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Thread: Miti Maugaotega, Jr. Sentenced to LWOP in 2010 AZ Prison Murder of Bronson Nunuha, 26

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    Miti Maugaotega, Jr. Sentenced to LWOP in 2010 AZ Prison Murder of Bronson Nunuha, 26





    September 4, 2010

    Third Hawaii inmate faces death penalty in Arizona

    Mahina Uli Silva, 21, allegedly killed a fellow prisoner from the Big Island.

    A third Hawaii inmate serving time in an Arizona prison faces the death penalty after allegedly killing a fellow inmate during an argument in June.

    Mahina Uli Silva, 21, was indicted by a Pinal County grand jury yesterday for allegedly strangling his cellmate from Hawaii, Clifford Medina, 23, on June 8. Medina was found unresponsive in the cell he shared with Silva at Saguarao Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz.

    Clayton Frank, director of the state Department of Public Safety, said his office was informed of the indictment yesterday.

    Frank said Silva was sent to prison in 2006 after being convicted for burglary, theft and robbery. He is eligible for parole in October 2011.

    Silva is the third inmate from Hawaii facing capital crime charges.

    The other two are Miti Maugaotega Jr., 24, who is serving a life sentence for first-degree attempted murder for the June 2003 shooting of Punchbowl resident Eric Kawamoto; and Micah Kanahele, 29, who is serving two 20-year sentences for the October 2003 shooting deaths of Greg Morishima at his Aiea home and Guylan Nuuhiwa in a Pearl City parking lot a week later.

    Maugaotega and Kanahele were indicted earlier this year for the stabbing death of fellow inmate Bronson Nunuha, 26, who died Feb. 18.

    Frank said the two are expected to stand trial in Arizona this month.

    The three are the first to face capital punishment for a crime committed in a private prison on the mainland since Hawaii started housing inmates out of state in 1995.

    Hawaii, which abolished capital punishment in 1957, is one of 11 states and the District of Columbia that do not have the death penalty.

    Maugaotega, Kanahele and Silva are among the 1,871 male Hawaii inmates at Saguaro, a 1,897-bed prison owned by Corrections Corp. of America.

    Frank said an internal investigation into Medina's death by his staff hasn't turned up any major problems or procedures that need to be changed at the private prison.

    He said that Medina and Silva are both from the Pahoa area on the Big Island.

    "There is no indication of bad blood between the two," Frank said.

    http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/hawaiinews/20100904_third_hawaii_inmate_faces_death_penalty_i n_arizona.html

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    Abercrombie pledges isle inmates' return

    Gov. Neil Abercrombie promised swift action to bring back all Hawaii inmates serving sentences in mainland prisons in light of a new lawsuit alleging their mistreatment by guards at an Arizona facility.

    "I intend to work as quickly as I can to bring all prisoners back," Abercrombie said yesterday at a news conference in his office. "I don't want to send anybody out of the state."

    Abercrombie this month named Jodie Maesaki-Hirata, acting warden of the Waiawa Correctional Facility, as head of the Department of Public Safety and said yesterday he would need more time to put together the team to examine the problem.

    "I will be working with the Department of Public Safety and with the Judiciary and with the Legislature to forge a comprehensive and integrated program to deal with the question of incarceration," he said.

    Kat Brady, coordinator for the Community Alliance on Prisons, applauded Abercrombie's plan, saying most of the state's inmates are nonviolent offenders or qualify for minimum security.

    "They should be back in Hawaii preparing to successfully re-enter their communities," she said. "Nobody can successfully re-enter from Arizona.

    "To me, they've got to come back to Hawaii with a year or two left on their sentences to get in touch with their families and that kind of thing."

    The Circuit Court lawsuit was filed this week on behalf of 18 island inmates at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Ariz., a 1,897-bed prison owned by Corrections Corp. of America.

    Saguaro is home to about 1,800 male inmates from Hawaii. About 50 more are at a separate CCA prison in Arizona.

    The lawsuit filed this week by Honolulu attorneys Michael Green and John Rapp alleges inmates were abused and their families in Hawaii threatened in retaliation for a guard being injured while trying to break up a fight.

