State v. Adam11/26/2001
Defendant-Appellant Richard Louis Adam (Adam) appeals from the April 27, 2000 Judgment entered in the Third Circuit Court, upon a jury's verdict, convicting him of (1) Assault in the Second Degree, Hawaii Revised Statutes (HRS) § 707-711(1)(d) (1993), and (2) Terroristic Threatening in the First Degree, HRS §§ 707-715(1) and 707-716(1)(d) (1993).
Specifically, Adam challenges (1) the February 22, 2000 oral order denying Defendant's Motion in Limine I Re: Evidence of Bias, Interest or Motive of Purported Victim, filed on February 17, 2000, and Defendant's Motion in Limine II Re: Propensity for Violence or Aggression of Victim, filed February 17, 2000; (2) the February 28, 2000 oral order denying Motion in Limine III, filed February 23, 2000; and (3) the April 19, 2000 "Order Denying Defendant's Motion for Judgment Notwithstanding Verdict and Motion for New Trial." We affirm.
BACKGROUND
John Wentworth (Wentworth) testified that he had picked opihi all his life and had picked opihi from the Milolii coastline on numerous occasions in the past. On July 1, 1998, Wentworth decided to pick opihi for the birthday party of the daughter of his girl friend, Denise Santos (Santos). Shortly before noon, Santos drove Wentworth and his cousin, Jason Aki (Aki), to the Milolii area. Santos parked the truck and Wentworth and Aki then climbed down a rocky cliff to get to the ocean and the opihi.
Subsequently, Wentworth climbed back "up a little bit off the shoreline" and while he was "facing toward the land" and "taking a leak" and looking at "a leho shell on the rock" he felt "one big sharp pain on my back, like something went hit me." He then "turned up" and saw Adam "about 20 to 50 feet up" holding a baby in his left hand and a softball-size rock in his right hand and smiling. After Wentworth asked Adam, "What you doing?" Adam threw the second rock "straight direct in front of [Wentworth's] head." Wentworth caught the rock, lost his balance, and fell in the water. Wentworth "got real angry," swam out of the water, climbed the cliff, "went forwards to [Adam's] house where the fence was" and "started calling [Adam] out." Wentworth then took the following actions: " wear, yell, and fly rocks at [Adam], at [Adam's] truck." When one of the rocks hit the back fender of Adam's truck on the driver's side, Adam ran out with a nine millimeter pistol in one hand and the baby in the other. Adam "put [the baby] down on the ground[,]" pointed the gun in Wentworth's direction, and discharged the weapon after it misfired maybe three or four times. Wentworth then turned around, warned his friends, and ran towards his truck. Wentworth sustained injuries to his back from the first rock, a gash on his hand from the second rock, and miscellaneous injuries from running on the a lava. Both Adam and Santos called 911 and reported the incident.
In his testimony, Adam denied going to the edge of the cliff or throwing rocks over the cliff. He stated that he witnessed his dogs go over the cliff, heard yelling from below the cliff, and saw his dogs running back up followed by baseball-sized rocks from below.
A few minutes later, he heard Wentworth yelling, "I'm gonna fucking kill you. I'm gonna fucking kill you," and saw Wentworth with one foot on the fence and "his left hand gripping the top railing" and throwing rocks toward his house. The distance between "the steps where [Adam] took that shot to the fence where Mr. Wentworth was standing" was "75 to 80 feet." The distance "from the truck that Mr. Wentworth hit with the rock and the fence where he was standing" was "35 feet - - 30, 35 feet, maybe even a little more." Seeking to motivate Wentworth to leave, Adam grabbed a gun,
Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Hawaii DUI Attorneys
DUI Lawyers
|