HONOLULU — The Intermediate Court of Appeals filed an opinion April 30 vacating the verdict of a Circuit Court jury that found Erik Willis, 21, guilty in the July 8, 2020, stabbing of a 17-year-old girl at Kahala Beach.
It remanded the case back to the lower court for a new trial based on prosecutorial misconduct for introducing new blood evidence in closing arguments.
The appeals court denied defense lawyer Eric Seitz’s argument that the Circuit Court erred when it denied a motion to dismiss the indictment against Willis for lack of probable cause and to suppress the complaining witness’s identification of Willis as her assailant.
The Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement: “We are reviewing the opinion issued by the Intermediate Court of Appeals and we will review the ICA’s judgment once it is filed. Then we will consider our options.
“Those options include asking the Hawai‘i Supreme Court to review the ICA opinion and uphold the conviction, or taking the case back to Circuit Court for another trial.”
Willis was convicted April 7, 2022, of second-degree attempted murder in the stabbing of the teenager, who was sunbathing on Kahala Beach. He was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, and ordered to pay $83,689 in restitution.
The 17-year-old, who was stabbed 15 times including in the neck, testified in court she recognized Willis, who wore a mask over his nose and mouth, from his eyes, eyebrows and complexion.
She said that she had seen him a few times before on the beach, and noticed him because he wore long pants and a white T-shirt on the beach, had “poufy,” curly hair, bushy eyebrows and a pale complexion.
She said he jumped on her back, covered her mouth and stabbed her five times in the neck, and stabbed her in the right shoulder and hands.
Although she could not identify him in a photo lineup, she said she did recognize him from a video her father showed her on social media.
The ICA ruled that the lower court erred when it denied Willis’ motion for a new trial trial because new blood evidence was introduced in closing argument that was not in the court record.
The ICA ruling says deputy prosecutor Lawrence Sousie’s statements about blood on Willis and his T-shirt were not presented as evidence, and were not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, so the conviction must be vacated despite the fact that Willis’ attorney never objected to the statements during trial.
ICA judges found the deputy prosecutor committed prosecutorial misconduct when he told jurors a surveillance video depicted Willis after the attack leaving a work sink near the scene of the attack, and “we know from (witness) Edward Leal that (Willis) washed his hands and his face because he had blood on them.” Leal testified the man was “washing his arms, here, and also washed his face a little.”
They also concluded that by the deputy prosecutor saying that “after he stabbed (the victim), (Willis) got blood on his (T-shirt)” also amounted to misconduct.
Court records show that the DNA from bloodstains on Willis’ right shoe found at his home matched the victim’s DNA. Police also recovered a white shirt from the washer along with the black Adidas shoes, but because police did not obtain a warrant before the search and seizure, the actions were found to be unreasonable, invalid and unconstitutional.
Prosecutors could not use the blood evidence because it had been suppressed by Judge Kevin Souza, the trial judge, in 2021.
The prosecution presented evidence that Willis was seen on surveillance videos from the bus to the beach, wearing a clean T-shirt and on his way home in Niu Valley with a dirty shirt.
The ICA opinion was rendered by Acting Chief Judge Katherine Leonard and associate judges Keith Hiraoka and Clyde Wadsworth.