    Inmates were "beaten and assaulted, including by having their heads banged on tables while they were stripped of their underwear and while their hands were handcuffed behind their backs," according to the lawsuit. Guards also threatened to harm the inmates' families, saying they had all of their emergency contact information and knew where to find them, the complaint states.

    The lawsuit names CCA, the state of Hawaii and the state's contract monitor, John Ioane, as defendants.

    The Saguaro facility has come under scrutiny before.

    Earlier this year, the public safety department sent a team to examine practices at the site after deaths of two Hawaii inmates in February and June. Three inmates, all from Hawaii, have been charged in the deaths and could face the death penalty if convicted in Arizona.

    The lawsuit alleges the latest mistreatment occurred in July.

    Hawaii spends about $61 million a year to house male inmates on the mainland because there is not enough space for them in prisons here. Last year, after female inmates from Hawaii alleged widespread sexual abuse by guards and employees at a CCA facility in Kentucky, the state pulled all 168 of them from the prison and brought them back to the islands to serve their time.

    Former Gov. Linda Lingle this year vetoed a bill that called for a financial and management audit of the state's contract to house prisoners at Saguaro, saying the measure would force the auditor to go beyond her duties and make a policy judgment about whether the state should continue to send prisoners to the mainland.

    Abercrombie called the policy of sending prisoners away "dysfunctional."

    "It costs money. It costs lives. It costs communities," he said. "It destroys families. It is dysfunctional all the way around -- socially, economically, politically and morally.

    "We want to do a lot more in the way of intervention. We want to do a lot more in the way of programs."

    http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/h...es_return.html

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    Death Penalty Sought In Arizona Prison Murder

    BY JIM DOOLEY
    The Hawaii Reporter

    Arizona prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for two Hawaii prison inmates charged with murdering another prisoner from Hawaii while all three were incarcerated in a privately-run prison in Arizona.

    Family members of the murdered man, Bronson Nunuha, yesterday sued Hawaii officials and the Corrections Corp. of America, operator of the Arizona prison, Saguaro Correction Center, alleging that their negligence contributed to Nunuha’s death.

    Court records filed here and in Arizona show that the two men charged with murdering Nunuha, Miti Maugaotega Jr., 26, and Micah Kanahele, 31, are facing execution if convicted in Pinal County Superior Court.

    Pinal County Attorney James Walsh said in court papers that the crime was committed “in an especially heinous, cruel or depraved manner.”

    According to the lawsuit filed yesterday, Nunuha was stabbed 140 times and the initials of his assailants’ prison gang were carved into his chest.

    Other factors which Walsh said justify the death penalty include:

    The murder was committed inside a prison.
    The murder was connected to a “criminal syndicate.”
    The murder was “committed in a cold, calculated manner without pretense of moral or legal justification.”

    Nunuha, 26, had served more than four years of a five-year sentence for burglary and property damage.

    Maugaotega and Kanahale were serving life sentences for murder and other violent crimes. Hawaii, which has no death penalty, pays Corrections Corp. of America some $10 million annually to house up to 1,800 inmates at its Arizona prisons.

    Corrections Corp. of America and Hawaii state officials have denied liability for Nunuha's death.

    Several months after Nunuha was murdered in February 2010, another Hawaii inmate, Clifford Medina, 23, was strangled to death in his Saguaro cell.

    The assailant was his cellmate, Mahina Silva, now 23, also from Hawaii. Prosecutors did not seek the death penalty for Silva, who pleaded guilty in the case last year, according to Arizona records.

    http://www.hawaiireporter.com/death-...son-murder/123

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    February 16, 2012

    HRDC lawsuit filed over Hawaii prisoner murdered in mainland prison


    The Maui News and The Associated Press

    The family of a murdered 26-year-old Paia man is suing the state and the company that ran the private Arizona prison where he was held, alleging the defendants failed to protect him while he was incarcerated.

