One charge dropped
in Dana Ireland case

Use of a bystander law in this case
would be self-incriminating,
Judge Amano rules

By Rod Thompson
Star-Bulletin

HILO -- Two brothers charged with the 1991 murder of Dana Ireland face one less accusation.

Judge Riki May Amano yesterday dismissed a murder-by-omission charge that they failed to notify police and medical authorities that Ireland was injured by their alleged attack on her.

But Amano let stand a charge that Shawn and Albert Ian Schweitzer committed murder by injuring her.

Amano was scheduled to hear arguments today on whether confessions by a third suspect in the case, Frank Pauline Jr., were made voluntarily.

While vacationing on the Big Island, Ireland, 23, died Christmas Eve 1991 after she was hit by a vehicle at Kapoho and taken from there to remote Waawaa where she was raped and left to die.

Beginning in 1994, Pauline, then 21 and serving jail time for an unrelated offense, began telling police and the press various versions of a story that two brothers committed the crime, sometimes saying he was with them.

Last year, the Schweitzers were indicted together and Pauline was indicted separately for kidnapping, rape and murder.

The murder count had two parts, one saying the suspects committed murder by an active attack and the other saying they did so by omitting to help Ireland after the attack.

Deputy Prosecutor Charlene Iboshi attempted to have the murder-by-omission part included via a petty-misdemeanor law that requires bystanders to help a victim.

Sean Schweitzer's attorney Ira Leitel responded, "They can't turn a petty misdemeanor designed to apply to bystanders at the scene of a crime into an 'A' (maximum) felony. There is no such felony."

If a person committing a crime were required to report the crime, that would be a violation of his right against self-incrimination, Leitel argued.

Amano told Iboshi that use of the bystander law in this way would require every person who commits an assault to call police afterward.

"I don't understand it," she said before ruling against it.

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Star-Bulletin

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Amano's ruling may especially benefit Shawn Schweitzer, 22.

Pauline's statements to police, while sometimes contradictory and only partially revealed publicly, indicate that Shawn's brother, known as Ian, 26, led the attack while the suspects were high on cocaine, hitting Ireland with the car he was driving.

After raping Ireland, Ian Schweitzer said they had to "knock her off" and hit her with a tire iron, Detective Steven Guillermo previously testified that Pauline told him.

Guillermo also testified Pauline confessed to hitting Ireland with the tire iron. Guillermo has not described the extent of Shawn's participation.