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State v. Limoz4/15/2005
FOR PUBLICATION
Travis Anthony Limoz (Defendant, Appellant or Travis) appeals the August 22, 2002 judgment of the Circuit Court of the First Circuit (circuit court) that convicted him, after a bench trial, of reckless manslaughter, an included offense of the charge of murder in the second degree.
The charge arose out of an incident that occurred during the early morning hours of August 13, 2000, in which the seventeen-year-old Defendant drove his mother's car at Cecil Edward Mosley (Mosley), who ended up splayed across the hood and windshield of the car, whereupon Defendant sped away then screeched to a halt -- dislodging Mosley and causing him to hit his head on the pavement -- then sped away again. Mosley died of his head injuries four days later.
On appeal, Defendant avers that the Family Court of the First Circuit (family court) erred at the hearing on the petition for waiver of the family court's original, exclusive jurisdiction, filed by the State pursuant to Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) ยง 571-22(a) (Supp. 2004), when the family court admitted the police report into evidence without affording Defendant the opportunity to call, confront and cross-examine the percipient witnesses to the offense named in the police report. Defendant also avers that the circuit court committed constitutional error in accepting his waiver of jury trial because the colloquy the circuit court conducted with him was inadequate. We disagree with both of Defendant's averments, and affirm.
I. Background
A. Waiver of Family Court Jurisdiction
In connection with his point of error regarding the waiver of family court jurisdiction, Defendant references the following from the transcript of the November 30, 2000 waiver hearing:
[THE COURT: ]The record should reflect that the Court did have a prehearing discussion with both counsel present with regard to Travis's waiver just this morning. And at that time I was informed by counsel that defense did call certain witnesses which would have been relevant to the underlying violation that -- that Travis is facing.
At that time, because we were unsure when we were going to begin proceeding, I did instruct [defense counsel] to release them. But I would, however, wish to put on record [defense counsel's] intention to call them and the reason therefor and then I can make my finding on record. [Defense counsel]?
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: All right, thank you.
Your Honor, it's my understanding that at some point the State is going to ask the Court to receive, in connection with the hearing, the police report compiled in this case. That report has a number of statements, some of them are handwritten, some of them are transcripts of tape recorded statements, of numerous witnesses who purportedly witnessed the incident in question.
I subpoenaed the following witnesses, Alfred Furtado -- and I believe the Court file will indicate that these subpoenas were returned and these gentlemen were present this morning outside the court -- Alfred Furtado, Ryan Bolosang (phonetic), Jonas Robinson, Courtney Bareng (phonetic), Shawn (phonetic) Decosta, Troy Mendoza, and I believe John Sykes (phonetic) as well. I did have subpoenas out also for David Gibson and Kuulani Lepan (phonetic) although I don't believe that they were served. In any event, those witnesses who did appear, I did release pursuant to the Court's instruction.
THE COURT: Mm-hmm.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL]: And we have this objection. To the extent that the Court is going to receive the report in evidence, it is my understanding, based on my reading of [In re Dinson, 58 Haw. 522, 574 P.2d 1
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