    Bronson Nunuha was stabbed more than 140 times by other prisoners and found dead in his cell Feb. 18, 2010, at Saguaro Correctional Facility in Eloy, according to the lawsuit filed Wednesday in 1st Circuit Court in Honolulu.

    Along with the state, the lawsuit names Corrections Corporation of America, which ran the prison.

    "Bronson's death was senseless and preventable," said attorney Kenneth Walczak, who represents Nunuha's family along with the Human Rights Defense Center and the ACLU of Hawai'i. "The officials who failed to prevent that death and who violated the safety rules designed to protect him must be held accountable."

    Nunuha's mother, Davina Waialae, said her family has not been able to find closure in her son's death.

    "It's still hard for my family," she said during a news conference on the lawsuit. "My grandson has to grow up without a dad."

    Nunuha's 7-year-old son lives on Maui.

    Nunuha was serving a five-year prison term for burglaries of Paia businesses in 2005. He was nine months away from being released when he was forced to share housing with extremely violent, gang-affiliated prisoners in the same unit, according to the lawsuit.

    The lawsuit alleges that the state agreed to and tolerated insufficient staffing levels at the site where Nunuha was confined. That allowed dangerous conditions to persist, according to the lawsuit.

    Further, it alleges that the state acted negligently, recklessly and with deliberate indifference to Nunuha's safety. It says Corrections Corporation of America, based in Nashville, Tenn., put profits ahead of prisoner safety.

    The company also is accused of failing to properly staff Nunuha's unit, separate members of rival gangs, and separate gang members from nongang members. It says the company also ignored signs that Nunuha was in danger.

    On the day Nunuha was killed, one counselor was assigned to oversee about 50 prisoners in the unit where Nunuha was housed, according to the lawsuit. The counselor had opened Nunuha's cell and then had gone to her office, where several inmates distracted her, the lawsuit says. It was then that two prisoners went into the cell and attacked Nunuha, who was beaten and stabbed.

    "They stabbed him more than 140 times with two different weapons, and carved the name of their gang into his chest," the lawsuit says. "As he lay dying, other prisoners mopped up the bloody footprints leading away from his cell."

    The assailants "showered, changed clothes and remingled with the other prisoners," the lawsuit says, before the counselor discovered Nunuha's lifeless body.

    In July 2010, Hawaii inmates Miti Maugaotega Jr. and Micah Kanahele were indicted on charges of first-degree murder and gang-related charges in Nunuha's killing.

    State Department of Public Safety Director Jodie Maesaka-Hirata said the department can't comment on the lawsuit until officials are able to review it with the attorney general's office.

    "We are saddened by the tragic situation that happened at Saguaro, and we are working on ways to improve the prison system," she said in a statement.

    Steven Owen, a Corrections Corporation of America spokesman, said the company can't comment on the specifics of the lawsuit but would respond through the legal process at the appropriate time.

    "The Saguaro Correctional Center is staffed by well-trained, dedicated professionals who operate at the highest standards of the industry," he said in an email. "At Saguaro, and all CCA facilities, we take the protection and treatment of the inmates in our care very seriously."

    Hawaii houses about 1,800 inmates - one-third of the state's total - at the company's prisons on the Mainland because it doesn't have enough space to hold them in the islands.

    Gov. Neil Abercrombie has said he wants to bring Hawaii's inmates on the Mainland home. Still, the state awarded a three-year, $136.5 million contract to the Corrections Corporation of America so it could continue keeping the inmates in Arizona.

    The complaint seeks unspecified monetary damages.

    https://www.humanrightsdefensecenter...inland-prison/
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    [Edited]

    Trial set for Hawaii inmates

    Trial is set for August of next year, and prosecutors will seek the death penalty, an official with the Pinal County (Arizona) Attorney’s Office confirmed Tuesday.

    http://www.civilbeat.com/2015/07/pri...death-penalty/

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    Edited

    October 31, 2017

    Hawaiian inmate pleads guilty to brutal murder at Eloy prison

    By KEVIN REAGAN
    The Eloy Enterprise

    FLORENCE — A Hawaiian inmate of a private prison in Eloy pleaded guilty Monday to fatally stabbing another inmate over 100 times.

