A Honolulu circuit court judge sentenced 32-year-old Dion Kitzmiller to 15 years in prison, combining punishments from two separate felony cases into one lengthy term. The sentence stems from a 2019 domestic violence incident in which Kitzmiller pointed a firearm at a victim's head and grabbed her by the neck, and a 2021 confrontation with police in Kalihi during which he rammed a patrol vehicle with his Jeep.
According to KITV, Circuit Court Judge Kevin Souza granted a Honolulu prosecutor's request to run the sentences from the two cases consecutively rather than concurrently. In the first case, tied to the January 2019 domestic violence incident, Kitzmiller was sentenced to five years for promoting a dangerous drug in the third degree and terroristic threatening in the first degree, plus one year for abuse of a family or household member, with those terms ordered to run concurrently. He also received a mandatory minimum of three years and four months as a repeat offender on the terroristic threatening count.
A Second Case Rooted in a 2021 Kalihi Standoff
The second case traces back to May 25, 2021, when police located Kitzmiller on Hikina Lane in Kalihi. Per the KITV report, he reportedly accelerated his Jeep toward officers as they approached his vehicle and rammed a police vehicle during the encounter. That incident led to a separate prosecution that was later detailed by staradvertiser.com, which reported that Kitzmiller struck at least three vehicles with the Jeep and pointed a handgun at police officers before he was shot and critically wounded by an officer. The officers and passengers in the vehicles were not injured, the outlet noted.
A jury found Kitzmiller guilty on September 11 of three counts of first-degree criminal property damage and one count of ownership or possession of a firearm prohibited to a felon, the same report said. For that second case, he was sentenced to ten years, with the sentences on each count ordered to run concurrently. He also received mandatory minimum terms of three years and four months on each count in that case based on his repeat-offender status, according to the KITV account.
Prosecutor Sought the Maximum, Called Him a Dangerous Repeat Offender
Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm had said ahead of sentencing that he would seek the maximum sentence possible, per the earlier staradvertiser.com report on Kitzmiller's conviction. At sentencing, Alm described Kitzmiller as a dangerous career criminal whose repeated conduct endangered victims and law enforcement officers, according to KITV. The prosecutor's office asked that the five-year term from the first case run consecutively to the ten-year term from the second case, a request Judge Souza granted.
Kitzmiller's record extends well beyond these two cases. A 2021 report from the same news organization, published after the Kalihi shooting, said he had six prior felony convictions for theft, drugs, and robbery, along with a misdemeanor terroristic threatening conviction and a petty misdemeanor drug conviction.
How Hawaii Law Treats Consecutive Sentencing
Hawaii law requires a circuit court to state on the record its reasons for imposing a consecutive rather than a concurrent sentence, according to an excerpt of state statute published by capitol.hawaii.gov. That excerpt is incomplete, so it does not offer a full picture of the statutory standard a judge must apply when stacking sentences as Souza did here.
Hawaii courts have also handed down far lighter sentences for property crimes in recent weeks. Stanford N.K. Nihoa, a 42-year-old man with 36 prior misdemeanor and felony convictions, was sentenced last month to six months in prison for burning two city surveillance cameras in Waikiki with a cigarette, staradvertiser.com reported. Nihoa was charged with two misdemeanor counts of fourth-degree arson and ordered to stay away from the pavilion where the cameras were damaged. The two cases are not directly comparable, but they illustrate the wide range of outcomes Honolulu courts have reached in recent sentencing decisions involving repeat offenders.
