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State v. Samonte11/26/1996
OPINION OF THE COURT BY NAKAYAMA, J.
At the Conclusion of his third jury trial, defendant-appellant Lael Samonte (Samonte) was found guilty of attempted manslaughter by reckless conduct in violation of Hawai'i Revised Statutes (HRS) § 705-500 (1985) and HRS § 707-702(1)(a) (1993), attempted murder in the first degree in violation of HRS § 705-500 and HRS § 707-701(1)(b) (1993), felon in possession of a firearm in violation of HRS § 134-7(b) (1985), and felon in possession of ammunition in violation of HRS § 134-7(b). On appeal, Samonte raises forty-seven points of error through his opening brief and supplemental brief, and after reviewing all forty-seven points of error, we directly address the following seven points in this opinion: (1) Samonte's motion to dismiss for violation of Hawai'i Rule of Penal Procedure (HRPP) Rule 48; (2) the use of a partially anonymous jury; (3) alleged jury taint; (4) the State of Hawai'i's use of an expert witness with respect to firearms and ammunition; (5) the trial court's admission into evidence of a redacted judgment document containing one of Samonte's previous felony convictions resulting from his plea of nolo contendere; (6) Samonte's conviction for attempted manslaughter by reckless conduct; and (7) Samonte's sentence. We affirm the trial court's denial of Samonte's motion to dismiss for violation of HRPP Rule 48, we affirm Samonte's conviction and sentence for the attempted murder in the first degree of Police Officer Herman Cauton, we vacate and remand Samonte's conviction for the lesser included offense of the "attempted manslaughter by reason of reckless conduct" of Anita Ancheta and Glenn Ancheta, we vacate Samonte's two twenty-year imprisonment terms for felon in possession of a firearm and felon in possession of ammunition and remand for resentencing, and we affirm all of the trial court's rulings with respect to the remaining issues in Samonte's forty-seven points of error.
I. BACKGROUND
On January 4, 1989, plaintiff-appellee State of Hawai'i (prosecution) indicted Samonte for the following offenses: two counts of attempted murder in the first degree; three counts of attempted murder in the second degree; one count of reckless endangering in the second degree; two counts of kidnapping; one count of felon in possession of a firearm; one count of felon in possession of ammunition; and one count of assault in the third degree. On April 1, 1991, a jury found Samonte guilty of two counts of attempted murder in the first degree, two counts of unlawful imprisonment in the second degree, felon in possession of a firearm, and felon in possession of ammunition. By the time Samonte was sentenced he had been represented in turn by four different attorneys due to various reasons. The trial court sentenced Samonte to the following: two concurrent terms of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for the two counts of attempted murder in the first degree; one year imprisonment for each of the two counts of unlawful imprisonment in the second degree; ten years imprisonment for felon in possession of a firearm, with a mandatory minimum term of three years and four months; ten years imprisonment for felon in possession of ammunition, with a mandatory minimum term of three years and four months. All terms were to run concurrently. However, on appeal in Supreme Court of Hawai'i Case Number 157200, we issued an order on July 16, 1992, vacating and remanding Samonte's judgment of conviction for a new trial pursuant to our holding in State v. Echineque, 73 Haw. 100,
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