Military court weighs
claims in fatal Pearl
Harbor shooting

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By Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.com

A military jury was to continue deliberations today on a murder charge against a Pearl Harbor sailor who claims he was coerced into confessing that he killed a close friend over a $70 phone bill.

Petty Officer Hawan Campbell, 23, is charged with the premeditated shooting of Seaman Gregory Ballard, 29, outside Pearl Harbor's enlisted sailors' apartments early May 4. He faces a maximum prison sentence of life without parole.

Navy prosecutors maintain that Campbell shot Ballard five times with his .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistol after the two argued over the bill. Ballard had stolen the access number of a phone card from another friend and given it to Campbell, who ran up a $70 bill.

However, in his closing argument yesterday, Lt. Kerry Abramson, Campbell's attorney, said, "There is not one shred of physical evidence that links Petty Officer Campbell to the murder of his best friend."

Abramson further argued that Campbell was the victim of "the laziness of the Naval Criminal Investigative Service and overzealous investigators" who failed to look at all the evidence.

"This case is a rush to judgment," Abramson added. He told the jury of one female and nine male Navy officers that Campbell confessed because he was threatened with the possibility of facing the death penalty.

The confession came only because Campbell had gone with only three hours of sleep in 42 hours and had only two slices of pizza to eat during a 39-hour interrogation period, Abramson said.

However, in rebuttal, prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Barry Harrison labeled Abramson's claims as "fanciful and ingenious."

He said the two lead Navy investigators, who have more than 30 years of combined federal service, had no reason "to put their jobs on the line on day one of a murder case" and later perjure themselves on the witness stand.

In his first statement to Navy investigators, Campbell said he gave Ballard $40 just hours before the shooting.

Abramson said that at 3 a.m. May 4, Ballard called Campbell, asking him if he could borrow the Glock for protection. Forty-one minutes later, Abramson said, Campbell turned the gun over to Ballard in the parking lot of Ballard's apartment complex and went home.

But the prosecution maintains that almost an hour earlier, at 2:45 a.m., Campbell and Ballard argued over the phone bill in the same parking lot. The argument turned into a shouting and pushing match with one witness hearing someone say, "All right. All right. I will be back." And the two men went their separate ways.

Prosecutors maintain that Campbell returned and waited for Ballard in his silver-gray 1986 Acura Legend. "What then transpires," said prosecutor Lt. Matthew Rinka, "is a tragedy beyond words."

At 3:54 a.m., Campbell allegedly started firing at Ballard, with the first two shots striking his forearm.

Ballard then turned to flee, Rinka added, but the third bullet hit him in the back, severing his spinal cord. Campbell allegedly continued to fire, his eyes closed. The fourth shot ricocheted off the pavement and ended in Ballard's neck as the sailor looked back at his assailant.

However, it was the fifth shot -- just four to six inches from his head -- that killed him, Rinka said.

Abramson said firing at such close range should have resulted in blood and brain matter ending up on Campbell's pistol and on his clothes. "None of Ballard's blood was found on Campbell's clothing or in his car, not a speck," Abramson said.

The Glock was never recovered.