway in the area at 35 mph, not 25 mph as the prosecution has claimed throughout the trial. Carlisle, however, had no questions for the two officers.
The first of the technical experts called by Ostendorp, Laura Liptie, a California-based researcher who has studied the relationship between speed and injuries in automobile crashes, said Ambrose would likely have escaped serious injury had she been wearing a seatbelt and driving at or below the 25-mph speed limit on School Street when the crash occurred.
Based on damage to Ambrose's car, Liptie said she believes Ambrose was traveling 45 to 50 mph, greatly increasing her own risk of serious injury.
In response to questions from Carlisle, however, Liptie acknowledged that her estimates were based on "frontal impact" collisions and that Arakawa's car hit the driver's side of Ambrose's car before it slammed into a concrete pillar.
Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.