    Micah Kanahele, 36, admitted to killing 26-year-old Bronson Nunuha on Feb. 18, 2010, at the Saguaro Correctional Center, run by CoreCivic. The inmate sustained at least 140 stab wounds and the initials of a prison gang name were carved into his chest.

    Kanahele and another inmate, Miti Maugaotega, admitted to Nunuha’s murder, court documents show, and were indicted in May 2010. Maugaotega allegedly felt “disrespected” by Nunuha and retaliated by ambushing him in his cell.

    The Pinal County Attorney’s Office originally intended to seek the death penalty for both defendants. But in January 2017, under the new administration of County Attorney Kent Volkmer, prosecutors withdrew the chance of capital punishment in Kanahele’s case.

    After Kanahele pleaded guilty to first-degree murder on Monday, Judge Kevin White gave the defendant a natural life sentence for his offense. PCAO chose not to comment at this time on Kanahele’s case because he has two other criminal cases pending in Superior Court.

    http://www.pinalcentral.com/eloy_ent...f020af6e3.html

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    Hawaii Prison Inmate Faces The Death Penalty For A 2010 Murder In An Arizona Prison

    An Arizona jury last week found prisoner Miti Maugaotega Jr. guilty of first-degree murder and will now decide if he should be executed, sparking controversy in Hawaii

    By Kevin Dayton

    Honolulu Civil Beat

    A Hawaii prisoner is facing the death penalty after being convicted in Arizona on Friday of first-degree murder for killing another inmate in 2010 in a case that raises new concerns about Hawaii’s longstanding practice of exporting its prison inmates to the mainland.

    Slain inmate Bronson Nunuha was attacked as he was curled up on his bunk in his cell in a private prison called Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona — stabbed 140 times. His attackers carved the initials of a prison gang called USO Family into his chest.

    Hawaii ended capital punishment 65 years ago — two years before statehood — but Arizona prosecutors are seeking the death penalty for Miti Maugaotega Jr., who along with another inmate killed Nunuha on Feb. 18, 2010.

    A 12-member Arizona jury convicted Maugaotega of first-degree murder on Friday after a day of deliberations, but acquitted him of a charge of participating in a criminal syndicate. That concluded the first phase of the case in Pinal County Superior Court.

    The second phase begins next week as the same jury considers whether there were aggravating circumstances surrounding the slaying that would qualify the case for the death penalty.

    Hawaii has held prisoners at Saguaro prison in Arizona since 2007 because there is no room for them in Hawaii facilities. As of the end of November the Hawaii Department of Public Safety was holding 966 inmates at Saguaro, which is operated by the private prison company CoreCivic.

    Hawaii prisoners who serve time in Arizona are subject to Arizona law, and Arizona routinely prosecutes Hawaii inmates for assaults and other misconduct at Saguaro. However, that state has never imposed the death penalty on a Hawaii convict.

    The Arizona Republic reported in early October that Arizona now has 111 prisoners on its death row. It paused all executions for eight years after a particularly controversial case in 2014 where a prisoner took nearly two hours to die by lethal injection, but resumed executions this year. Three inmates have been put to death in Arizona so far in 2022.

    Carrie Ann Shirota, policy director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Hawaii, said Maugaotega’s case is a “wake-up call” for Hawaii political leaders, who should finally take steps to end the practice of sending prisoners out of state to serve their time.

    “The ACLU of Hawaii condemns the practice of transferring people who are incarcerated to private, for-profit prisons on the American continent,” she said. “The state of Arizona should not have the right to kill people from Hawaii who are physically incarcerated within their boundaries simply because our state leaders have chosen to export our people thousands of miles away from their homes and families.”

    “The people of Hawaii recognized that capital punishment is a barbaric and brutal institution, and rightly abolished the death penalty in 1957,” she said. “The ACLU of Hawaii strongly opposes the death penalty as it inherently violates the constitutional ban against cruel and unusual punishment and the guarantees of due process and equal protection under the law.”

