Background
David Richard Stevens was convicted of Second Degree Murder in violation of Hawai’i Revised Statutes § 707-701.5 following a jury trial in the Circuit Court of the Second Circuit. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole. Stevens appealed, challenging his conviction on two grounds: prosecutorial misconduct during closing and rebuttal arguments, and the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on the lesser included offense of reckless manslaughter.
The case involved the death of Patrick Wisely, whom Stevens allegedly killed on the night of May 20-21, 2020, at Waiola Church in Lahaina. The State’s evidence included testimony from two witnesses—Curtis Edward Bryant and Kenneth David Bonavia—who testified that Stevens told them the day after Wisely died that he had killed someone and beat a man to death with a stick. Forensic evidence showed Wisely’s blood on the top of Stevens’s shoe and under his fingernail, and DNA analysis confirmed it was most likely from Wisely. In his recorded police interview, Stevens denied killing Wisely, instead claiming he found Wisely moaning, gave him water, and left after about fifteen to twenty minutes.
There were no eyewitnesses to Wisely’s actual death, and no murder weapon was recovered at the scene.
The Court’s Holding
The Intermediate Court of Appeals found prosecutorial misconduct in multiple instances during the prosecutor’s closing and rebuttal arguments. First, the prosecutor made improper personal attacks on defense counsel, characterizing his advocacy as “drama” and “outrage” designed to “distract” the jury and “throw you off your game.” The court held that while prosecutors may vigorously challenge defense arguments, they cross the line into misconduct when they impugn defense counsel’s integrity or suggest counsel is attempting to deceive the jury rather than merely critiquing the substance of the defense theory.
Second, the prosecutor improperly speculated about Stevens’s mental state, characterizing Stevens’s conduct in a police interview as reflecting “explosive anger” that caused him to “snap” on the night of Wisely’s death. No evidence at trial established Stevens’s mental state at the time of the alleged murder. The court held that such personal opinions about a defendant’s state of mind, unsupported by evidence, constitute improper unsworn testimony that undermines the objectivity of trial proceedings.
Third, the prosecutor suggested a baseball bat was the murder weapon during rebuttal argument, despite no evidence supporting this and despite the detective’s testimony that no object was recovered as a weapon. The court found this created inflammatory imagery designed to heighten emotion rather than illuminate the facts, and was particularly prejudicial because it occurred in rebuttal, preventing defense counsel from responding. Applying the harmless-error analysis, the court weighed: (1) the nature of the misconduct (multiple instances undermining counsel’s credibility and improperly introducing new evidence and personal opinion); (2) the lack of any curative instructions from the trial court; and (3) the strength of evidence (no eyewitnesses to the murder, though the State presented circumstantial evidence including witness confessions and blood evidence). The court concluded the prosecutorial misconduct was not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and that there was a reasonable possibility it might have contributed to the conviction.
Key Takeaways
- Prosecutors may criticize defense arguments vigorously but cannot attack defense counsel’s personal integrity or suggest counsel is attempting to deceive the jury—such attacks constitute serious misconduct.
- Prosecutors cannot introduce personal opinions or speculations about a defendant’s mental state or emotional condition where no evidence supports such characterizations.
- Prosecutors cannot introduce inflammatory hypotheticals about evidence (such as specifying a particular weapon) during rebuttal argument where no factual basis supports them, particularly when doing so prevents defense counsel from responding.
- The cumulative effect of multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct, combined with the trial court’s failure to issue curative instructions, can warrant reversal and a new trial even where the State presented circumstantial evidence of guilt.
Why It Matters
This decision reinforces important boundaries on prosecutorial conduct in closing arguments and establishes that courts will carefully scrutinize the cumulative impact of multiple instances of misconduct. By vacating the conviction despite circumstantial evidence of guilt—including defendant’s confessions to witnesses and DNA evidence—the court signals that trial fairness and prosecutorial integrity are fundamental protections that cannot be overcome by a strong factual case. The decision is particularly significant in its protection of the defendant’s right to effective assistance of counsel; attacks on defense counsel’s credibility are treated as strikes at the defendant himself rather than merely vigorous adversarial debate.
The case also illustrates that prosecutors must distinguish between permissible argument about what evidence shows and impermissible speculation about facts not in evidence. The absence of curative instructions proved critical to the appellate court’s analysis, suggesting that trial courts should be attentive to prosecutorial overreach and ready to instruct jurors when improper arguments are made. Because the Hawaii Supreme Court applies a “reasonable possibility” standard for harmless-error analysis in prosecutorial misconduct cases, even misconduct that might seem peripheral to the central evidence can require a new trial if there is any reasonable possibility it contributed to the conviction.