Supreme Court orders new trial in murder case

By David Waite
Advertiser Courts Writer

The Hawai'i Supreme Court yesterday ordered a new trial for a Ko Olina man who was found guilty of murder in the strangulation death of his wife in April 2000.

After reviewing the case, the Supreme court justices concluded that Kenneth Wakisaka should be given a new trial based on "prosecutorial misconduct" and "ineffective assistance of counsel."

The justices concluded that city Deputy Prosecutor Dan Oyasato should not have made reference during his closing arguments to a decision by Wakisaka not to testify on his own behalf during the 2002 trial and that Wakisaka's lawyer, Mal Gillin, should have objected to Oyasato's remarks but did not.

Wakisaka said at trial that his wife, Shirlene, was mentally ill and bent on taking her own life via a drug overdose.

But Oyasato portrayed the couple's relationship as troubled. Prosecution witnesses said Wakisaka had taken out a $100,000 insurance policy on his wife about a month before she died at St. Francis Medical Center West from what hospital workers thought were complications from a suicide attempt.

Investigators began to suspect foul play when Wakisaka started hounding the city Medical Examiners Office almost daily to see whether his wife's autopsy had been completed and if there were any indication that Shirlene Wakisaka might have been strangled.

When he was sentenced in September 2002 to a mandatory term of life with the possibility of parole, Wakisaka told Circuit Judge Marie Milks that he was "disgusted" with the jury's guilty verdict and would have asked for a jury-waived trial if that option had been discussed with him.

Milks said that option had to have been discussed with him and that a signed form must have indicated his decision to have a jury decide the case.

Reach David Waite at dwaite@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8030.