Miles Briner
Appearances
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
Well, we're still proceeding. We have a hearing on our portion of the case coming up. And we're going to dovetail whatever has been filed by the Schweitzer brothers. There's no reason to reinvent the wheel. Judge Kubota is facing a problem. There has to be some type of acknowledgement to all the parties that a mistake was made of tragic proportions, almost Shakespearean or Greek tragedy of sorts.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
And as you said, money is one thing. But everyone wants the exoneration. And from the perspective of the surviving sons of Frank Pauline, their lives were destroyed. Both of them have having great difficulty. They had to leave their own island and live elsewhere because they were being attacked, you know, in school and throughout the community.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
And the difficulty is they grew up, you know, the belief their father had participated in one of the most horrendous murders possible. It turns out Frank wasn't guilty. I know there's all types of problems with Frank. I represented him many years ago. When Frank had, it was a habitual liar. That's the reality of it. Why he made up these comments, why he implicated the Schweitzers, I'll never know.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
It's frankly outrageous and incomprehensible that he did it, but that was Frank.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
I'd like to see accountability with the police department and the prosecutor's office. I think they need to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate from the U.S. Attorney's Office or from DOJ to find out what happened. I mean, they're so hot to trot to go out and, you know, to file, to appoint special prosecutors, at least as far as the city and county of Honolulu.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
I think it's time that the Big Island Police and the prosecutor's office be subject to a full-blown investigation on how they handled this.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
The fact that Frank implicated the Schweitzer's and still was convicted, he's still a victim of this whole process. The fact that he did these things and implicated the Schweitzer's, I suspect, you know, when you're under investigation as a possible rapist and murderer, you say a lot of things. And people make promises or imply that if you help them, they'll help you and so forth.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
I've no doubt that Frank was trying to play all the angles possible. The sons have paid the price for the father's sins. What was his sin? His sin was that he was a liar. Does that mean that he deserved to be murdered in prison? He deserved to be incarcerated for a crime he didn't commit? It's terrible for the Ireland family and for the whole community.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
And I'm thinking about my clients, the surviving sons of Frank Pauline. Frank, for all intents and purposes, was murdered in New Mexico out in the wreckyard because of this case. That's what our belief is. I'm not going to go into the details of it, but our belief is that there was information that was disclosed that became public knowledge. It shouldn't have been.
THREE
Justice | Chapter 10
And there was a possibility that Frank was going to get released. And what happens very often in the prison system when someone's a lifer or has a long sentence and they're about to be released, let's say by the sudden discovery of the exculpatory evidence, there's retaliation by other inmates.
THREE
Unknown Male #1 | Chapter 6
Frank's story is a sad story because he apparently falsely accused the Schweitzer's, denied involvement, and then later on was tagged and identified as possibly his shirt was, and DNA was established that he was a participant.
THREE
Unknown Male #1 | Chapter 6
At one point, he said he saw things and knew things, and other times he said, no, I wasn't there. I was just doing this to get my brother off the hook because he was facing his own criminal charges. So he kind of entrapped himself in his own series of lies. And I didn't realize the impact of Frank's conviction had on his children.
THREE
Unknown Male #1 | Chapter 6
I had an opportunity to spend quite a bit of time now with his son, Aaron, who's in custody himself on a domestic violence case. His description of his life and his brother's life, who has since passed away, was really hard. They had to change their names.
THREE
Unknown Male #1 | Chapter 6
Frank was nonetheless innocent and he was convicted. But he contributed to that conviction because of all of his expansive lies and his stories. He was trying to play both sides of the fence, trying to help this person or that brother or this family member. Then he figured I could exonerate myself. But which brings home the notion that innocent people do get convicted.
THREE
Unknown Male #1 | Chapter 6
So when he finally gets convicted, it's like... I didn't do this. And he kept telling people I didn't do it. It's too little too late because he's talked himself into a conviction. That's unfortunate. We often ask you when you read an article about someone confessing to a crime and then later on they're exonerated, particularly in this case, where they clearly couldn't have been the person.
THREE
Unknown Male #1 | Chapter 6
Yet they confessed to it. And you're shocked going, why would you confess? Well, if you ever sat down with people and spoken to them once, you know, they've done that, you've experienced the pressure of being interrogated, yes.