Man is convicted in fatal stabbing
Kerry Sanders is found guilty of manslaughter instead of murder
A Wahiawa man was convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter for stabbing his girlfriend's son-in-law to death over an earlier argument.
Kerry Sanders, 39, was initially charged with second-degree murder -- punishable by life imprisonment -- for causing the death of 39-year-old Jonathan Nunes on Nov. 4, 2004, outside a Wahiawa apartment building. He faces 20 years' imprisonment when sentenced Nov. 8.
Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Takata said the evidence showed that after being challenged to a fight, Sanders went back upstairs and made the decision to arm himself with a 10-inch blade rather than a 2-inch blade, confronted Nunes with the knife concealed behind his back and buried the knife into Nunes after being punched. "(Sanders) tells police that the victim walked into the knife -- all 10 inches -- and lies about other details about what happened," Takata said.
"Is the verdict appropriate? No. Was it a compromise? It appears so. Was justice rendered? No," Takata said afterward. "A half-cup of justice is a half-cup of injustice, and that's what happened here."
Sanders maintained that he acted in self-defense. "He was attacked, and upon being attacked he reacts and at that point his arm goes up and the injury occurs," said defense attorney Keith Shigetomi.
According to prosecutors, Nunes and his wife had gone to the California Avenue apartment looking for his wife's mother to ask her to move out from their apartment and remove her belongings. The couple had been asked to move by their landlord.
Nunes and the wife's mother, Linda, apparently got into a shouting match, and he was asked to leave by Sanders.
Nunes repeatedly refused to leave, and the only way Sanders could get him to leave was to grab a knife and escort him out, Shigetomi said.
Whether he had the knife when he escorted Nunes out of the building is in dispute, but at least one witness saw him going upstairs with the knife afterward, Shigetomi said. Sanders went back downstairs because his girlfriend was not in the apartment when he returned, Shigetomi added.