No. 29732 – Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at 9 a.m.

STATE OF HAWAII, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. FRANK SANES, Defendant-Appellant.

Attorney(s) for Defendant-Appellant
Walter R. Schoettle

Attorney(s) for Plaintiff-Appellee
Honorable Peter B. Carlisle, Prosecuting Attorney, and James M. Anderson, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, City & County of Honolulu

COURT:    Nakamura, CJ; Foley and Leonard, JJ.

SPECIAL NOTE:    The above argument will take place in the Supreme Court courtroom on the Second Floor of Aliiolani Hale, 417 South King Street, Honolulu, Hawaii.

[ Listen to the entire audio recording in mp3 format ]

Brief description:

Defendant-Appellant Frank Sanes (Sanes) appeals from the Circuit Court of the First Circuit’s March 2, 2009 Judgment of Conviction and Sentence.  On December 6, 2005, Sanes was indicted for murder in the second degree in violation of Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) 707-701.5 (1993).  On December 18, 2007, a jury found Sanes guilty of the lesser included offense of manslaughter in violation of HRS § 707-702 (Supp. 2008).  Sanes was sentenced to imprisonment for a term of twenty years.  Sanes admits that he caused the two knife wounds that caused the victim’s death, but claims that he was acting in self-defense.  On appeal, Sanes argues that:  (1) the circuit court erred in finding that a jailhouse witness was not an agent of the State at the time that Sanes spoke to him; (2) Sanes was denied due process and a fair trial due to an inaccurate translation of a witness’s testimony; (3) the circuit court erred in excluding evidence of a newspaper clipping found in the wallet of the deceased; (4) Sanes received ineffective assistance from his trial counsel; (5) the circuit court erred in failing to give a cautionary instruction concerning the testimony of the jailhouse witness; and (6) the prosecutor engaged in misconduct by eliciting testimony that the jailhouse witness was in the “hole” and was a management problem in prison, thus creating a false impression that Sanes was a management problem in prison.