Back in 2012, I had a blog post titled "How Lenient is Too Lenient?"
https://pablowegesend.blogspot.com/2012/06/how-lenient-is-too-lenient.html
In that blog post, I mentioned that in 2010, Matthew Kupa gave a brutal beatdown to an older man, a beatdown so brutal that the victim got severe brain damage, required 24-7 care, and died at a care-home in 2012. And yet, Kupa was only given 18 months (yes, months, NOT years, MONTHS) in jail.
The judge Glenn Kim mentioned he gave Kupa the lenient sentence because of his "young age" (he was 21 years old -- old enough to drive, vote, join the military, and buy alcohol which he drunk so much before his vicious assault.)
It's now a decade, and Matthew Kupa is now 33 years old. And he just got arrested for armed robbery at a hardware store.
A 33-year-old man convicted a decade ago in the brutal assault of a former world lightweight boxing champion is in trouble with the law again.
Matthew M. Kupa Sr. was charged Thursday with first-degree robbery for allegedly brandishing a firearm at an employee after taking merchandise from a home improvement store in Kapolei without paying for the items.
His bail is set at $100,000.
Kupa’s alleged accomplice, 35-year-old Puanani Hatori, was charged with accomplice to robbery in the first-degree. Her bail is set at $35,000.
Honolulu police said a man selected merchandise from a home improvement store in Kapolei and left without paying for the items on the night of Oct. 15.
He brandished a firearm when an employee approached him, police said. The man then fled in a vehicle with some of the merchandise taken from the store.
Why am I not surprised?
18 months in jail was a message that "what you did wasn't that bad"
18 months in jail was a message that after that, it's party time, you can do what you want now!
What you have to remember about violent bullies is that they think proper behavior is for wusses!
They DON'T want to be educated about empathy, because they think empathy is a sign that you're not a real man.
Violent bullies need real painful consequences.
While 18 months would be enough to scare someone whose worst sin is littering, that doesn't scare a violent bully who is all about the thug life.
I remember watching a video in which an ex-con said that early in his criminal career, he didn't take short sentences seriously. It was only after multiple run-ins with the law, when the judge finally gave him a lengthy sentence, that he finally wised up. It was all those years in prison, thinking about what he's been missing out, realizing that he could no longer slick talk his way out of trouble, that he finally realized he had to change his ways.
And more importantly, prisons are to keep bad guys away from regular society. If Matthew Kupa had a real sentence, like 18 years, he wouldn't be out robbing hardware stores in 2022. The robbery victim wouldn't have been robbed that day if Kupa was still in prison.
Now, I can hear the allegedly "woke" claim that tough-on-crime is "racist" and "oppressive"
Racist? Matthew Kupa (Native Hawaiian) brutally attacked Andy Ganigan (Filipino) to the point of severe brain damage.
For the allegedly "woke", violence against Asians only matters if the attacker was of pure European ancestry.
And if you're judging people by the content of their character, you can say that Kupa has a bad content of character. He is proven to be dangerous. There were multiple witnesses, and he had to be restrained.
What happened in Hawaii in 1893 is NOT a good excuse to show excessive leniency towards Matthew Kupa for his actions in 2010.
As for racial disparities, the system was excessively lenient on rapist Brock Turner (Anglo-American) who only got a 3-month prison sentence for raping an intoxicated woman near a dumpster near Stanford University.
Real justice is giving ALL violent bullies of ALL ancestries tough sentences.
And I do believe in some level of criminal justice reform. I do believe in legalizing minor sins like gambling, drug possession, sex work among consenting adults. I believe in legalizing gun possession for anyone without a conviction of an unprovoked violent crime. I want a more lenient immigration policy. I believe there is too much racial profiling. I believe police should be extensively trained in de-escalation before being allowed to go on patrol. I don't believe those who commit tax fraud should serve life sentences among violent criminals. I think prisons should provide sanitary conditions for their inmates.
But all of that doesn't invalidate the need to be tough on violent bullies like Matthew Kupa. They need to be given a high level of discomfort.
After all, Kupa gave a severely high level of discomfort towards Andy Ganigan.
That's the level of discomfort that matters the most.
