StarBulletin.com

Negligent-homicide case not contested


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POSTED: Thursday, January 15, 2009

A woman who killed two teenagers and injured a third when she drove her car into them at a makeshift roadside memorial in Hauula has pleaded no contest to negligent homicide.

Police said Tiati Kane was speeding on Kamehameha Highway on Aug. 19, 2006, when her car veered onto the shoulder of the road and plowed into a group of people mourning at the site of a previous fatal crash.

Orem “;Benson”; Kauvaka, 16, was pronounced dead at the scene. Summer-Lynn Mau, 19, died shortly after she was taken to Kahuku Hospital. An 18-year-old man was taken to the Queen's Medical Center, where he was treated and released.

Kane, then 21, was also taken to Queen's for injuries. Police said she was not wearing a seat belt.

Kane pleaded no contest Tuesday in Kaneohe District Court to two counts of third-degree negligent homicide and one count of second-degree negligent injury. All three charges are misdemeanors punishable by up to a year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

However, when she is sentenced Wednesday, Kane will ask Judge Rey Graulty for a deferral, giving her the opportunity to keep her criminal record clean, her lawyer said. She has one infraction on her driving record, for speeding 17 miles over the limit on April 18.

Kauvaka and Mau were among 18 people at the roadside memorial along the highway near Kaupau Place. They were mourning the deaths of two Hauula teenagers who died earlier that day in a one-car crash.