State v. Samoa

NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

Electronically Filed
Intermediate Court of Appeals
CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX
24-JUN-2026
07:56 AM
Dkt. 109 SO

NO. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX

IN THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS

OF THE STATE OF HAWAI#I

STATE OF HAWAI#I, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
WESLEY SAMOA, Defendant-Appellee,
and
NATISHA TAUTALATASI, Defendant-Appellant

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE THIRD CIRCUIT
(CASE NO. 3CPC-XX-XXXXXXX)

SUMMARY DISPOSITION ORDER
(By: Nakasone, Chief Judge, Leonard and Hiraoka, JJ.)

Natisha Tautalatasi appeals from the Judgment of
Conviction and Sentence as to Natisha Tautalatasi entered by the
Circuit Court of the Third Circuit.1 We affirm.
Tautalatasi, Wesley Samoa, and Lama Lauvao were charged
with Attempted Murder in the Second Degree. State v. Lauvao,
No. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX, 2022 WL 4114487 (Haw. App. Sep. 9, 2022)
(mem. op.). We described the facts of the case:

This case arises out of a September 17, 2018 incident,
captured on a surveillance video, in which the complainant,
John Kanui (Kanui), a security guard at the Kona Seaside
Hotel (Kona Seaside) in Kailua-Kona, Hawai#i, sustained
severe life-threatening injuries during an altercation
involving Defendants-Appellants and became quadriplegic as a
result of those injuries.

Id. at *1.

1
The Honorable Robert D.S. Kim presided.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

A jury found Tautalatasi and Samoa guilty as charged;
Lauvao was convicted of Assault in the First Degree. Id. They
appealed. We vacated for trial error, and remanded for a new
trial. Id. at *2.
On March 14, 2023, a grand jury indicted Tautalatasi
and Samoa for Attempted Murder in the Second Degree. The second
trial began on January 18, 2024. The jury found Tautalatasi
guilty of the included offense of Assault in the Second Degree.
The Judgment was entered on June 14, 2024. This appeal followed.
Tautalatasi states three points of error. She contends
the trial court erred by: (1) giving an incorrect self-defense
jury instruction; (2) giving the included offense instructions
separately and in the wrong order; and (3) denying the motion to
suppress her statements made to Hawai#i Police Department officer
Matthew Taira, and conditionally allowing use of her testimony
from the first trial for impeachment.
(1) Tautalatasi requested a jury instruction on self-
defense based on HAWJIC 7.01A. It read, in part:

The use of deadly force upon or toward another person is
justified if the defendant reasonably believes that deadly
force is immediately necessary to protect himself/herself on
the present occasion against [death] [serious bodily injury]
[kidnapping] [rape] [forcible sodomy].

(Emphasis added.)
The jury was instructed:

The use of deadly force upon or toward another person is
justified if the defendant reasonably believes that deadly
force is immediately necessary to protect themself on the
present occasion against death or serious bodily injury.

(Emphasis added.)
Tautalatasi argues the instruction erroneously included
the word "immediately," because the word is not contained in
Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 703-304(2) (2014). The
instruction was proposed by Tautalatasi. But "the duty to
properly instruct the jury lies with the trial court[.]" State
v. Reis, 155 Hawai#i 452, 454, 566 P.3d 356, 358 (App. 2025),
cert. rejected, No. SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX, 2025 WL 1721499 (Haw.
June 20, 2025).

2
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

We addressed Tautalatasi's argument in Reis. There,
the jury was instructed on deadly-force self-defense based on
HAWJIC 7.01A. We held "that the self-defense instruction given
to the jury misstated the plain language of HRS § 703-304(2), and
was contrary to legislative intent." Id. at 456, 566 P.3d at
360. The trial court erred by giving Tautalatasi's requested
self-defense jury instruction.
"Once instructional error is demonstrated, we will
vacate, without regard to whether timely objection was made, if
there is a reasonable possibility that the error contributed to
the defendant's conviction." Id. at 457, 566 P.3d at 361
(cleaned up). The State argues the instructional error was
harmless.
The jury was shown State's Exhibit 13b, a Kona Seaside
security video. It showed the encounter between Tautalatasi,
Samoa, Lauvao, another woman, and Kanui. At 12:33:31 a.m., Kanui
is lying on the ground on his left side, motionless, after being
beaten. Tautalatasi's attorney published the video and
questioned her:

Q. Natisha, what are you doing in this part now, a
little after af -- a little before 12:34 a.m.?

A. Um, I’m gathering -- looking for my slipper.

Q. Natisha, I’m going to pause the video 12:34 and
28 seconds.

You’re standing by the golf cart?
A. Yes.

