Arakawa won't testify at own trial
By David Waite
Advertiser Staff Writer
More than two weeks after his manslaughter trial began in Circuit Court, former police officer Clyde Arakawa spoke for the first time, but only to tell the judge that he did not want to take the stand in his own defense.
Advertiser library photo
With the jury out of the courtroom, Circuit Judge Karen Ahn said she understood from statements made by Arakawa's attorney, Michael Ostendorp, that Arakawa did not want to testify in the case.
Former police officer Clyde Arakawa is charged in the death of Dana Ambrose, 19.
"That's correct," Arakawa said, standing with his hands clasped behind his back.
Ahn then told Arakawa that she wanted to be sure the decision not to testify was his alone and not one made for him by Ostendorp.
"It's my decision," Arakawa answered.
Ahn said the jury will be instructed not to hold Arakawa's decision against him when deliberations begin, probably sometime this afternoon.
Closing arguments in the case are scheduled for 10:30 this morning.
Arakawa was charged with manslaughter after a fatal car crash at Pali Highway and School Street just before midnight on Oct. 7, 2000.
City Prosecutor Peter Carlisle contends that Arakawa, now 50, was drunk and speeding up the Pali toward Kailua when he ran a red light and broadsided a car driven by 19-year-old Dana Ambrose. Ambrose, who was driving ewa on School Street, died of injuries received in the crash.
Arakawa, a veteran Honolulu police officer, was off-duty at the time of the crash. He has since retired.
Ostendorp claims it was Ambrose who was speeding and ran a red light.
The last witness Ostendorp called was a motorcyclist who said he crossed Pali Highway on School Street just seconds before the collision.
Michael A. Torres Sr. said he had finished driving through the intersection and was headed ewa on School Street when he heard a loud bang that sounded like an explosion.
He said that when he stopped and looked back toward the collision, the signal light controlling traffic movements on School Street was still green, leading him to conclude that "someone ran a red light."
Ostendorp had hoped Torres would testify that he saw no cars stopped in the Kailua-bound lanes of Pali Highway so he could discredit the testimony of a couple who said at the start of the trial that they saw Arakawa run a red light at the intersection moments before the crash.
But Torres said he "took no notice" of whether any cars were stopped on the Pali.
The last witness called by Carlisle, police Sgt. James Addison, said he did a computer simulation of the crash using the speeds supplied by expert witnesses called by Ostendorp, who said Arakawa was going 38 mph and Ambrose 50 at the time of the two cars collided.
Addison said the simulation he did using those speeds showed Ambrose's car would have missed a concrete pillar that it struck during the crash and that Arakawa's car would have spun around 180 degrees or more, perhaps striking the pillar with its back end.
In the real crash, the two cars came to rest in substantially different locations than in the simulation, Addison said.
