CAAP-20-0000650 (Consolidated with CAAP-20-0000438 and
CAAP-20-0000506,Wednesday, April 20, 2022, 9:00 a.m.

STATE OF HAWAIʻI, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. STANLEY CANOSA, Defendant-Appellant.

The above-captioned case has been set for argument on the merits at:

Supreme Court Courtroom
Aliʻiolani Hale, 2nd Floor
417 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96813

The oral argument will also be livestreamed for public viewing via the Judiciary’s YouTube channel at YouTube.com/hawaiicourts.

Attorney for Defendant-Appellant:

Shawn A. Luiz

Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellee:

Loren J. Thomas and Stephen K. Tsushima, Deputy Prosecuting Attorneys

COURT: Ginoza, C.J., Leonard, and Hiraoka, JJ.

[  Listen to the entire audio recording in mp3 format  ]

Brief Description:

Appellant Stanley Canosa (Canosa) appeals from a Judgment, an Amended Judgment, and an Order Denying Canosa’s Motion To Correct Illegal Sentence. This is Canosa’s third appeal from the underlying criminal case.

Canosa was initially convicted of three offenses: Burglary in the First Degree (Count 1), Sexual Assault in the First Degree (Count 2), and Unauthorized Entry in a Dwelling (Count 3). Canosa was sentenced to an extended twenty (20) years for Count 1, life with the possibility of parole for Count 2, and an extended ten (10) years for Count 3, to run concurrently. However, this initial conviction and sentence were vacated by the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) due to prosecutorial misconduct. The case was remanded for a new trial.

In a second trial, Canosa was convicted of two offenses: Count 1 and Count 3. Canosa was sentenced to extended terms of twenty (20) years for Count 1 and ten (10) years for Count 3, with the sentence to run consecutively. In a second appeal, the ICA affirmed Canosa’s conviction, but vacated his new sentence because consecutive sentencing resulted in a more severe sentence for Counts 1 and 3 following retrial, violating Hawaii Revised Statutes § 706-609. The case was again remanded to the Circuit Court, this time just for resentencing.

In 2020, Canosa was resentenced to extended terms of imprisonment of twenty (20) years for Count 1 and ten (10) years for Count 3, this time to run concurrently. By the time of this resentencing, Canosa had been in prison for over ten years. In this third appeal, Canosa now argues the 2020 resentencing was improper because the maximum ordinary terms for each sentence had expired (ten years in Count 1 and five years in Count 3) and Canosa had already served ten years in prison, leaving no sentence to be extended.

The State argues the Circuit Court had the authority to extend Canosa’s terms of imprisonment based on the jury’s findings in the second trial to extend Canosa’s sentences. The State also contends the sentence was vacated in the second appeal only to the extent it imposed consecutive sentences and the case was remanded for resentencing, thus the Circuit Court properly resentenced Canosa.