Court Opinion

ID: 9631420
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 10:37:43.907524+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:07:53.726755
License: Public Domain

LEVINSON, Judge,
concurring.
I agree with the opinion of the court that Araki lacked standing to challenge the seizure of the “search warrant evidence” and that the circuit court erred in granting Araki’s motion to suppress his pre-trial identification.
I have personal reservations, however, as to whether, as applied, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 712-1210(7) (1993), and, therefore, HRS § 712-1215 (1993), into which the former is imported, pass muster under the Hawaii Constitution (1978). Araki tickles the issue by arguing that (1) “there was no evidence adduced to the grand jury that the rented video tape was obscene due to a lack of serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value as a whole,” and, therefore, (2) “the [circuit] court clearly erred in denying ... Araki’s [m]otion to [djismiss the [indictment ... because there was no ... evidence adduced ... to meet the sufficiency level required to support an indictment for this offense under ... [a]rticle I, [sjection 4 ... of the [Hawaii] Constitution.”
Nevertheless, I do not read Araki’s points of error on appeal, and his arguments in support thereof, to raise the constitutional question. Accordingly, it was not necessary for the opinion of the court to reach it.1 For this reason alone, I join in the court’s holding that the evidence adduced before the grand jury was sufficient to support a finding of probable cause to believe that Araki violated HRS § 712-1215(l)(a).

. I should add that I have no idea how a majority of the court would resolve the question.