No. 27764 (March 5, 2008)
Opinion [pdf]
OPINION OF THE COURT BY LEVINSON, J.
On December 7, 2007, the defendant-appellant-petitioner Mark K. Lopez filed an application for a writ of certiorari, urging us to review the memorandum opinion (mem. op.) of the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) in State v. Lopez, No. 27969 [hereinafter, "ICA's Lopez mem. op."], and, on December 11, 2007, the defendant-appellant-petitioner William Mainaaupo, Jr., filed an application for a writ of certiorari, asking us to review the ICA's memorandum opinion in State v. Mainaaupo, No. 27764 [hereinafter, "ICA's Mainaaupo mem. op."]. Although these cases are factually unrelated, they share a common legal question: Whether the ICA erred in concluding that the circuit court of the first circuit correctly declines to instruct the jury on the mistake-of-fact defense, as provided by Hawai'i Revised Statutes (HRS) § 702-218 (1993), in relation to charges of the offense of unauthorized control of a propelled vehicle, in violation of HRS § 708-836 (Supp. 2001), where the defendant claims a mistaken belief that the person who authorized his use of the vehicle was the registered owner of the vehicle. Beyond this shared issue, Mainaaupo argues that the ICA gravely erred in concluding that the circuit court correctly instructed the jury that, under HRS § 708-836, the defendant had a legal duty to obtain consent to operate the vehicle directly from the registered owner of the vehicle. And Lopez contends that the ICA gravely erred in concluding that the remarks made during closing argument by the plaintiff-appellee-respondent State of Hawai'i [hereinafter, "the prosecution"] regarded Lopez's post-arrest silence and his failure to produce a critical defense witness to corroborate his testimony were legitimate comment on the evidence and not misconduct. We accepted Lopez's and Mainaaupo's applications on January 18, 2008 and consolidated the cases for disposition the same day.
. . . .
Accordingly, we vacate the judgments against Lopez and Mainaaupo and remand their cases for new trials. [footnotes omitted]
Concurring and dissenting opinion by Acoba, J. [pdf]
