Prosecutors ask state's high court to revoke convicted robber's bail

By Ken Kobayashi
Advertiser Courts Writer

City prosecutors are asking the Hawai'i Supreme Court to order convicted robber Shaun Rodrigues to immediately start serving his maximum 20-year sentence for a Manoa home invasion robbery.

Rodrigues

Crandall ruled that the issue of whether Rodrigues was correctly identified as the robber is a significant one that could result in a reversal or a new trial. But the city prosecutors said the defense is largely precluded from raising that issue on appeal because it did not raise that challenge in pretrial motions.

Crandall's office yesterday said she could not comment because the case is pending, but Rodrigues' lawyer William Harrison predicted the high court will "dispense (the request) fairly quickly," because in his opinion the judge made the right call.

The high court's options include granting or denying the request or asking for a response from Crandall and possibly Rodrigues before making a decision.

The request is the latest development in the 4-year-old case involving the daylight armed robbery of Dawn Sugihara and her mother Dianne in their Manoa home on July 8, 2000.

Rodrigues' relatives and supporters insist he's innocent and the victim of a mistaken identity.

Prosecutors are just as adamant that the witnesses' testimony supports the conviction and Rodrigues should start serving his prison term.

Crandall sentenced Rodrigues on Sept. 10 to the mandatory maximum 20-year prison term for burglary, armed robbery and kidnapping, but allowed him to remain free on appeal, a process that could take longer than a year.

The prosecutor's office is seeking a writ that would direct Crandall to order Rodrigues to start serving his prison term.

In the request, city Deputy Prosecutor James Anderson argued that by not seeking to throw out the victims' identification of Rodrigues prior to the trial, the defense cannot contend on appeal that the identification procedures used by police were too suggestive or that the victims' identification of Rodrigues was not sufficiently reliable.

The defense can only contest whether the evidence was strong enough to support the conviction, but when the issue of guilt is based on the credibility of witnesses, the appeals court defers to the judge or jury making that finding, he said.

Anderson reviewed Crandall's own decision finding Rodrigues guilty and noted that she found the victims to be credible witnesses and that the defense alibi witnesses not credible.

Harrison said he can still raise the identification issue on appeal because he challenged it during the trial.

In addition, he said he will raise other issues on appeal, such as whether the prosecution turned over police reports about similar home invasion robberies that summer in time for him to prepare an adequate defense.

He said the prosecution must establish that Crandall abused her discretion, a high legal standard that he doesn't believe prosecutors can meet.

Rodrigues resigned from the Hawai'i National Guard when he was sentenced and is working for a carpet company, Harrison said.

Rodrigues still faces a terroristic threatening charge alleging that he threatened a man with a gun after trying to break into another Manoa home two days before the Sugihara robbery. But city Deputy Prosecutor Russell Uehara yesterday said he will recommend that case be dropped because the lead

detective in that case has died, the charge carries only a five-year maximum prison term and two witnesses would have to be flown here from North Carolina.

Reach Ken Kobayashi at kkobayashi@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.