Court Opinion

ID: 9402774
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-16 19:04:11.368118+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:20:02.505916
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAII REPORTS OR THE PACIFIC REPORTER

                                                    Electronically Filed
                                                    Intermediate Court of Appeals
                                                    CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX
                                                    16-JUN-2023
                                                    07:53 AM
                                                    Dkt. 54 SO

                          NO. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX

                IN THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS

                        OF THE STATE OF HAWAI#I

              STATE OF HAWAI#I, Plaintiff-Appellee, v.
            MATUA T. TUAOLO, also known as MATUA TUAOLO,
                         Defendant-Appellant

         APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE FIRST CIRCUIT
                     (CASE NO. 1FFC-XX-XXXXXXX)

                    SUMMARY DISPOSITION ORDER
 (By: Leonard, Presiding Judge, and Wadsworth and Nakasone, JJ.)

           Defendant-Appellant Matua T. Tuaolo, also known as
Matua Tuaolo (Tuaolo), appeals from the Judgment of Conviction
and Probation Sentence (Judgment) entered on December 27, 2018,
by the Circuit Court of the First Circuit (Circuit Court).1
           Tuaolo was charged with two counts of Abuse of Family
or Household Members under Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 709-
906(1) and (9) (2014) (Counts 1 and 2)2 and two counts of Assault

     1
           The Honorable Todd W. Eddins presided.
     2
           HRS § 709-906 provides, in pertinent part:

                 Abuse of family or household members; penalty.
           (1) It shall be unlawful for any person, singly or in
           concert, to physically abuse a family or household
           member or to refuse compliance with the lawful order
           of a police officer under subsection (4). The police,
           in investigating any complaint of abuse of a family or
           household member, upon request, may transport the
           abused person to a hospital or safe shelter.

                                                                  (continued...)
 NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAII REPORTS OR THE PACIFIC REPORTER

in the Third Degree under HRS § 707-712(1)(a) (2014) (Counts 3
and 4).3    Tuaolo was found not guilty on Counts 1 and 2.            This
appeal involves Tuaolo's convictions on Counts 3 and 4.               His wife
Isabella Tuaolo's (Isabella's) minor children NG and MK
(collectively, Children) were the complainants on Counts 3 and 4,
respectively.4
             Tuaolo raises two points of error on appeal, contending
that:    (1) the Circuit Court's "standard" jury instructions 1.1,
1.2, 1.4, 1.7, and 2.2 were prejudicially insufficient,
erroneous, and misleading and denied Tuaolo his constitutional
right to due process and a fair trial; and (2) the Circuit
Court's instructions to the jury were prejudicially insufficient,
erroneous, and misleading where it failed to instruct the jury on
self-defense as to Counts 3 and 4.
             Upon careful review of the record and the briefs
submitted by the parties and having given due consideration to
the arguments advanced and the issues raised by the parties, we
resolve Tuaolo's points of error as follows:
             The standard applicable to our review of jury
instructions is well established.
                   When jury instructions or the omission thereof are at
             issue on appeal, the standard of review is whether, when
             read and considered as a whole, the instructions given are
             prejudicially insufficient, erroneous, inconsistent, or
             misleading.

     2
        (...continued)
                   . . . .

                   (9)   Where the physical abuse occurs in the
             presence of any family or household member who is less
             than fourteen years of age, abuse of a family or
             household member is a class C felony.
     3
             HRS § 707-712 provides, in pertinent part:

                   Assault in the third degree. (1) A person
             commits the offense of assault in the third degree if
             the person:

                   (a)   Intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly
                         causes bodily injury to another person[.]
     4
             Isabella was the complainant on Counts 1 and 2.

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 NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAII REPORTS OR THE PACIFIC REPORTER

                Erroneous instructions are presumptively harmful and
          are a ground for reversal unless it affirmatively appears
          from the record as a whole that the error was not
          prejudicial.

State v. Metcalfe, 129 Hawai#i 206, 222, 297 P.3d 1062, 1078
(2013) (quoting State v. Arceo, 84 Hawai#i 1, 11, 928 P.2d 843,
853 (1996)).
                [A]lthough as a general matter forfeited assignments
          of error are to be reviewed under the [Hawai 141 P.3d 974, 984 (2006).
                Inasmuch as "the ultimate responsibility properly to
          instruct the jury lies with the trial court," if trial or
          appellate counsel fail to raise an objection to an erroneous
          jury instruction as to which there is a reasonable
          possibility of contribution to the defendant's conviction
          and which, consequently, cannot be harmless beyond a
          reasonable doubt, then the instruction, by its very nature,
          has affected the defendant's substantial rights—to wit, his
          or her constitutional rights to a trial by an impartial jury
          and to due process of law—and, therefore, may be recognized
          as plain error.

