NO. 28583 – Wednesday, April 8, 2009 – 10:15 a.m.

STATE OF HAWAI`I, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. JENARO TORRES,
Defendant-Appellant.

Attorney(s) for Defendant-Appellant
Cynthia A. Kagiwada

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff-Appellee
Honorable Mark J. Bennett, Attorney General and Deirdre Marie-Iha, Deputy Attorney General

NOTE: Order assigning Judge Karen S. S. Ahn due to a vacancy, filed 02/04/09.

COURT: Nakamura, Fujise and Leonard.

SPECIAL NOTE: The above argument will take place in the Supreme Court courtroom on the Second Floor of Ali`iolani Hale, 417 South King Street, Honolulu, Hawai`i.

[ Listen to the entire audio recording in mp3 format ]

Brief description:

Defendant-Appellant Jenaro Torres (Torres) appeals a judgment entered by the Circuit Court of the First Circuit (circuit court), convicting and sentencing him for Murder in the Second Degree, in violation of HRS § 707-701.5 (1993).

On appeal, Torres asserts that (1) the State failed to establish the corpus delicti for murder; (2) the circuit court failed to apply the trustworthiness doctrine before allowing the State to introduce certain extrajudicial statements made by Torres; (3) the circuit court erred by denying his motion to suppress because the initial search of his car was illegal and the subsequent search could not cure the taint of the initial search; (4) the circuit court erred by precluding Torres from introducing the original federal criminal complaint and a letter from the prosecuting attorney’s office declining to prosecute where the evidence was relevant to the defense’s theory of the case; (5) the circuit court erred by admitting testimony regarding when the revolver recovered from his car had been fired; (6) the circuit court erred in refusing to give a special instruction on circumstantial evidence.