WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — Maui County has agreed to pay $7,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who served more than 20 years in prison for a sexual assault conviction that was later dismissed.
WAILUKU, Maui (AP) — Maui County has agreed to pay $7,500 to settle a lawsuit brought by a man who served more than 20 years in prison for a sexual assault conviction that was later dismissed.
The suit filed by 46-year-old Alvin Jardine III alleges he was wrongfully convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in her Haiku home on 1990. He was sentenced in 1992 to 35 years in prison on sexual assault, kidnapping and burglary charges, The Maui News reported (https://bit.ly/1WKCVg4).
In 2011, a Maui Circuit Court judge invalidated Jardine’s conviction and ordered a new trial, citing new DNA evidence.
Jardine fought his convictions with attorneys working for the Hawaii Innocence Project, which said it was defending Jardine’s actual innocence. But prosecutors said his innocence was legally unfounded.
The charges against Jardine were eventually dropped in July 2011 after the prosecution said they did not want to put the victim through another trial.
After Jardine filed his lawsuit in 2013, the county offered a $3,000 settlement, according to court documents. The settlement was rejected and Jardine demanded more than $1 million in March 2014, the documents state.
During a settlement conference last October, Jardine “agreed to accept a nominal monetary settlement from the county but made his agreement contingent on having his deposition transcript sealed,” according to a court document filed by the county.
The seven-hour deposition was taken on March 25, 2015. Attached to the deposition as an exhibit was Jardine’s application to the state Department of Public Safety’s Sex Offender Treatment Program.
The Maui News had requested the release of the deposition and exhibits in October 2015. Jardine’s attorneys fought their release, saying it might cause their client “annoyance, embarrassment and/or oppression.”
A judge sided with Jardine’s attorneys.