Sailor gets life A Pearl Harbor sailor was sentenced yesterday to life in prison with the possibility of parole for the premeditated murder of a friend.
sentence for murder
at Pearl Harbor
Hawan Campbell killed
a friend after a heated
argument over a $70 phone billBy Gregg K. Kakesako
gkakesako@starbulletin.comPetty Officer Hawan Campbell, 23, will be eligible for parole after serving a minimum of 20 years. He was also reduced in rank, given a dishonorable discharge and will have to forfeit all his pay and allowances.
A panel of nine Navy male officers and one female officer convicted him yesterday of the murder of Seaman Gregory Ballard, 29, who was shot to death outside Pearl Harbor's enlisted sailors' apartments on May 4. The jury rejected Campbell's claim that his confession had been coerced.
The court-martial began March 20 and was turned over to the military jury on Tuesday.
Navy prosecutors argued that Campbell shot Ballard five times with his .40-caliber Glock semiautomatic pistol after the two argued over a $70 phone card bill. Ballard had stolen the access number of the phone card from another friend and had given it to Campbell, who ran up a $70 bill.
Campbell maintained that he had already paid Ballard $40 of the debt before the two went to Waikiki for a night of drinking on May 3 to celebrate Ballard's last night on active duty.
Campbell said he met Ballard in the parking lot of Pearl Harbor's Gabrunas Hall apartment complex to give him his pistol because Ballard said he needed something for protection. He said he was at his Waikele apartment when the shooting occurred about 4 a.m.
Navy prosecutors maintain that the two men argued hours earlier over the phone debt and that Campbell left, angry and upset, after getting into a face-to-face pushing contest to get the handgun. He then drove back to wait for Ballard to return home, prosecutors said.
Ballard's attorney said that because the shooting occurred at such close range, there should have been blood and brain matter 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," defense attorney Lt. Kerry Abramson said.
The pistol could never be tested because it was never recovered, even though a team of 20 Navy investigators, with Campbell in tow, searched the area May 5 near the H-1 freeway, where Campbell said he had tossed the gun.
Prosecutor Lt. Cmdr. Barry Harrison, in rebuttal, said forensic experts testified during the court-martial that even if they could not find Ballard's blood or tissue on Campbell or his clothing or car, "it doesn't mean he didn't do the crime." He said forensic experts testified during the court-martial that there is no certainty how wide and how far blood splatters occur.
Campbell maintained that his confession was made only after prosecutors threatened him with the death penalty.
A letter of apology that Campbell wrote a day after the shooting while confined to the Ford Island brig also was dictated by a Navy criminal investigator, Campbell told the court.