Background
Michael Akau was convicted by a jury in the Circuit Court of the First Circuit of second-degree robbery and sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. The charge arose from a November 2022 encounter outside a Honolulu 7-Eleven. Steven Andrews testified that Akau grabbed his Walmart bag, that the two struggled over it, and that Akau then struck him during the fight. Andrews later saw Akau holding the bag and reported that some money was missing.
Akau testified that Andrews initiated the fight after Akau asked for a cigarette. He denied grabbing Andrews’s bag or taking anything from it. At trial, the court instructed the jury that second-degree robbery required proof that Akau was “in the course of committing theft” and used force to overcome Andrews’s resistance. But it did not give the statutory definition of theft in connection with the robbery charge, although it later instructed on fourth-degree theft as a lesser-included offense.
The Court’s Holding
The Intermediate Court of Appeals vacated the robbery conviction and remanded. Second-degree robbery under Hawai‘i law required proof that Akau was committing theft, which in turn required proof that he obtained or controlled another’s property with intent to deprive that person of it.
By omitting the definition of theft from the robbery instruction, the circuit court failed to clearly instruct the jury that it had to find Akau intended to deprive Andrews of the property. The omission could have allowed the jury to treat Andrews’s abandonment of the bag during the fight as sufficient, without finding the required intent. The error was presumptively harmful and not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt because there was a reasonable possibility it contributed to the conviction. The court therefore did not reach Akau’s other challenges.
Key Takeaways
- A robbery instruction premised on conduct “in the course of committing theft” must adequately convey theft’s required intent to deprive.
- Defining related terms, such as “deprive” and “unauthorized control,” did not cure the omission of the theft definition from the robbery instruction.
- Because the instructional error could have affected the verdict, the conviction had to be vacated and the case remanded.
Why It Matters
The decision underscores that trial courts must instruct juries on every element incorporated into a charged offense, including the mental state embedded in an underlying offense such as theft. In robbery cases involving a fight and disputed possession of property, the State must still prove an intent to deprive—not merely that the encounter resulted in the owner leaving property behind.