Hawaii Police Department wants state Supreme Court to block judge from releasing new details in Dana Ireland investigation

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) – A circuit court judge in Hilo is expected to defend his decision to release new evidence in the Dana Ireland murder investigation to the Hawaii Innocence Project.

Judge Peter Kubota is expected to submit his filing to the state Supreme Court by Thursday, the deadline for filing his response to the Hawaii Police Department’s petition challenging a subpoena for the information.

HPD wants the state Supreme Court to block the release of information about new suspect Albert Lauro, Jr.

Attorney Brian Black of the Public First Law Center said the justices seem ready to move quickly.

“They set a fast track for people to answer and respond,” Black said about the deadlines the court put in for Judge Kubota and the Hawaii Innocence Project to respond to HPD’s claims.

“It will be interesting to see what the court does,” Black said the justices could decline to weigh in at all if they don’t think that the police department has met its burden.

That would leave Kubota’s decision in place to release the information as part of a subpoena filed by the Hawaii Innocence Project on behalf of two men who were wrongfully convicted of killing Dana Ireland in 1991.

Kubota vacated the convictions last year. Now, the two men, brothers Albert Ian and Shawn Schweitzer, want Kubota to declare them ‘innocent’ so they can apply for compensation.

Ian Schweitzer spent 23 years in prison for the murder.

The new information at stake comes from the investigation into Lauro, who was recently identified as Ireland’s attacker using DNA technology. Lauro was a match to the sperm, skin, and sweat recovered from various pieces of evidence found at the crime scene and from Ireland’s rape kit.

HIP believes the evidence will help prove the Schweitzer brothers are innocent.

“You got a man that’s dead who can’t be prosecuted, but they’re using that as an excuse not to allow us to see what he said and other evidence that further goes to exonerate our clients,” said Ken Lawson of the HIP.

Among the items HIP seeks in the subpoena are recordings HPD made of Lauro’s interview on July 19, four days before he killed himself.

Also, there are recordings of police interviews with family members.

Lauro was first identified as a possible match using genetic testing earlier this year.

In its efforts to sway the Hawaii Supreme Court to take action, HPD said in its petition that the new developments are part of “the underlying and ongoing criminal investigation.”

HPD also said the premature release of evidence could “hinder their ability to control or shape the investigation,” as well as enable targets to elude detection, but the department doesn’t mention who these targets are or who else they are investigating now that Lauro is dead.

“They’re claiming that they have a pending investigation. They’re claiming that disclosing it will harm the investigation, but they’re just making blanket statements along those lines,” Black said.

If the Hawaii Supreme Court sides with HPD, the evidence could be secret for many more years.

Black said he was also surprised that HPD cited an exemption under the Uniform Information Practices Act in their petition, which said that releasing evidence would interfere with a “legitimate government function.”

Black doesn’t think the Uniformed Information Practices Act applies in this case because the records are part of litigation and not public disclosure.

The court is not expected to weigh in on the evidence itself but on the “standards,” according to Black.

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