Inside the God of War's Odyssey for a New Trial

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Recap: Friday's Evidentiary Hearing

At Friday's hearing on Dr. Gerhardt Konig's motion for a new trial, the God of War clashed with the prosecution over whether the attempted manslaughter verdict was invalidated by two things: post-trial juror statements, and an anonymous leak on a YouTube livestream chat during deliberations.

The God of War argued the jury returned a legally defective compromise verdict after publicly admitting they found no intent to kill. Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Joel Garner countered that Hawaiʻi Rule of Evidence 606(b) strictly protects the secrecy of jury deliberations. The Honorable Judge Paul Wong ultimately ruled that under binding precedent (State v. Chin), the court is required to recall the jurors and question them directly about whether any unauthorized outside communication occurred during deliberations.

Two grounds are now in play for a new trial: a legally defective verdict, and a presumption of prejudice from outside contact with a juror. Here's the case for each.

Ground One: A Legally Defective Verdict

The Rule

HRE Rule 606(b) bars jurors from testifying about their internal deliberative process — why they voted a certain way, or how the deliberations affected their thinking. But the rule's commentary carves out an exception: jurors can testify about objective irregularities, and courts can review the jury's collective, ultimate determination.

The Argument

This is where the mainstream coverage misses the real friction: the jury's post-trial statements operate on two tracks at once.

A juror saying "we did not believe there was intent to kill" sounds, on its face, like protected internal reasoning. But it also establishes an objective, undisputed fact — the jury's collective verdict omitted the mandatory statutory element of intent. Attempted extreme emotional disturbance (EMED) manslaughter requires a unanimous finding of intent to kill. A jury disavowing that intent isn't a peek into deliberation; it's proof of a legally impossible verdict.

So the statements are both inadmissible (they touch on the jurors' mental processes) and admissible (they reveal an objective fact) under the same rule. That tension is the crux of the defense's motion.

Ground Two: The Leaked Livestream and the Presumption of Prejudice

This is the argument that ate up most of the hearing — and, I'll admit, the one I initially thought was weaker. I was wrong.

What Happened

During deliberations, an anonymous commenter in the "Crime and Law" YouTube livestream chat wrote: "I've been texting with one of the jurors and they're going for count 3 attempted manslaughter." The commenter correctly predicted the verdict before it was read in open court. Below is the real verdict form and real screenshot from the court filing disclosing the leak. ⬇️

The Legal Framework

Unauthorized contact with a juror is governed by a strict, well-established framework (State v. Chin, State v. Furutani, Remmer v. United States):

1. Prima facie showing — The defense must show unauthorized outside contact occurred that could substantially prejudice the trial. Under State v. Chin, any private communication touching on the trial during deliberations meets this bar and triggers a mandatory judicial duty to investigate.
2. Presumption of prejudice — Once that contact is shown, prejudice is presumed automatically. The burden shifts entirely to the prosecution to prove, beyond a reasonable doubt, that the contact was harmless. If the state can't meet that burden, the verdict must be set aside.

Why It Matters

My first instinct was to shrug this off: so what if someone on the jury leaked the verdict early? No juror is going to volunteer that they broke the rules, and no one is going to snitch on whoever they were texting. Case closed, right?

I changed my mind after thinking back to my podcast interview with Chief Justice Benjamin Lowenthal…ahem, excuse me, Appellate Attorney Benjamin Lowenthal — he took the leak far more seriously than I did, and didn't have to say much to make the point land. Mr. Lowenthal took it so seriously, I started the podcast with that EXACT question; CLICK HERE to view his response. To do a deeper dive, I dragged and dropped the filed motions into an LLM and asked for legal reasons why it's such a big deal, and here's what we got in addition:

• It freezes deliberations prematurely.A verdict doesn't legally exist until it's delivered in open court. A juror texting that the jury is "going for" a specific count has already locked in their position — cutting short the open-minded reconsideration the defense is entitled to.
• It's rarely one-way. Private messaging invites replies. An outsider responding with encouragement or opinion injects outside influence directly into a sealed jury room.
• It's nearly unprovable as harmless. The state has to prove harmlessness beyond a reasonable doubt — but the commenter is anonymous, no juror will self-incriminate, and there's no way to subpoena a full chat log from an unknown user.

The Court's Own Standard

Judge Wong maintained the bar himself during jury selection, so I know this issue matters to him. I was sitting in on jury selection, and he immediately dismissed a prospective juror who admitted to checking the news on a lunch break after specificallybeing told not to. If that's enough to strike someone before trial even starts, an empaneled juror texting an outsider during deliberations strikes at the core of the Sixth Amendment and the Hawaiʻi Constitution.

Once unauthorized contact is shown, there's no realistic way to guarantee the jury stayed untainted — which is exactly why I assume the law presumes prejudice and puts the burden on the state to prove otherwise.

Bottom Line

Whether through a legally impossible verdict or a compromised deliberation process, the rules exist to make sure justice is done right. The fight continues, stay tuned folks.

— Jail Mail Nick