Q. Leaning against it?
A. Yes.

Kanui hasn't moved. He's nonresponsive.

Q. Let me play it forward.

(At which time the video was played in court.)

At 12:34:28 a.m. Tautalatasi walks to Kanui, who
remains motionless on the ground. She kicks him once in the
head, gets on her knees, and punches him in the head several
times. Kanui ends up on his back from the force of Tautalatasi's

3
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

blows. Tautalatasi doesn't stop punching Kanui, who remains
motionless, until she is pulled off him at 12:34:48 a.m. The
examination continues:

Q. Showing paused video at 12:34 and 53 seconds.
After you were standing by the golf cart did you hit
Mr. Kenui [sic] again?

A. I did.

Q. Punched him?
A. Yes.
Q. Kicked him?
A. Yes.

Q. Were you doing that to defend yourself?

A. No.

After seeing the video and hearing Tautalatasi's
testimony, no reasonable jury could have found she acted in self-
defense. The instructional error was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt. Cf. Bellamy v. City & County of Honolulu, ___
Hawai#i ___, ___, ___ P.3d ___, ___, 2026 WL 1623116, at *8 (June
5, 2026) (summary judgment affirmed where supreme court
determined, on de novo review, that "a reasonable jury" could not
infer or conclude that plaintiff's declaration, which was
directly contradicted by video from police officers' body-worn
cameras, was true).
(2) Tautalatasi requested jury instructions on
included offenses. Her proposed instructions combined Attempted
Assault in the First Degree and Reckless Endangering in the
Second Degree. The trial court gave a separate instruction for
each included offense. Tautalatasi argues the instructions for
"Attempted Assault in the First Degree and Reckless Endangering
in the Second Degree should have been given as alternative
included offenses of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, in
the same jury instruction."
Tautalatasi's requested jury instruction combining
included offenses was potentially confusing. The trial court
instead separately instructed the jury on each included offense,

4
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

in descending order of severity. The verdict form listed the
included offenses separately, in descending order of severity.
The supreme court has held:

We cannot fault the trial court's instruction to the
jury to first consider whether or not the defendant was
guilty of the charged offense and if it found the offense
had not been proved, to then proceed to the lesser offense.
If a lesser-included offense instruction is given, it is
customary to tell the jury to consider first the greater
offense, and to move on to consideration of the lesser
offense only if they have some reasonable doubt as to guilt
of the greater offense.

State v. Pinero, 70 Haw. 509, 524–25, 778 P.2d 704, 714 (1989)
(cleaned up).
The trial court did not err by instructing the jury
separately on each included offense, in descending order of
severity.
(3) Tautalatasi moved to suppress statements she gave
to Officer Taira, and her testimony from the first trial. The
motion gave these examples of her testimony from her first trial,
which she attributed to being ineffectively assisted by her
attorney:

Like, who's that crazy lady on the screen?
We’ve had our troubles in the past, but, you know, that's
what made us who we are today[.]

We made our mistakes in life, and we paid for the
consequences previous.

I've been almost 10 months sitting incarcerated to this day,
and I didn’t even know that that was happening.
We did something where somebody got hurt, and he's still
alive and well at home.

I've been haunted by the first time watching it.
Yes, very disturbing.
Why did I get so nuts like that, get so crazy, you know?

[H]ow I can get that angry, how I couldn't be responsible
enough to take that what I shouldn't took that last drink
that I shouldn't have when I didn't feel good already.

Q: Do you feel like you owe apologies for – for your
conduct in this case?

A: I — course I do. And . . . other than an apology is
just to ask for forgiveness[.]

