‘Where’s The Hammer?’ Hawaii Prosecutors Dodged Public Discipline For 40 Years Despite Misconduct Prosecutors sometimes cross the line. But for a host of reasons, the Hawaii Supreme Court does not sanction them.
Blamed for a 2009 Chinatown murder he says he didn’t commit, Pasene went through three trials. The first two ended in mistrials after jurors couldn’t agree on a verdict. At a third trial in 2014, he was convicted and sentenced to life behind bars.
But a decade after the murder, in 2019, the Hawaii Supreme Court threw out Pasene’s conviction, saying it was tainted by prosecutorial misconduct.
In its opinion, the Supreme Court said prosecutor Rodney Veary displayed a “persistent failure” to abide by legal and ethical standards in the case.