    The case also troubles Christin Johnson, coordinator of the Hawaii Correctional System Oversight Commission. She opposes both the death penalty and private prisons, and called this a “devastatingly sad case.”

    “I understand that it’s not a question of who did this crime, I understand that he’s guilty, but that doesn’t negate the fact that he does come from Hawaii, he did not have a choice in living in Arizona” because the state sent him there, she said. “This is yet again another negative factor of using private entities and sending Hawaii inmates 3,000 miles away.”

    Maugaotega was sentenced to life in prison for attempted murder and other offenses when he shot a Punchbowl man in the chest after the man returned home in 2003 to find Maugaotega burglarizing the property. Maugaotega confronted the homeowner with a .45-caliber handgun and demanded money before shooting him.

    Maugaotega was 17 at the time he was arrested, and later pleaded no contest to 10 other felonies related to four other cases that included a home-invasion robbery and the sexual assault of a 55-year-old woman, according to The Honolulu Advertiser.

    Hawaii imposed consecutive sentences for some of those convictions as well as a long mandatory prison term for use of a firearm while committing a felony, and the Department of Public Safety said in a statement on Friday the earliest Maugaotega will be eligible for parole for those cases will be in 2207.

    The Hawaii Paroling Authority conceivably could someday reduce Maugaotega’s consecutive minimum terms of imprisonment and parole him sooner, but it appears more likely at this point he will live out his days in prison on the strength of his Hawaii convictions.

    If he is ever paroled from the Hawaii system, he would be handed over to Arizona authorities, according to the Hawaii Department of Public Safety.

    Maugaotega, now 37, was transferred to a prison on the mainland in 2005 after his Hawaii convictions, and Deputy Pinal County Attorney Patrick Johnson said Maugaotega became the “tip of the spear” for the USO Family prison gang.

    In closing arguments to the Arizona jury on Thursday, Johnson said Maugaotega was proud of his status inside, and told an investigator that “anybody who fucks up in our family, I’m in charge of taking them out.”

    Maugaotega admitted he participated in Nunuha’s murder, and told an investigator that Nunuha had been “talking shit, and fucking with him, and fucking with USO,” Johnson told the jury. After the murder, Maugaotega said that “I did that for myself, and for the fam,” Johnson said.

    Johnson told the jury that when Maugaotega walked into Bronson’s cell, “Bronson was curled up in a ball, praying to God that he didn’t have a weapon, hopeful that it was just going to be a beating, hopeful that he would decide to spare his life, hopeful that that shank in his hand didn’t mean what he thought it meant when he saw it, hopeful that he wasn’t going to be executed for violating ‘Miti’s law.’”

    A lawsuit filed in connection with Bronson’s murder later alleged that during and after the killing, a cluster of prisoners distracted the lone prison staffer who was on duty in that unit at the time. Other inmates mopped up bloody footprints leading away from
    Nunuha’s cell after the attack, and Nunuha’s attackers showered, changed clothes, and rejoined the other prisoners, according to the lawsuit.

    Maugaotega’s defense lawyer Jack Early told the Arizona jury last week that Nunuha, 26, had threatened Maugaotega’s family in Hawaii. Maugaotega was alarmed by the threats because Nunuha would be released from prison long before Maugaotega, and Early suggested Maugaotega’s blood relatives were the “family” he referred to in his statements to the authorities.

    Maugaotega’s co-defendant Micah Kanahele pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in 2017 in the killing of Nunuha, and prosecutors opted not to pursue the death penalty in Kanahele’s case. Public Safety officials in Hawaii declined to say where Kanahele is being held now, citing “safety and security” reasons.

    Nunuha’s family sued Corrections Corportation of America and the state of Hawaii in 2012 in connection with the murder, and that lawsuit was later settled. The ACLU of Hawaii and the Vermont-based nonprofit Human Rights Defense Center represented the family in that case, which alleged in part that Nunuha should have been returned to Hawaii before he was killed.

    According to the lawsuit, state law required that Nunuha be brought back to Hawaii to serve the last year of his sentence. Instead, Nunuha remained in Arizona, and was serving the final nine months of a five-year sentence for burglary and criminal property damage when he was killed.