5
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

The trial court denied the motion to suppress
Tautalatasi's statements to Officer Taira, and granted the motion
to suppress her first trial testimony "based on the state's
affirmative representation that it would not present her
testimony in its case-in-chief." But the court also ruled that
"the prior trial testimony of Ms. Tautalatasi may be used for
impeachment purposes if she elects to testify in the defense's
case-in-chief."
Tautalatasi argues "the Circuit Court's error was
two-fold: not only was Ms. Tautalatasi subjected to unlawful
custodial interrogation, she testified at the prior trial without
effective assistance of counsel, rendering the waiver of her
right to remain silent invalid." We need not decide whether the
trial court erred, or whether she received ineffective assistance
of counsel, because any error was harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt.
The State called Officer Taira as a witness. He
testified on direct examination that Tautalatasi said she did not
know how she obtained the injury on her forehead. No testimony
about her other statements was elicited. On cross-examination,
Tautalatasi's attorney asked Officer Taira: "You actually had a
bit of a more of after conversation with her than that; correct?"
Defense counsel then asked Officer Taira a series of
leading questions about what Tautalatasi told him, including
"that she couldn't remember how she got the bruises."
Tautalatasi herself elicited evidence about her statements to
Officer Taira. Any error in denying her motion to suppress was
thus harmless.
As to her prior testimony, she concedes that she "did,
in fact, testify in her own defense — and the State did not use
her prior trial testimony to impeach her." She argues: "The
specter of impeachment with prior testimony that was damaging to
her case because of prior counsel's errors created a chilling
effect on Ms. Tautalatasi's subsequent testimony, and the
appropriate remedy should have been suppression." She did not
make an offer of proof during the hearing on her motion to
suppress or at trial, nor does she argue on appeal what her

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

testimony would have been had she not been subject to impeachment
by her prior testimony. Any error in conditioning the grant of
the motion to suppress Tautalatasi's testimony in the first trial
was thus harmless or moot. State v. Fukusaku, 85 Hawai#i 462,
475, 946 P.2d 32, 45 (1997) (issue of whether the trial court
should have suppressed the defendant's statements was moot
because the statements were never introduced at trial).
The June 14, 2024 Judgment of Conviction and Sentence
as to Natisha Tautalatasi is affirmed.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawai#i, June 24, 2026.

On the briefs:
/s/ Karen T. Nakasone
Randall K. Hironaka, Chief Judge
for Defendant-Appellant
Natisha Tautalatasi. /s/ Katherine G. Leonard
Associate Judge
Kelden B.A. Waltjen,
Prosecuting Attorney, /s/ Keith K. Hiraoka
Charles E. Murray III, Associate Judge
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney,
for Plaintiff-Appellee
State of Hawai#i.

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NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

Electronically Filed
Intermediate Court of Appeals
CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX
24-JUN-2026
07:56 AM
Dkt. 109 SO

NO. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX

IN THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS

OF THE STATE OF HAWAI#I

STATE OF HAWAI#I, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
WESLEY SAMOA, Defendant-Appellee,
and
NATISHA TAUTALATASI, Defendant-Appellant

APPEAL FROM THE CIRCUIT COURT OF THE THIRD CIRCUIT
(CASE NO. 3CPC-XX-XXXXXXX)

SUMMARY DISPOSITION ORDER
(By: Nakasone, Chief Judge, Leonard and Hiraoka, JJ.)

Natisha Tautalatasi appeals from the Judgment of
Conviction and Sentence as to Natisha Tautalatasi entered by the
Circuit Court of the Third Circuit.1 We affirm.
Tautalatasi, Wesley Samoa, and Lama Lauvao were charged
with Attempted Murder in the Second Degree. State v. Lauvao,
No. CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX, 2022 WL 4114487 (Haw. App. Sep. 9, 2022)
(mem. op.). We described the facts of the case:

This case arises out of a September 17, 2018 incident,
captured on a surveillance video, in which the complainant,
John Kanui (Kanui), a security guard at the Kona Seaside
Hotel (Kona Seaside) in Kailua-Kona, Hawai#i, sustained
severe life-threatening injuries during an altercation
involving Defendants-Appellants and became quadriplegic as a
result of those injuries.

Id. at *1.

1
The Honorable Robert D.S. Kim presided.
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

A jury found Tautalatasi and Samoa guilty as charged;
Lauvao was convicted of Assault in the First Degree. Id. They
appealed. We vacated for trial error, and remanded for a new
trial. Id. at *2.
On March 14, 2023, a grand jury indicted Tautalatasi
and Samoa for Attempted Murder in the Second Degree. The second
trial began on January 18, 2024. The jury found Tautalatasi
guilty of the included offense of Assault in the Second Degree.
The Judgment was entered on June 14, 2024. This appeal followed.
Tautalatasi states three points of error. She contends
the trial court erred by: (1) giving an incorrect self-defense
jury instruction; (2) giving the included offense instructions
separately and in the wrong order; and (3) denying the motion to
suppress her statements made to Hawai#i Police Department officer
Matthew Taira, and conditionally allowing use of her testimony
from the first trial for impeachment.
(1) Tautalatasi requested a jury instruction on self-
defense based on HAWJIC 7.01A. It read, in part:

The use of deadly force upon or toward another person is
justified if the defendant reasonably believes that deadly
force is immediately necessary to protect himself/herself on
the present occasion against [death] [serious bodily injury]
[kidnapping] [rape] [forcible sodomy].

