State v. Assaye

216 P.3d 1227, 121 Haw. 204, 2009 Haw. LEXIS 239
CourtHawaii Supreme Court
DecidedSeptember 30, 2009
Docket29078
StatusPublished
Cited by54 cases

This text of 216 P.3d 1227 (State v. Assaye) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Hawaii Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Assaye, 216 P.3d 1227, 121 Haw. 204, 2009 Haw. LEXIS 239 (haw 2009).

Opinions

Opinion of the Court by

NAKAYAMA, J.

Petitioner-DefendanN-Appellant, Abiye Assaye (“Assaye”), has applied for a writ of certiorari from the Intermediate Court of Appeals’ (“ICA”) January 13, 2009 summary disposition order affirming the District Court of the First Circuit’s (“trial court’s”)1 judgment convicting Assaye of the offense of excessive speeding, in violation of Hawai'i Revised Statutes (HRS) § 291C-105(a)(l) and/or (a)(2) (Supp.2006).2 In his application for writ of certiorari before this court, As-saye asserts that the ICA gravely erred (1) “in concluding that [Respondent-Plaintiff-Appellee, State of Hawai'i (‘prosecution’),] laid the requisite foundation for the admissibility of the laser gun reading pursuant to State v. Stoa, 112 Hawai'i 260, 265, 145 P.3d 803, 808 (App.2006),” and (2) “by failing to recognize that the [prosecution] did not lay the requisite foundation for admissibility of the laser gun reading as required by State v. Wallace, 80 Hawai'i 382, 910 P.2d 695 (1996), and State v. Manewa, 115 Hawai'i 343, 167 P.3d 336 (2007).” For the following reasons, we reverse the trial court’s February 27, 2008 judgment because the ICA’s decision is obviously inconsistent with both this court’s decision in Manewa and its own decision in State v. Ito, 90 Hawai'i 225, 978 P.2d 191 (App.1999).

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

On February 27, 2008, the prosecution orally charged Assaye with committing the offense of excessive speeding on September 5, 2007, in violation of HRS § 291C-105(a)(l) and/or (a)(2).

At a bench trial held on the same day, Honolulu Police Officer Jeremy Franks (“Officer Franks”) testified that he was assigned “to the night enforcement detail solo bike, motorcycle unit,” and in the evening of September 5, 2007, to “speed enforcement on the H-l Freeway eastbound by the Radford pedestrian overpass.” He testified further that he was equipped with and certified to use a “laser LTI 2020 Ultralight” (“laser gun”), and in the evening of September 5, 2007, used it on a vehicle that was traveling toward his stationary location on the freeway at a rate of speed that he observed to be “faster than the speed of traffic.” Officer Franks testified that he aimed his laser gun at the front of this vehicle and his “laser” gave him “a reading of ninety miles per hour.” Officer Franks testified that the posted speed limit for the stretch of freeway that he was monitoring that evening was fifty-five miles per hour. Officer Franks testified that he then proceeded to conduct a “traffic stop” to issue a citation to the driver of the vehicle, and identified Assaye as the person to whom the citation was issued.

At trial, Officer Franks testified, as follows, with regard to the proper functioning of his laser gun:

Q. Were you equipped with any type of device to measure the speed of vehicles that day?
A. Yes.
Q. What kind of a device was it?
A. The laser LTI 2020 Ultralight.
Q. Okay. Are you certified to use the LTI 2020?
A. Yes.
Q. Who were you certified by?
[206]*206A. My instructor was Sgt. Ryan Nishi-bun.
Q. Okay. And was the certification valid on September 5, 2007?
A. Yes.
Q. And were you instructed in the testing and operating of the device?
A. Yes.
Q. How many hours of instructions did you receive?
A. Four.
Q. Okay. On that day, ... did you test your ultralight 2020 laser gun?
A. Yes, prior to my shift.
Q. Okay. And how did you test the gun?
A I conduct four tests at the police main station. The first test is the self-test. You turn the laser on and the LEDs light up on the screen when you press the trigger. The next test is the display test. You scroll through the test mode button on the laser and it lights up all the LEDs on the screen saying that the display is working properly.
The next test is the scope alignment test. Also scrolled on the laser with the test button. The TT on the screen lights up and you look through the scope and there’s a red dot in the middle of the scope and you press the trigger and wave it over a horizontal and vertical stationary object, and the tone of the laser when you press the trigger changes when you cross over the horizontal and vertical stationary object letting you know that the laser is centered, the scope is centered.
Then the final test is the delta distance test. That’s used by two measuring tool[s], pre-measured points. First point, distance is a hundred and thirty feet. You scroll through the test mode button on the laser and it says D-l, or distance one, you shoot the furthest distance first. It comes out to one-thirty. Then you hit the select button and it goes to D-2, or distance two, and you shoot the closest distance to you which is one-0-five and the difference between that times two equals fifty, and if it’s forty-nine, fifty or fifty-one, then the laser is calibrated and ready to go.
[[Image here]]
Q. And did you do all those tests that day?
A Yes.
Q. And what was the results of those tests?
A It was functional and working properly. No errors, messages or anything like that on the—it was functional.
[DEFENSE COUNSEL:] And your Honor, object as to lack of foundation and—
[[Image here]]
... Your Honor, the testimony that under Maneva, this is not sufficient to show that the laser was properly calibrated and working correctly that day. In the Mane-va case, the situation was a scale, it was an electronic scale that the person, the expert testifying in that case had been trained to use, had used for twenty years.
[[Image here]]
The supreme court said that in Manewa that that evidence should have been suppressed, or—well, that evidence should not have been admitted given that the, that witness could not actually lay the proper foundation that that particular device was properly calibrated and working correctly that day. Given all that, and as in that case, the scale was an essential element because that was about the weight of amount of drugs.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
216 P.3d 1227, 121 Haw. 204, 2009 Haw. LEXIS 239, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-assaye-haw-2009.