State v. Kamisato
Annotate this Case
Download PDF
NO. 23743 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF HAWAI#I STATE OF HAWAI#I, Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. NANCY KAMISATO, Defendant-Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE SECOND CIRCUIT COURT (CR. NO. 98-0629(2)) (By: SUMMARY DISPOSITION ORDER Moon, C.J., Levinson, Nakayama, Ramil, and Acoba, JJ.) The defendant-appellant Nancy Kamisato appeals from the second circuit court s judgment, the Honorable Shackley F. Raffetto presiding, convicting her of and sentencing her for the offense of theft in the second degree, in violation of Hawai#i Revised Statutes ยง 708-831(1)(b) (Supp. 2000). On appeal, Kamisato contends that the circuit court plainly erred in failing to instruct the jury as follows: testified. The defendant in this case has When a defendant testifies, [her] credibility is to be tested in the same manner as any other witness. Upon carefully reviewing the record and the briefs submitted by the parties and having given due consideration to the arguments advanced and the issues raised, we hold that the circuit court did not plainly err in failing to instruct the jury as Kamisato proposed. Contending that the credibility of the witnesses was the sole issue that had to be decided by the jury, the crux of Kamisato s argument is that, without [her proposed] instruction, the jury could infer that[,] because she had an interest in the outcome [of the case], her testimony would be suspect and therefore not worthy of belief as compared to the other . . . witnesses. However, Kamisato s proposed instruction merely instructed the jury to assess Kamisato s credibility in the same manner as [it would] any other witness. As such, her proposed instruction referred the jury to the circuit court s general instruction concerning the factors that the jury could consider in assessing each witness credibility. That instruction expressly and unambiguously allowed the jury to consider a witness interest in the outcome of the case in determining whether his or her testimony was credible. Kamisato does not challenge the circuit court s general witness credibility instruction, pursuant to which the jury was permitted to assess Kamisato s credibility as a witness in light of her status as the defendant and her interest in not being convicted. Thus, we cannot say that the circuit court s failure to give Kamisato s proposed jury instruction was prejudicial. other words, to the extent that the circuit court erred in In failing specifically to instruct the jury that it should treat Kamisato s testimony in the same manner as any other witness, its error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Therefore, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED that the second circuit court s judgment of conviction and sentence from which the appeal is taken is affirmed. DATED: Honolulu, Hawai#i, January 16, 2002. On the briefs: Linda C.R. Jameson, Deputy Public Defender, for the defendant-appellant Nancy Kamisato Simone C. Polak, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney, for the plaintiff-appellee State of Hawai#i 2
Some case metadata and case summaries were written with the help of AI, which can produce inaccuracies. You should read the full case before relying on it for legal research purposes.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