    The lawsuit also alleged the unit where Nunuha was housed was inadequately staffed, and the guards ignored Nunuha’s requests to be transferred out of the unit after he was threatened by gang members. CCA later changed its name to CoreCivic.

    The lawsuit also describes four other violent incidents that allegedly involved Maugaotega in prisons in Hawaii and Mississippi before he killed Nunuha at Saguaro in Arizona.

    For some in Hawaii, the possibility that Maugaotega could face the death penalty in Arizona adds to their unhappiness with Hawaii’s decision to send inmates to mainland prisons, which has been going on for more than 25 years.

    Hawaii state Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Karl Rhoads said Friday the case is just one more reason Hawaii should not house prisoners on the mainland. He opposes the death penalty because of the risk that the state could make an irreversible mistake by executing an innocent person.

    Even in cases where there are confessions, “you don’t really know, and once you kill them, you can’t take it back. That’s my objection,” Rhoads said. He also believes the death penalty is ineffective as a deterrent because what deters people from committing crimes is the likelihood that they will be caught.

    Rhoads also noted the state spends tens of millions of dollars out of state each year to pay for housing inmates in Saguaro, money he believes should stay here, circulating in the Hawaii economy.

    He is also concerned that sending inmates to other states makes it extremely difficult for them to maintain relationships with their families. Research shows family ties help parolees to succeed and stay out of trouble after they are released.

    “I would argue that it would be best not to send them up there for other reasons,” he said of the Arizona inmates.

    State Rep. Sonny Ganaden, a lawyer who has represented Maugaotega, is even more critical of how his case is playing out.

    “I think it’s legally wrong, and I think it’s morally wrong,” said Ganaden. “This is part of the problem, that we still have a system of mass incarceration in Hawaii that leads to morally absurd results. It’s absurd, we shouldn’t be facing this. This whole thing shouldn’t have happened.”

    He said Hawaii needs to end its dealings with private prisons, and said the state has “a whole lot of work to do” to reduce incarceration and improve public safety. “This is not just about Miti, this is about his victim, too, and the possibility of future victims being so far away from their families,” Ganaden said.

    Honolulu Prosecutor Steve Alm declined to comment on the case, and Public Safety spokeswoman Toni Schwartz said only that “crimes committed in Arizona fall under Arizona state law and are prosecuted through the Arizona criminal justice system.”

    https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/12/ha...rizona-prison/
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    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  8. #8
    Senior Member CnCP Legend Mastro Titta's Avatar
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    Edited to remove already reported informations.

    Hawaii Inmate In Arizona Is A Step Closer To Facing The Death Penalty

    By Kevin Dayton
    CivilBeat.com

    A Hawaii prisoner who murdered another inmate while they were both serving their sentences in an Arizona prison is eligible for execution under Arizona law, according to a decision by a jury on Wednesday.

    The 12 jurors deliberated for about a day before finding that Miti Maugaotega Jr., 37, is eligible for the death penalty in the case because of the “especially cruel” nature of the murder of Bronson Nunuha more than a dozen years ago. That same Arizona jury last week found Maugaotega guilty of first-degree murder in Nunuha’s slaying.

    Nunuha, 26, was stabbed more than 150 times when he was attacked in his cell at Saguaro Correctional Center on Feb. 18, 2010. Maugaotega, one of Nunuha’s attackers, told an investigator he carved the initials of the prison gang USO Family into Nunaha’s chest while Nunuha was still alive.

    The same Arizona jury will reconvene in January to hear additional evidence as well as any mitigating factors that weigh in Maugaotega’s favor before finally deciding if he will be sentenced to death.

    Nunuha’s mother Davina Beltran said in an interview Wednesday she believes Maugaotega will spend the rest of his life in prison no matter what happens next, and “I think it might be better if they deal with it that way. Maybe he might change his life, you know?”

    “It’s not going to bring my son back,” she said of the death penalty. “It’s like they’re taking a life for another life.”

