California v. Hawara
Annotate this CaseDefendant Munir Mtanews Hawara owned a liquor store. He hired Willis Simmons to burn down a rival liquor store, but Simmons failed. Simmons then subcontracted the job to Randy Ramirez. Ramirez tried to burn down the rival store three times, but he, too, failed. The scheme was exposed when Simmons’s sister contacted police. A jury found defendant guilty on four counts of arson of a structure. On all four counts, state of emergency enhancements were found true. On two counts, accelerant device enhancements were found true. Defendant was sentenced to 11 years 8 months in prison, along with fines, fees, and ancillary orders. On appeal, Defendant contended, among other things, that the prosecutor improperly cross- examined his character witnesses by asking them if it would change their opinion if they “knew” or “learned” about his commission of the crimes; he maintained that the only correct form for this type of cross-examination was to ask if it would have changed their opinion if they “heard” about his commission of the crimes. He also contended his trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance by failing to object to the improper cross-examination. In the published portion of its opinion, the Court of Appeal held a defense character witness who testifies based on his or her own opinion — rather than based solely on the defendant’s reputation — can be asked on cross-examination if he or she knows about the defendant’s bad acts. Alternatively, the Court held any error was harmless, because defendant’s commission of the crimes was amply shown by other evidence. In the unpublished portion of its opinion, the Court concluded that defendant did not show any other error.
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.