Black Point rapist
has life term
reaffirmedThe move comes after his earlier
sentence was ruled improper
A man known as the Black Point rapist who has served more than 20 years in prison for three rapes in the early 1980s will remain behind bars.
Circuit Judge Virginia Crandall granted the state's request Friday to resentence Andrew K. Kamanao to a life term with the possibility of parole after finding that his crimes were so extreme it was necessary to protect the public.
Andrew K. Kamanao: He continues to profess his innocence but apologized to the victims.
Kamanao, who participated at his resentencing by phone from prison in Florence, Ariz., continued to profess his innocence but apologized for what the victims and their families and his family have gone through.
Kamanao was 35 when he was sentenced in January 1984 to a life term with parole for sexually assaulting three Black Point women in their homes as they slept. He had been convicted in an October 1983 trial of eight felonies, including first-degree rape and sodomy and first-degree burglary.
Kamanao filed a petition in Circuit Court in 2001 to correct what he claimed was an illegal sentence, then appealed when it was denied. Last year, the Hawaii Supreme Court agreed with the Circuit Court but sent the case back for resentencing on different grounds.
The high court found that it was improper for then-Circuit Judge Donald Tsukiyama to sentence Kamanao to a life term with parole based on his failure to accept responsibility or show remorse at sentencing.
Based on the high court's decision, prosecutors filed a motion to resentence Kamanao to another life term based on the danger he poses to the community.
Crandall sentenced Kamanao to the same term given in 1984. If she had not taken the action, he would have been set free. Now the Hawaii Paroling Authority must decide how much longer Kamanao must stay in prison.
Kamanao, now 56, has spent more than 22 years in prison, including pretrial detention in jail.
If he was released now, the state would no longer have any jurisdiction over him, Deputy Prosecutor Thalia Murphy argued last week. If Kamanao is sentenced to life, he will be paroled at some point, and the Paroling Authority can order him to undergo sex offender treatment, stay away from Black Point and monitor him while he is out, she said.
Attorney David Lum, appointed to represent Kamanao two days before the sentencing, argued that Kamanao should be immediately released because he should not have been serving an illegal life term in the first place. Had Kamanao not been given a life term, he would have been sentenced to the maximum 20 years for the Class A felony convictions.
"The prosecutor admitted he's served 22 years-plus at this point, and to say everybody has to go back but now be able to say, 'Not only did he get 20, but now we get to ask for 20-plus' seems unfair," Lum argued. "That can't be consistent with the defendant's constitutional rights."
Murphy argued that the high court's decision sending the case back for resentencing did not prevent prosecutors from seeking a life term.
There is ample evidence showing that a life sentence is warranted based on the nature and multiplicity of the offenses and because he preyed on older victims, Murphy argued.
In all three cases for which he was convicted, Kamanao entered the women's homes at night as they slept and assaulted them. Two of the victims were in their 50s, and one even asked her attacker what he saw in older women. He threatened one of them that he would rip her guts out if she made any noise, and struck her before subjecting her to various sexual acts. Another victim was sleeping next to her husband when she awoke to find a man kissing her private area.
"The defendant is a serial rapist -- he offended against strangers, vulnerable women who should have the right to be safe in their own homes," Murphy argued.
Kamanao was on probation for a firearm offense at the time of the attacks. When he was arrested, he showed no respect by confronting the arresting officer and pushing him, she said.
Attorney David Bettencourt, who served as Kamanao's counsel for a year and a half before Kamanao fired him, said in an interview that his client is a "poster child for the lack of adequate counsel that the state of Hawaii is supposed to provide defendants."
"These issues should have been resolved long before this time if he had good counsel," Bettencourt said.
Bettencourt, who filed the appeal in September 2002 that led to Friday's resentencing, said he was convinced Kamanao had been denied his right to testify on his own behalf.
Kamanao dropped Bettencourt earlier this month after he was persuaded by a jailhouse lawyer that the only possible sentence he could get this time around was 20 years and that he had nothing to lose by waiving his presence at sentencing, Bettencourt said.
"I think basically the hearing passed the buck to the parole board," he said.
As long as Kamanao continues to profess his innocence and claim that he has unresolved constitutional defects in his sentencing, he will never satisfy the parole board so that he can be released, Bettencourt said. "He's in a vicious cycle."
One of the victims still lives at Black Point and objected to Kamanao's release. The 79-year-old victim said life has been difficult since the incident. She suffers from anxiety and has spent countless hours in therapy. She now lives alone after her husband died three years ago.
"I wish it never happened," she said of the assault. "I wish this never happens to anybody."
