A man serving a life sentence for stabbing a man to death in Wahiawā in 2019 will get a retrial.
In 2024, a jury convicted then-25-year-old Kai Dela Cruz of second-degree murder after he had reportedly stabbed 45-year-old Isaac Lee repeatedly in Nov. 2019.
According to court records, Dela Cruz was at his mother’s Wahiawā apartment with Lee, described as a friend of the family. The two were alone on a lānai before Dela Cruz’s mother reported hearing screams.
Lee was found bleeding with multiple stab wounds; a paramedic who responded to the scene judged that any one of the wounds would have been life-threatening on their own, according to court records. Lee was pronounced dead at The Queen’s Medical Center.
Dela Cruz fled the scene in his mother’s car, but he was found a few hours later lying facedown on a road and arrested. Subsequent evidence determined that he had been smoking methamphetamine before the stabbing incident.
But on Monday, the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals overturned Dela Cruz’s conviction and called for a retrial.
According to the ICA’s ruling, the First Circuit Court erred when reading Dela Cruz his rights at trial. At any criminal trial, the judge confirms with the defendant their right to testify in their defense and their right to remain silent. In Dela Cruz’s case, that exchange went poorly.
A transcript of Dela Cruz’s conversation with the judge — contemporary reporting states that judge Shanlyn Park presided over the case, although the ICA ruling doesn’t include any names — reveals that the judge failed to ask Dela Cruz, after he had decided not to testify in his defense, whether anyone had pressured him to remain silent.
The law is clear on this, the ICA ruled: by failing to properly ascertain whether Dela Cruz’s decision was his own, the court had violated his constitutional right to testify. If that right is violated, any subsequent convictions must be vacated “unless the state can prove the violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt,” read the ICA ruling, itself quoting previous case law.
Because Dela Cruz did not testify, the ICA determined that there is no way of knowing what he would have said in his defense and, therefore, the violation cannot be considered “harmless.” Therefore, his conviction has been overturned and his case returned to the First Circuit Court for a do-over.
This was the only error the ICA issued an opinion on Monday, although his attorneys — public defender Jon Ikenaga and deputy public defenders Benjamin Lowenthal and Henry Ting — had raised similar issues with a Honolulu Police Department interrogation of Dela Cruz.
During that interrogation — which court records note was held within 24 hours of Dela Cruz smoking meth — Dela Cruz seemingly did not knowingly waive his right to have an attorney present. When an HPD officer asked Dela Crus if he wanted to have an attorney present, he said no. Dela Cruz’s attorneys argued he had misinterpreted the question to mean if he wanted to have an attorney appointed to him.
During the trial, Dela Cruz and his attorneys unsuccessfully attempted to have the confession he gave during that investigation suppressed.
Dela Cruz’s attorneys also argued that he should have been instead charged with manslaughter owing to his “extreme mental or emotional disturbance.” They claimed in their appeal that Lee, who was homeless, had repeatedly broken into Dela Cruz’s apartment against his wishes, frequently stealing food and clothing and once reportedly standing over Dela Cruz’s bed as he slept.
The ICA did not make any determinations regarding either the HPD interrogation or the manslaughter angle. Further proceedings at the First Circuit Court have not yet been scheduled.
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