Peter Moses also pleaded guilty to attempted assault for firing a shot at a second officer and terroristic threatening for threatening a third officer with the gun.

Moses now faces a mandatory life term with parole when he is sentenced March 5 by Circuit Judge Steven Alm.

The shooting occurred when police officers were trying to arrest Moses after he broke into a rental car Sept. 11, 1998, near the scenic lookout.

In pleading guilty to second-degree attempted murder, Moses admitted that he shot officer Earl Haskell in the abdomen. Haskell spent two months in the hospital before he returned to work.

As part of a plea agreement, city prosecutors will drop a charge of first-degree attempted murder that carries a mandatory life term without parole.

Moses had been convicted in 1999 of the first-degree attempted murder charge and related counts and given a life term without parole. He was granted a new trial on the charges after appeals to the Hawai'i Intermediate Court of Appeals and the Hawai'i Supreme Court.

Last year, the appeals court granted him a new trial, which is now canceled because of his guilty pleas.