Man gets 20 years for Halawa escape

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

One of three men who escaped from Halawa prison April 4 and eluded police for six days by hiding in Hau'ula Valley was sentenced yesterday to 20 years in prison on robbery and escape charges.

Circuit Judge Marie Milks also ordered that David Scribner, 20, serve a mandatory minimum of six years and eight months of the 20-year term. Milks ruled that the sentence must be served after Scribner finishes a four-year and eight-month minimum term set by the Hawai'i Paroling Authority as part of a 10-year term she gave him earlier for a prior escape and drug-selling charges.

State deputy public defender Adrienne Sanders had asked Milks to allow Scribner to serve the prior sentence and the new one concurrently.

Sanders said running the two terms consecutively would result in a prison term of more than 11 years.

Sanders said Scribner joined the Army to get away from a lifestyle in his home state of Missouri in which many of his contemporaries were making a living by selling the illicit drug Ecstacy.

Hawai'i was his first duty assignment in the Army, Sanders said, and Scribner found a girlfriend here, only to fall in with a group of people who were making money by selling crystal methamphetamine.

She said Scribner should be given credit for taking responsibility and pleading guilty as early as possible in the court process.

But city deputy prosecutor Jean Ireton called Scribner's story "amazing."

"One of the first things he did when he got here was to sell ice and Ecstacy to an undercover police officer," Ireton said,

Ireton said that statements made by Scribner to reporters that he decided to break out of Halawa because he was bored and because he "rose to the challenge" after being told no one had ever broken out of the facility before, show he had no regard for the law.

Scribner told Milks that he had learned his lesson and would not attempt to escape again. He said he was giddy with the sense of freedom moments after escaping from Halawa Community Correctional Facility with the other two escapees, but soon began to feel like "a trapped animal."

Milks, however, said Scribner had no one to blame but himself.

The two other escapees, Albert Batalona, 27, and Warren Elicker, 25, go to trial Oct. 1.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.