 Photo by Molly Hennessy-Fiske/Los Angeles Times On December 28, 1990, a man broke into the home of a 25-year-old woman in Haiku, Hawaii, held a knife to her throat, and raped her repeatedly while her young children slept in a nearby bedroom. The woman identified Alvin Jardine as the man who raped her. Jardine denied having anything to do with the attack and said that he had drunk 14 to 16 beers that night and was at home asleep when it occurred.
Jardine was convicted on June 3, 1992, by the third jury to hear his case. His first two trials ended with hung juries. Jardine was found guilty of four counts of first-degree sexual assault, three counts of attempted sexual assault, burglary, kidnapping, and terroristic threatening. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison. Jardine maintained his innocence throughout his trial and after conviction. He missed two chances for parole, the first in 2002, and instead spent 9 more years in prison because he refused to enter a sex offender treatment program, which would have required him to admit his guilt.
In 2009, the trial court granted Jardine’s motion for retesting of DNA from stains found on a tablecloth placed on a chair where the rapist sat and where the rape occurred. The test results excluded Jardine as the source of bodily fluids and blood present in three out of four of the stains. The stains on the tablecloth had been tested before Jardine's 1992 trial, but the results of the earlier testing were inconclusive, and the more sensitive testing which eventually proved Jardine's innocence was not yet available. Fortunately for Jardine, the tablecloth was saved when all other physical evidence from the case was lost by the prosecutor sometime before 2009.
On January 21, 2011, the trial court ordered a new trial based on the DNA evidence and released Jardine on bail. On July 21, 2011, the court dismissed all charges against Jardine after the prosecutor decided not to proceed to a fourth trial of the case.
In January 2013, Jardine filed a wrongful conviction lawsuit against the state of Hawaii, Maui County and the Maui police department. The lawsuit was settled in 2016 for $7,500. Jardine also sought compensation from the state of Hawaii. The claim was pending as of December 2017.
— Michael Shaffer |