How “reasonable” is a reasonable inference when it comes to closing arguments? Context is key.

State v. Willis (HSC July 22, 2025). Erik Willis was indicted for attempted murder in the second degree. Before trial, he filed motions to dismiss and suppress evidence. The circuit court—the Hon. Judge Kevin Souza—denied them and he filed an interlocutory appeal. The HSC agreed on the suppression issue. Back down it went to trial.

At trial, the prosecution presented evidence. The evidence showed that before the time of the stabbing, Willis is on a bus heading from Niu Valley to an area near the beach where the stabbing took place. Eyewitnesses testified that a person approached the victim on the beach and it looked like he stabbed her. A witness testified that the person had a white shirt with something in the center of it when he ran away. That person then ran away to a vacant lot. More surveillance footage showed a man washing his body and face. It was never established if that was blood. Finally, there was evidence from the bus that four hours after the stabbing, Willis is getting back on the bus. His shirt appeared to have been soiled. But there was no direct evidence that it was blood or that he was the assailant.

 

And at closing, the DPA, Lawrence Sousie, argued that based on the circumstantial evidence between surveillance videos and eyewitness testimony: (1) the assailant was Willis; and (2) Willis had blood on his hands and shirt. There was no objection to these inferences. The jury found Willis guilty as charged. Willis appealed. The ICA held that the argument was a misstatement of law that constituted prosecutorial misconduct because there was no evidence showing that the person washing at the sink had blood on him. It vacated and remanded for new trial. The State petitioned the HSC for review.

 

Prosecutorial misconduct at closing argument. “Prosecutorial misconduct” is a term of art for “any improper action committed by a prosecutor, however harmless or unintentional.” State v. Udo, 145 Hawai‘i 519, 534, 454 P.3d 460, 472 (2019). A challenge based on prosecutorial misconduct calls on the court to determine first, if the conduct was improper, and then, if the misconduct was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. at 534-35, 454 P.3d at 475-76. Even if there was no objection at trial, the appellate court “may nevertheless recognize such misconduct as plainly erroneous.” State v. Austin, 143 Hawai‘i 18, 28, 422 P.3d 18, 28 (2018). And because prosecutorial misconduct “impacts the fundamental right to a fair trial, there is no difference between the plain error and harmless beyond a reasonable doubt standards of review.” State v. Hirata, 152 Hawai‘i 27, 31, 520 P.3d 225, 229 (2022).

 

The first prong: determining prosecutorial misconduct at closing argument. In determining whether the comment was so improper that it arose to prosecutorial misconduct, the court considers “the nature of the challenged conduct in relation to our criminal justice system generally and the special role of the prosecutor specifically.” State v. Underwood, 142 Hawai‘i 317, 325, 418 P.3d 658, 666 (2018). The prosecutor’s duty is to “seek justice [and] play fair and square.” Hirata, 152 Hawai‘i at 33, 520 P.3d at 231. Because prosecutors play an important part in our criminal justice system, their “improper suggestions, insinuations, and especially assertions of personal knowledge are apt to carry much weight against the accused whey should properly carry none.” State v. Clark, 83 Hawai‘i 289, 304, 926 P.2d 194, 209 (1996).

 

They “are forbidden from introducing new information or evidence in closing argument.” Hirata, 152 Hawai‘i at 33, 520 P.3d at 231. At the same time, they enjoy “wide latitude in closing to discuss the evidence, and may state, discuss, and comment on the evidence as well as draw all reasonable inferences from the evidence.” Udo, 145 Hawai‘i at 536, 454 P.3d at 477. An inference is “reasonable” when “the evidence bears a logical and proximate connection to the point the prosecutor wishes to prove.” State v. Basham, 132 Hawai‘i 97, 112, 319 P.3d 1105, 1120 (2014).

 

The comments here were reasonable inferences that the person of interest was Willis and that Willis had blood on his hands and shirt. The HSC turned to the prosecutor’s comments. The prosecutor argued that the surveillance video showed that Willis had blood on his hands and his shirt after the victim was stabbed on the beach. The prosecutor began its argument by reminding the jurors that circumstantial evidence allows them to make reasonable inferences from the direct evidence. Then he focused on the surveillance videos and witness testimony putting Willis near or at the scene of the crime. The videos showed Willis leaving Niu Valley, taking the bus to Kahala and getting off the bus near the beach at 1:25 p.m. Then it showed him walking up the driveway on Pueo Street around two hours after the stabbing. The video showed him getting on a bus and going back to Niu Valley.

 

In those videos, he has the same thing on: a white t-shirt, a blue mask, light colored pants, and black shoes. That matches the person of interest in other surveillance footage headed toward the beach at 1:26 p.m. The prosecutor then pointed out that witnesses testified that after the stabbing the attacker ran away toward Kahala Avenue. This was at around 1:46 p.m. Video surveillance footage at trial showed that around that same time, a shirtless person matching Willis’s description ran onto a vacant lot and started washing themselves off at an outdoor sink. An eyewitness, Leal, testified that he saw a person washing his arms and face at the same time in the same place.

 

Given the proximity of space and time, the HSC ruled that the prosecutor could make the reasonable inference at closing that the person of interest was Willis.

 

The HSC examined the context of the argument to determine if it was a reasonable inference. The same goes for the blood. The prosecutor told the jury that “we know from Edward Leal that he washed his hands and his face because he had blood on them.” That, according to the ICA, was an improper inference. There was no evidence that Willis or the person seen by Leal was washing blood off himself. But the HSC disagreed.

 

According to the HSC, “when the DPA’s statement is properly read in context of the DPA’s entire closing argument and the trial record as a whole, it becomes clear that the DPA was making an argument based on a reasonable inference from the evidence.” Context is key. See State v. Bruce, 141 Hawai‘i 397, 407, 411 P.3d 300, 309 (2017). The HSC even listened to the audio recording of the closing to see how the prosecutor emphasized its words. The cold transcript wasn’t enough. The recording, according to the HSC, states that the prosecutor paused before the word “because.”

 

Indeed, the HSC recognized that the statement “could have been more clearly worded” but “it was not likely to be interpreted in the courtroom as a misstatement of the evidence.” The HSC even used the fact that the defense didn’t object as evidence that it was not interpreted as a misstatement. Given the wide latitude afforded prosecutors, the evidence showed that surveillance depicted Willis with a clean white shirt earlier in the day and then after the stabbing, he was wearing a soiled shirt. An eyewitness testified that the assailant was wearing a white shirt with something on in the center of it. Then the victim identified Willis as her assailant.

 

In the end, because the statement was not improper, the analysis ended without considering the harmlessness. The HSC reversed the ICA’s judgment and affirmed the judgment of conviction.