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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Thursday, April 30, 2009

Murder trial in jury's hands

By Jim Dooley
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Circuit Court jury has begun deliberations in the trial of Ulutunu Faumuina Jr., accused of stomping another man to death outside a Kona Street bar in 2004.

Deputy Prosecutor Kory Young said in his closing argument yesterday that victim Mikiala Kahalewai wasn't killed by a single blow or kick.

It was "an accumulation of these blows that literally tore his brain apart," Young said.

The altercation began after Kahalewai urinated inside Faumuina's pickup truck, which was parked on Kona Street.

Witnesses said the 280-pound Faumuina, a former Kaimuki High School football player, repeatedly stomped on Kahalewai's head as he lay on the ground.

"He used his feet to kill," Young said.

"There were four or five kicks to the head" as Kahalewai lay "motionless and defenseless on the ground," the prosecutor said.

Defense attorney Howard Luke argued that his client acted in self-defense against drunken aggression from Kahalewai. And the defendant was under extreme distress because the truck that Kahalewai soiled was a memorial to Faumuina's dead father, Luke said.

Luke stressed testimony from defense witnesses who described Faumuina as a gentle man, "a peacemaker."

A co-defendant in the case, John Penitani, pleaded guilty to an assault charge after the trial began.

Reach Jim Dooley at jdooley@honoluluadvertiser.com.