LIHU‘E — A judge does not have to agree with a plea bargain hammered out by a prosecutor and defense attorney. On Wednesday, state 5th Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe was ready to disregard a deal for probation with credit for
LIHU‘E — A judge does not have to agree with a plea bargain hammered out by a prosecutor and defense attorney.
On Wednesday, state 5th Circuit Judge Kathleen Watanabe was ready to disregard a deal for probation with credit for time served in prison for Armando Medina. He was scheduled for sentencing on second-degree theft in one case and second-degree methamphetamine trafficking and possession of drug paraphernalia in another.
It took a copy of a sentencing memo and some conferences with defense attorney Caren Dennemeyer and county Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Sam Jajich to change Watanabe’s mind and later agree with their plea agreement.
The deal reduced the drug charge to third-degree promotion of a dangerous drug, with the paraphernalia charge dropped. Watanabe sentenced Medina to a year in prison with credit for time served (more than one year), and five years probation contingent on Medina entering a drug-treatment program and fulfilling other stringent conditions of probation.
“You need to prove to yourself and your community that you can do it,” Watanabe told Medina, adding fines, 500 hours of community service and other conditions to the terms of probation.
“This is the way you’re going to give back to the community for the crimes you’ve committed,” she said.
If his probation is revoked and he appears again before Watanabe, the judge said she would sentence him to at least five years in prison and could give him 10 years.
“In some ways, doing time might be easier” than probation, she said.
“You’re a user and you failed not once but twice in the Hina Mauka (drug-rehabilitation) program,” said Watanabe.
Before reviewing the sentencing memo and conferring with counsel the judge said she was leaning toward a multi-year jail sentence for the “persistent, multiple offender,” as she didn’t view probation as “appropriate.”
Pointing to Medina’s record of two prior felony convictions and a history of reverting to drug use after release from incarceration — including a revoked probation during which time the theft charge came when he stole money from a Sears cash register in order to support his drug habit — and an earlier parole in which Medina “did poorly,” Watanabe laid out her case to ignore the plea agreement and put Medina away for several years.
But Jajich offered some support for Medina, saying he has the potential to be a productive citizen and if he messes up on probation he could end up behind bars for five to 10 years.
Watanabe had further concerns that all of Medina’s criminal activity is drug-related.
Dennemeyer said the most recent drug charged stemmed from an attempted “large-scale marijuana deal,” which failed when one of the participants asked Medina to get someone some crystal methamphetamine, or ice, and he did so, leading to the trafficking charge.
“I’m sorry for what I did. I’m remorseful for what I did,” and “it won’t happen again,” Medina said.
Damaging also to Medina’s cause was a letter written by Neal Wagatsuma, Kaua‘i Community Correctional Center warden, which Dennemeyer said contains “lots of acrimony” and a feeling of betrayal on Wagatsuma’s part after Medina reverted to his drug-using earlier ways.
Though the letter was sealed as confidential in court documents, Dennemeyer said Wagatsuma had a close relationship with Medina, had “hope” and was “devastated when Medina backslid like so many drug addicts do.”
Jajich said Medina agreed to pay restitution to Sears.
After Watanabe held the bench conferences and read the sentencing memorandum, she cited unnamed “mitigating circumstances” for her change of mind and final agreement with the plea bargain.
