Posted on: Thursday, September 2, 2004

EDITORIAL
Freedom must end for Manoa robber

The desire of a National Guardsman to be deployed to Iraq would be commendable if this service weren't being offered as an alternative to a mandatory 20-year prison stretch.

But given the vicious nature of the crime for which 24-year-old Shaun Rodrigues has been convicted, it's truly bizarre that he and his defense team have been able to keep him out of prison for 2 1/2 years pending sentencing.

Now Rodrigues' lawyer is seeking to keep him free pending appeal of his conviction, a process that could easily take another year or more.

Rodrigues is certainly within his rights to maintain his innocence and to seek to prove another man committed the crime. But his conviction, plus other serious charges still pending trial, demand the presumption of public safety as the overriding concern.

Rodrigues was found guilty of burglary, armed robbery and the kidnapping of a woman and her daughter in their Manoa home in July 2000.

He's also accused of trying to break into another Manoa home and using a gun to threaten a man.

It's astonishing, given these facts, that the Guard would even have considered activating Rodrigues for deployment in Iraq.

Surely the U.S. military isn't that desperate for manpower.