A man who was found guilty of arson for setting his family's Ewa Beach home on fire pleaded guilty to murder yesterday for killing his stepfather, whose body was burned in the fire.

    In exchange for his plea, the state promised to recommend to the Hawaii Paroling Authority that Timothy Adarna serve only 20 years in prison before he is eligible for parole.

“;We essentially have a manslaughter penalty and a murder charge in name only,”; said David Hayakawa, Adarna's lawyer.

The penalty for second-degree murder is life in prison with the possibility for parole.

Because they believe the case was manslaughter and not murder, Hayakawa said Adarna would have accepted this deal had the state offered it earlier. Instead, the state took the murder case to trial last July.

The jurors found Adarna, 21, guilty of first-degree arson but could not reach a unanimous verdict on the murder charge for the Nov. 16, 2006, death of Adarna's stepfather, 55-year-old Robert Ramos.

The jurors said they were deadlocked 10-2, and the lawyers for both sides assumed the majority had voted in favor of murder. But one of the jurors later contacted Deputy Prosecutor Kevin Takata and told him that the 10 voted in favor of manslaughter, not murder.

Takata said he offered Adarna the plea deal because of the 10-2 vote for manslaughter, and he did not want to risk taking the case in front of another jury. He said the average minimum term the parole board imposed for murder in 2007 was 56 years.

And while Takata feels the plea agreement is a fair resolution to the case, he said he is not satisfied with Adarna's explanation for why he killed Ramos.

“;The defendant never explained that portion except to say that they got into an argument and he lost control. He apparently suffered selective amnesia based on his testimony,”; he said.

Hayakawa said Ramos was well liked and that Adarna had no history of violence or violent outbursts.

“;The family is stumped by it,”; he said, “;It's a very mysterious case, and I don't think we're ever going to really know what happened there.”;