No. SCWC-22-0000740, Thursday, January 8, 2026, 2:00 p.m.
THURSDAY, JANUARY 8, 2026 – 2:00 P.M.
NO. SCWC-22-0000740
DANIEL R. GRANILLO, Petitioner/Petitioner-Appellant, vs. STATE OF HAWAI‘I, Respondent/Respondent-Appellee.
The above-captioned case has been set for oral argument on the merits at:
Supreme Court Courtroom
Ali‘iōlani Hale, 2nd Floor
417 South King Street
Honolulu, HI 96813
The oral argument was also live streamed for public viewing via the Judiciary’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/hawaiicourts and ‘Ōlelo at olelo.org/tv-schedule/.
Attorney for Petitioner/Petitioner-Appellant DANIEL R. GRANILLO:
Earl A. Partington
Attorney for Respondent/Respondent-Appellee STATE OF HAWAI‘I:
Gerald K. Enriques, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney
NOTE: Order assigning Circuit Judge Peter K. Kubota, due to a vacancy, filed 10/13/25.
NOTE: Order accepting Application for Writ of Certiorari, filed 10/21/25.
COURT: McKenna, Acting C.J., Eddins, Ginoza, and Devens, JJ., and Circuit Judge Kubota, assigned by reason of vacancy.
Brief Description:
Daniel R. Granillo (Granillo) was charged with kidnapping a woman from a Maui shopping center and sexually assaulting her in his car. Trial was held in July 1990. The State qualified Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) agent Wayne W. Oakes (Oakes) as an “expert witness in the area of hair and fiber analysis.” Agent Oakes testified that based on microscopic comparison techniques, a hair found in Granillo’s car was consistent with the woman’s hair, and that fibers recovered from the woman’s clothing were consistent with Granillo’s seat cover and car carpeting. The jury found Granillo guilty as charged on all counts, and he was sentenced to forty years imprisonment.
In October 2017, nearly thirty years after Granillo’s conviction, the Maui Department of the Prosecuting Attorney received a letter from the Department of Justice. The letter explained that the FBI had determined that Agent Oakes’ testimony – his expert opinion that the hair sample tested was consistent with originating from the woman – was “inappropriate” because it overstated the science or statistical weight that can be assigned to microscopic hair comparisons.
Granillo filed an Hawai‘i Rules of Penal Procedure Rule 40 petition. The Rule 40 court concluded that Oakes’ hair analysis testimony “was erroneously admitted because it exceeded the bounds of science.” But based on compelling evidence of physical injury and other corroborative testimony, the court held, the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. The court did not specifically rule on the admissibility of Oakes’ fiber analysis opinion.
The Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) upheld the circuit court’s denial of Granillo’s Rule 40 petition, but for different reasons. It held that the lower court should have applied the State v. McNulty, 60 Haw. 259, 588 P.2d 438 (1978), test for newly discovered evidence instead of the harmless error standard. The ICA held that Granillo failed to establish that the hair evidence was not cumulative of the valid fiber opinion, and thus, he was not entitled to a new trial.
Granillo appealed. This court accepted cert as to Granillo’s first question presented challenging the ICA’s affirmation of his conviction based on Agent Oakes’ fiber opinion.
Supreme Court