    She added: “If they’re going to do that — the death penalty — it’s going to be on them, it’s not going to be on anybody else.”

    https://www.civilbeat.org/2022/12/ha...death-penalty/

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    Death Penalty Phase Begins For Hawaii Prisoner In Arizona

    Miti Maugaotega Jr. was convicted of murdering a fellow inmate in the Arizona prison where they were both being held.

    By Kevin Dayton

    FLORENCE, Arizona — A Hawaii prison inmate facing the death penalty in Arizona was described by his lawyer Tuesday as a talented artist who suffered from an extremely traumatic childhood, including an accident that left him horribly burned.

    Defense lawyer Jack Early also told an Arizona jury that convicted murderer Miti Maugaotega Jr. at one time was being groomed to lead his Samoan clan. Today he remains an important figure in the lives of his family, and he counsels younger family members to avoid his mistakes and stay out of prison, Early said.

    “He’s not perfect, he’s not a saint, he lives where he is, I’m not making excuses for him,” Early said. “But for him, there is human value. It is there, it is strong, and I’m going to ask you to allow him to live.”

    Maugaotega, 37, was convicted of first-degree murder last month for the Feb. 18, 2010, murder of inmate Bronson Nunuha at the Arizona prison where both men were housed. The 12-member jury will decide whether Maugaotega should get a life sentence without parole or the death penalty.

    Deputy Pinal County Attorney Patrick Johnson painted a dramatically different picture of Maugaotega from the description offered by the defense lawyer, portraying Maugaotega as “people’s worst nightmare.”

    Johnson described for the jury in explicit detail Maugaotega’s rape of a 57-year-old woman in a Honolulu apartment during a home-invasion robbery in 2003, and recounted how Maugaotega shot a Punchbowl man in the chest with a .45-caliber pistol that same year when the man returned home to find Maugaotega burglarizing the property.

    The jury already has heard gory descriptions of the slaying of Nunuha, who was dragged off his bunk in his cell in the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, and stabbed more than 150 times by Maugaotega and another inmate. Maugaotega told police he carved the initials of his gang on Nunuha’s chest, according to trial testimony.

    “What he did to Bronson Nunuha is exactly who he is, and who he has been,” Johnson told the jury. “For him, violence like you saw, the pain that you saw — to him, that’s just a Thursday.”

    Johnson also alleged Maugaotega stabbed two correctional officers in 2011 with homemade knives or “shanks” he made in his cell. Criminal charges are pending in that case.

    Maugaotega has been described as a leader of the USO Family prison gang, which federal officials have described as the dominant gang in the Hawaii correctional system.

    But after Maugaotega was moved to the Pinal County Jail and separated from other Hawaii prisoners, he “morphed” and entered into a cooperative relationship with Arizona Mexican Mafia, Johnson said. He showed a picture of a tattoo on Maugaotega to the jury that Johnson said demonstrates that more recent gang affiliation.

    “The state vehemently disagrees that this defendant is remorseful for anything he’s ever done,” Johnson said.

    Hawaii holds nearly 1,000 prisoners in the privately run Saguaro Correctional Facility because there is no room for them in Hawaii facilities. Those inmates are subject to Arizona law while serving time in that state, but Arizona has never before sentenced a Hawaii inmate to death for crimes committed while in custody there.

    Hawaii banned capital punishment in 1957, but Arizona has language in its state constitution specifically authorizing executions by lethal injection. That state executed three prisoners last year.

    Maugaotega wrote a letter to former Gov. Linda Lingle in 2010 after the Nunuha murder taking full responsibility for the killing and complaining that prison operator Corrections Corp. of America — later renamed CoreCivic — was holding members of rival gangs in the same housing unit at Saguaro.

    He explained that Nunuha was affiliated with a gang known as West Side and warned that if the private prison company “keeps running the prison the way it is now, the violence won’t stop.”

    He also apologized in the letter for the murder, saying that “it was either me or Bronson Nunuha that day. There is nothing I can say or do that will take away the pain I caused Bronson Nunuha’s family. But I hope they have it in their hearts to forgive me one day. I can’t undo what I did, so I am willing to face whatever punishment that comes my way.”

