LIHU‘E — David Phillips, apparently a homeless former Green Beret, was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison Thursday after beating a Kapahi man who offered him a good meal and a place to stay on a rainy night.
LIHU‘E — David Phillips, apparently a homeless former Green Beret, was sentenced to the maximum five years in prison Thursday after beating a Kapahi man who offered him a good meal and a place to stay on a rainy night.
While Circuit Court Judge Clifford L. Nakea offered him the option of a psychiatric evaluation, Phillips declined, saying he was pronounced fit when discharged from the U.S. Army during the Reagan administration and “mental incompetence is not something that develops.” Nakea said to Phillips, “it is possible you might prevail” with a notguilty plea by reason of mental disease or defect.
Phillips retorted that “medicine is not for me,” adding that the biblical icon Joshua knocked down cities without the use of medicine.
Phillips instead stood by the plea deal, which reduced the original charge of first-degree assault (a Class-B felony with a maximum term of 10 years) to second-degree assault.
The victim, Robert Coonrod, 57, said in court that the April 3 attack was completely unprovoked, and was so severe that he was “unconscious for a solid week. I was battered enough, I was told I was unrecognizable,” said Coonrod to the court. He said he was airlifted to The Queen’s Medical Center on O‘ahu, where doctors “were surprised I even made it.” Coonrod said he met Phillips at Wilcox Memorial Hospital, and repeatedly saw him at Calvary Chapel Kapa‘a.
“I thought he was a dedicated Christian,” he said.
But one rainy night in April, he saw Phillips, and asked him what he was doing. When Phillips didn’t know, Coonrod took him home, gave him some food and a bed to sleep in, and a warm place to take a shower.
The next morning, Phillips said he would fix a door in appreciation for the night’s stay, Coonrod said.
But Phillips, instead of fixing a door handle, took the entire door off.
When Coonrod asked what he was doing, “out of nowhere, he clocked me good,” he said. “I could feel things breaking” in his face as he was beaten.
“I did nothing to excite him or incite him,” said Coonrod. “There was absolutely no reason for it. He showed no mercy.” When Nakea asked him why he was at court, Coonrod replied, “I don’t want this to happen to me or anyone else.” County Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Shaylene Iseri-Carvalho said Nakea should give Phillips the maximum possible sentence.
Nakea agreed.
“He appears to have been involved in other violent acts,” she said. “He has taken no responsibility for his actions,” either.
“The only way the community can be safe” is to keep Phillips in jail, she said.