State v. Uyesugi, 100 Hawai#i 442, 449, 60 P.3d 843, 850 (2002)
(brackets omitted) (quoting State v. Rapoza, 95 Hawai#i 321, 326,
22 P.3d 968, 973 (2001)).
          (1)   In State v. Forster, No. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX, 2021 WL
855828 (Haw. App. Mar. 8, 2021) (SDO), this court reviewed
essentially identical challenges to the Circuit Court's
"standard" jury instructions 1.1, 1.2, 1.4, 1.7, and 2.2 and
concluded that the arguments were without merit.          For the same
reasons as articulated in Forster, we conclude that Tuaolo's
first point of error is without merit.        Id. at *2-6; see also
State v. Char, No. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX, 2020 WL 7028600, (Haw. App.
Nov. 30, 2020) (SDO) (addressing a similar claim of error
involving a substituted Hawai#i Pattern Jury Instructions
Criminal (HAWJIC) instruction).
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          (2)   Tuaolo argues that the Circuit Court erred by
failing to instruct the jury that self-defense applied to Counts
3 and 4 because there was evidentiary support to warrant that
instruction.
          HRS § 703-304 (2014) provides, in pertinent part:
                Use of force in self-protection. (1) Subject to the
          provisions of this section and of section 703-308, the use
          of force upon or toward another person is justifiable when
          the actor believes that such force is immediately necessary
          for the purpose of protecting himself against the use of
          unlawful force by the other person on the present occasion.

                . . . .

                (4)   The use of force is not justifiable under this
          section:

                (a)   To resist an arrest which the actor knows is
                      being made by a law enforcement officer,
                      although the arrest is unlawful; or

                (b)   To resist force used by the occupier or
                      possessor of property or by another person on
                      his behalf, where the actor knows that the
                      person using the force is doing so under a claim
                      of right to protect the property, except that
                      this limitation shall not apply if:

                      (i)    The actor is a public officer acting in
                             the performance of his duties or a person
                             lawfully assisting him therein or a person
                             making or assisting in a lawful arrest; or

                      (ii)   The actor believes that such force is
                             necessary to protect himself against death
                             or serious bodily injury.

          As we previously stated:
                Our cases have firmly established that a defendant is
          entitled to an instruction on every defense or theory of
          defense having any support in the evidence, provided such
          evidence would support the consideration of that issue by
          the jury, no matter how weak, inconclusive, or
          unsatisfactory the evidence may be. However, this court has
          also noted that where evidentiary support for an asserted
          defense, or for any of its essential components, is clearly
          lacking, it would not be error for the trial court to refuse
          to charge on the issue or to instruct the jury not to
          consider it.

State v. Yamamoto, 98 Hawai#i 208, 220, 46 P.3d 1092, 1104 (App.
2002) (underlined emphasis added) (quoting State v. Sawyer, 88
Hawai#i 325, 333, 966 P,2d 637, 645 (1998)).
          Upon review of the evidence adduced at trial, and as
recognized by Tuaolo on appeal, the Children merely jumped in
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between Tuaolo and Isabella during the subject incident and tried
to separate them.    We conclude that the Circuit Court did not err
in concluding that there was no support in the evidence for the
defense or theory that Tuaolo believed that his alleged conduct
at issue with respect to Counts 3 and 4 was immediately necessary
to protect himself against a use of unlawful force by either or
both of the Children.
          For these reasons, the Circuit Court's December 27,
2018 Judgment is affirmed.

          DATED:    Honolulu, Hawai#i, June 16, 2023.

On the briefs:
                                      /s/ Katherine G. Leonard
Jon N. Ikenaga,                       Presiding Judge
Deputy Public Defender,
for Defendant-Appellant.
                                      /s/ Clyde J. Wadsworth
Stephen K. Tsushima,                  Associate Judge
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney,
City & County of Honolulu,
for Plaintiff-Appellee.               /s/ Karen T. Nakasone
                                      Associate Judge

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