    Nunuha’s mother Davina Beltran read a letter to the jury in Pinal County Superior Court on Tuesday that described Nunuha as “a loving son, brother, uncle, father and nephew, cousin, friend, grandson, and all around great guy. He was loved by many, and he also made everyone laugh,” she said. “He would give the shirt off his back if he had to.”

    She said Nunuha made sure her youngest children were fed and went to school, and the news that he had been killed in prison was devastating. “He was the big brother to my youngest children, and he was ripped from us,” Beltran said. Her children are still trying to cope with his death.

    Nunuha was serving the last nine months of a five-year sentence for burglary and criminal property damage when he was killed, according to court records. Beltran said in an interview last month that “it might be better” if Maugaotega were allowed to live the rest of his life in prison, but did not mention that in her statement to the jury on Tuesday.

    Early described Maugaotega’s childhood and youth in American Samoa and Hawaii for the jury, including an accident when Maugaotega was 4 and was somehow doused with gasoline and set on fire. He suffered third-degree burns over much of his body, and had to endure excruciating burn treatments, Early said.

    As a teenager Maugaotega later moved to a “gang-infested” Waipahu neighborhood, and endured beatings from family members who were upset when he began to get in trouble, Early said. Maugaotega responded to positive and protective influences as a youth, but those positive connections did not last long, Early told the jury.

    He became involved in the juvenile court system, and at 17 was convicted for a crime spree that included attempted murder for the Punchbowl shooting and 10 other felonies including the home-invasion robbery and sexual assault.

    According to the state Department of Public Safety, Maugaotega will not be eligible for parole for his convictions in Hawaii until 2207.

    Even so, Early said he will present the jury with evidence of Maugaotega’s humanity, and “you’ll see that his journey is continuing, and our creator is not through with him yet.”

    Johnson countered by urging the jury to “over the next few weeks, take a hard look at him. Who is he? Who he is is written on his face, and I’m not saying that figuratively. Look in his face, look at his eyes, you can see who he is.”

    That last was a reference to Maugaotega’s facial tattoos. One on his right temple says “Fuck the Law,” Johnson told the jury, while another on his left temple says “USO.”

    Johnson added: “When he tells you who he is, listen.”

    https://www.civilbeat.org/2023/01/de...er-in-arizona/
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  10. #10
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    An Arizona Jury Fails To Agree On Death Sentence For A Hawaii Inmate

    By Kevin Dayton

    An Arizona jury has been dismissed after the jurors reported they could not reach a unanimous decision on whether a Hawaii prisoner should be executed for a 2010 murder in that state.

    The jury in December convicted Miti Maugaotega Jr. of first-degree murder for the killing of 26-year-old Bronson Nunuha in the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, but was unable to agree on whether Maugaotega should be sentenced to death for the crime.

    Both Maugaotega and Nunuha were sentenced to prison in Hawaii, and were both serving their sentences in the privately run Saguaro facility when Nunuha was killed. Hawaii holds about 1,000 inmates at Saguaro because there is no room for them in Hawaii correctional facilities.

    Hawaii abolished the death penalty in 1954, but Arizona continues the practice and executed three prisoners last year. Maugaotega was subject to Arizona law because he committed the murder in that state.

    Maugaotega confessed to police that he attacked Nunuha in his cell, and an autopsy report showed that Nunuha had been stabbed more than 150 times. Maugaotega, a leader in the USO Family prison gang, also told police he carved the letters “USO” in Nunuha’s chest.

    The jury concluded in December that Maugaotega qualified for the death penalty because the murder was “especially cruel,” but deadlocked Wednesday after more than four days of deliberations on the issue of whether to actually impose that sentence.

    Under Arizona law the Pinal County Attorney’s office can again seek the death penalty for Maugaotega with a new jury. If not, the judge would hand down a life sentence. Pinal County Attorney Public Information Officer Michael Pelton declined to comment on the case.

    https://www.civilbeat.org/beat/an-ar...hawaii-inmate/

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