(Emphasis added.)
The jury was instructed:

The use of deadly force upon or toward another person is
justified if the defendant reasonably believes that deadly
force is immediately necessary to protect themself on the
present occasion against death or serious bodily injury.

(Emphasis added.)
Tautalatasi argues the instruction erroneously included
the word "immediately," because the word is not contained in
Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 703-304(2) (2014). The
instruction was proposed by Tautalatasi. But "the duty to
properly instruct the jury lies with the trial court[.]" State
v. Reis, 155 Hawai#i 452, 454, 566 P.3d 356, 358 (App. 2025),
cert. rejected, No. SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX, 2025 WL 1721499 (Haw.
June 20, 2025).

2
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

We addressed Tautalatasi's argument in Reis. There,
the jury was instructed on deadly-force self-defense based on
HAWJIC 7.01A. We held "that the self-defense instruction given
to the jury misstated the plain language of HRS § 703-304(2), and
was contrary to legislative intent." Id. at 456, 566 P.3d at
360. The trial court erred by giving Tautalatasi's requested
self-defense jury instruction.
"Once instructional error is demonstrated, we will
vacate, without regard to whether timely objection was made, if
there is a reasonable possibility that the error contributed to
the defendant's conviction." Id. at 457, 566 P.3d at 361
(cleaned up). The State argues the instructional error was
harmless.
The jury was shown State's Exhibit 13b, a Kona Seaside
security video. It showed the encounter between Tautalatasi,
Samoa, Lauvao, another woman, and Kanui. At 12:33:31 a.m., Kanui
is lying on the ground on his left side, motionless, after being
beaten. Tautalatasi's attorney published the video and
questioned her:

Q. Natisha, what are you doing in this part now, a
little after af -- a little before 12:34 a.m.?

A. Um, I’m gathering -- looking for my slipper.

Q. Natisha, I’m going to pause the video 12:34 and
28 seconds.

You’re standing by the golf cart?
A. Yes.

Q. Leaning against it?
A. Yes.

Kanui hasn't moved. He's nonresponsive.

Q. Let me play it forward.

(At which time the video was played in court.)

At 12:34:28 a.m. Tautalatasi walks to Kanui, who
remains motionless on the ground. She kicks him once in the
head, gets on her knees, and punches him in the head several
times. Kanui ends up on his back from the force of Tautalatasi's

3
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

blows. Tautalatasi doesn't stop punching Kanui, who remains
motionless, until she is pulled off him at 12:34:48 a.m. The
examination continues:

Q. Showing paused video at 12:34 and 53 seconds.
After you were standing by the golf cart did you hit
Mr. Kenui [sic] again?
A. I did.

Q. Punched him?
A. Yes.
Q. Kicked him?

A. Yes.
Q. Were you doing that to defend yourself?

A. No.

After seeing the video and hearing Tautalatasi's
testimony, no reasonable jury could have found she acted in self-
defense. The instructional error was harmless beyond a
reasonable doubt. Cf. Bellamy v. City & County of Honolulu, ___
Hawai#i ___, ___, ___ P.3d ___, ___, 2026 WL 1623116, at *8 (June
5, 2026) (summary judgment affirmed where supreme court
determined, on de novo review, that "a reasonable jury" could not
infer or conclude that plaintiff's declaration, which was
directly contradicted by video from police officers' body-worn
cameras, was true).
(2) Tautalatasi requested jury instructions on
included offenses. Her proposed instructions combined Attempted
Assault in the First Degree and Reckless Endangering in the
Second Degree. The trial court gave a separate instruction for
each included offense. Tautalatasi argues the instructions for
"Attempted Assault in the First Degree and Reckless Endangering
in the Second Degree should have been given as alternative
included offenses of Attempted Murder in the Second Degree, in
the same jury instruction."
Tautalatasi's requested jury instruction combining
included offenses was potentially confusing. The trial court
instead separately instructed the jury on each included offense,

4
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

in descending order of severity. The verdict form listed the
included offenses separately, in descending order of severity.
The supreme court has held:

We cannot fault the trial court's instruction to the
jury to first consider whether or not the defendant was
guilty of the charged offense and if it found the offense
had not been proved, to then proceed to the lesser offense.
If a lesser-included offense instruction is given, it is
customary to tell the jury to consider first the greater
offense, and to move on to consideration of the lesser
offense only if they have some reasonable doubt as to guilt
of the greater offense.

