Honolulu (AP) – a native Hawaiian man who was convicted of a crime of hate A white man must be sent against a white man, he ruled on Thursday a United States Appeal Court, and the result could be more years in prison.
Kaulana Alo-Konohi was sentenced to six and a half years in 2023 by a judge in Honolulu after A jury was found He and another native Hawaiian man.
The jury found that Alo-Kaonohi and Levi Aki Jr. They were motivated by Christopher Kunzelman’s career when they hit, kicked and used a shovel to beat him in 2014 to try to move to their remote village in Maui.
Alo-Kaonohi appealed the sentence, and prosecutors attracted themselves, challenging the judge’s conclusion that he could not apply the crime of hatred to the sentence.
The 9th Court of the United States Appeal Circuit was also ruled on Thursday to affirm Alo-Kaonohi’s conviction.
It was not clear exactly the time Alo-Kaonohi could get, but based on sentence guidelines and the judge’s previous sentence, it could be up to an additional three years, Alexander Silvert, a federal defender retired to Honolulu, was not involved in the case.
Alo-Kaonohi’s lawyers and prosecutors did not immediately respond to the emails seeking comments on the sentence.
According to court records, Aki’s call, along with the junction of the AKI sentence of about four years, were voluntarily rejected.
Kunzelman’s wife Lori Kunzelman told AP on Thursday that he is happy that prosecutors would push himself for a longer sentence.
The Kunzelmans purchased a seafront house, which was a $ 175,000 view, because they wanted to leave Arizona after Lori Kunzelman’s multiple sclerosis diagnosis.
“We had on vacation in Maui Year after year, dear, dear, dear, Maui,” he said, adding that they saw the house as an affordable opportunity that her husband could fix.
She said the beating of her husband “He destroyed my marriage” and his brain injuries led them to go through a divorce. She said her husband was traveling to Europe and was not available to comment on the sentence.
They continue to owe the property, he said, and they do not know what to do with it. “Families there will not allow anyone to step on this property,” he said. “There is so much animosity.”
The case highlighted the struggles among native Hawaiians who are determined not to have their erased culture and people moving to the Islands without knowing or considering their nuanced racial history and dynamics.
The central case of the case was the use of the word, “Haole”, a Hawaiian word with meanings that include foreigners and white people. Dennis Kunzelman testified that men called him “Haole” in a derogatory manner.
Aki and Alo-Konohi lawyers said it was not the Kunzelman race that caused them, but their attitude and disrespectful.
According to Kenneth Lawson, the co -director of the organization’s organization. He intends to defend that an ineffective defense did not present to the jury the story of the word “Haole” in Hawaii and to show that it is not a derogatory term.
“I don’t think it’s a hate crime,” Lawson said.
He also said that the defense should have called witnesses of white and non -Hawaiian residents who would have testified to live in the village without racial problems.
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