Sentence angers victim's kin

A driver who killed another motorist while drunk receives a one-year jail term

Family members of a mother of six lashed out at a one-year prison sentence handed down yesterday to the drunken driver convicted in the woman's death.

"What kind of justice is that?" said an upset Lehua Vete, the eldest sister of Johnelle Tapu, 36, who was killed on the H-1 freeway on Feb. 22, 2003.*

Circuit Judge Karl Sakamoto sentenced Ronald Kubo to five years' probation with a year in jail. Kubo, who pleaded no contest in March to driving while intoxicated and causing the death, was also ordered to pay $4,757 in restitution.

Prosecutors had asked for an open 10-year term, the maximum for first-degree negligent homicide.

Sakamoto, who heard from both the Tapu and Kubo families during the sentencing, said he considered Kubo's lack of prior criminal history, his work history, including his service in the Hawaii National Guard, and the likelihood of him not doing this again.

Sakamoto's courtroom was packed with more that three dozen family members of Tapu, including her nine siblings and their families.

Each of her family members, including the infants, wore white T-shirts emblazoned with Tapu's smiling face and the words "Killed by a drunk driver." They also brought the urn with her ashes inside the courtroom.

"I'm angry," said Carolyn Manu, one of Tapu's younger sisters. "He took a life, he stole a life, he stole my sister," she said. "It's not fair he gets to walk this earth while my sister's in this urn."

Emotions ranging from sadness to anger permeated the testimony, beginning with Tapu's eldest son, Kata Finau Jr., 17, who carried the marble urn.

Too overcome to speak, tears trickled down his face as he watched image after image of his mother projected onto a large screen in the courtroom and remembered the woman who raised him for the first 14 years of his life.

"She was a good mom," he said, his voice breaking. "She never thought about herself. She always thought about other people."

Tapu, of Waipahu, who made minimum wage as an airport screener for Freeman Guards, was on her way to work the graveyard shift at Honolulu Airport on Feb. 22, 2003. She slowed down on the H-1 near the Aiea Heights overpass and was struck from behind by Kubo.

Based on the amount of alcohol in Kubo's blood two hours later, experts hired by the state extrapolated that Kubo had about a 0.08 to 0.10 level of alcohol in his system at the time of the crash. The legal limit is 0.08.

Tapu had been on welfare and struggled, even moving to Texas at one point before returning here, her sisters said. But as little as Tapu had, she shared with her family. When a sister and her family moved here to Hawaii, Tapu took them into her cramped two-bedroom apartment to live with her and her six children, said sister Linette Manu.

Kubo, who held his head in his hands throughout parts of the testimony, addressed the Tapu family for the first time yesterday since the crash and acknowledged that he had made a terrible mistake.

"I'm really, really sorry," he said, pounding his chest several times with his hand. "If I could take it back and be in her place, I would."

Bernie Kubo, Kubo's mother, tearfully described her son as a giving and helpful individual -- not a partygoer -- someone who has suffered immensely because of what he has done. "He is depressed -- he lives every day thinking about Mrs. Tapu," she said.

CORRECTION Friday, June 16, 2006 » Ronald Kubo, 29, was driving drunk when he crashed into a car driven by Johnelle Tapu on Feb. 22, 2003. A Page A3 article in yesterday's morning edition incorrectly said the crash happened on Feb. 23, 2003. Please see the applicable Corrections Page for more information.