State v. Pinero, 70 Haw. 509, 524–25, 778 P.2d 704, 714 (1989)
(cleaned up).
The trial court did not err by instructing the jury
separately on each included offense, in descending order of
severity.
(3) Tautalatasi moved to suppress statements she gave
to Officer Taira, and her testimony from the first trial. The
motion gave these examples of her testimony from her first trial,
which she attributed to being ineffectively assisted by her
attorney:

Like, who's that crazy lady on the screen?

We’ve had our troubles in the past, but, you know, that's
what made us who we are today[.]

We made our mistakes in life, and we paid for the
consequences previous.

I've been almost 10 months sitting incarcerated to this day,
and I didn’t even know that that was happening.
We did something where somebody got hurt, and he's still
alive and well at home.
I've been haunted by the first time watching it.

Yes, very disturbing.
Why did I get so nuts like that, get so crazy, you know?
[H]ow I can get that angry, how I couldn't be responsible
enough to take that what I shouldn't took that last drink
that I shouldn't have when I didn't feel good already.
Q: Do you feel like you owe apologies for – for your
conduct in this case?
A: I — course I do. And . . . other than an apology is
just to ask for forgiveness[.]

5
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

The trial court denied the motion to suppress
Tautalatasi's statements to Officer Taira, and granted the motion
to suppress her first trial testimony "based on the state's
affirmative representation that it would not present her
testimony in its case-in-chief." But the court also ruled that
"the prior trial testimony of Ms. Tautalatasi may be used for
impeachment purposes if she elects to testify in the defense's
case-in-chief."
Tautalatasi argues "the Circuit Court's error was
two-fold: not only was Ms. Tautalatasi subjected to unlawful
custodial interrogation, she testified at the prior trial without
effective assistance of counsel, rendering the waiver of her
right to remain silent invalid." We need not decide whether the
trial court erred, or whether she received ineffective assistance
of counsel, because any error was harmless beyond a reasonable
doubt.
The State called Officer Taira as a witness. He
testified on direct examination that Tautalatasi said she did not
know how she obtained the injury on her forehead. No testimony
about her other statements was elicited. On cross-examination,
Tautalatasi's attorney asked Officer Taira: "You actually had a
bit of a more of after conversation with her than that; correct?"
Defense counsel then asked Officer Taira a series of
leading questions about what Tautalatasi told him, including
"that she couldn't remember how she got the bruises."
Tautalatasi herself elicited evidence about her statements to
Officer Taira. Any error in denying her motion to suppress was
thus harmless.
As to her prior testimony, she concedes that she "did,
in fact, testify in her own defense — and the State did not use
her prior trial testimony to impeach her." She argues: "The
specter of impeachment with prior testimony that was damaging to
her case because of prior counsel's errors created a chilling
effect on Ms. Tautalatasi's subsequent testimony, and the
appropriate remedy should have been suppression." She did not
make an offer of proof during the hearing on her motion to
suppress or at trial, nor does she argue on appeal what her

6
NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST'S HAWAI#I REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER

testimony would have been had she not been subject to impeachment
by her prior testimony. Any error in conditioning the grant of
the motion to suppress Tautalatasi's testimony in the first trial
was thus harmless or moot. State v. Fukusaku, 85 Hawai#i 462,
475, 946 P.2d 32, 45 (1997) (issue of whether the trial court
should have suppressed the defendant's statements was moot
because the statements were never introduced at trial).
The June 14, 2024 Judgment of Conviction and Sentence
as to Natisha Tautalatasi is affirmed.
DATED: Honolulu, Hawai#i, June 24, 2026.

On the briefs:
/s/ Karen T. Nakasone
Randall K. Hironaka, Chief Judge
for Defendant-Appellant
Natisha Tautalatasi. /s/ Katherine G. Leonard
Associate Judge
Kelden B.A. Waltjen,
Prosecuting Attorney, /s/ Keith K. Hiraoka
Charles E. Murray III, Associate Judge
Deputy Prosecuting Attorney,
for Plaintiff-Appellee
State of Hawai#i.

7