## Facts

- Holiday Mart store detective Mitchell Tam saw Ronald Soares and Hollie Suratt place several cartons of cigarettes into a shopping cart.
- Tam then saw Soares put the cartons of cigarettes into a large handbag.
- Soares and Suratt left the store without paying, with Suratt carrying the handbag.
- Outside the store, Tam approached them, identified himself, displayed his badge, and told them they were under citizen’s arrest for shoplifting.
- When Soares turned toward Tam, Tam grabbed him; during the struggle, the back of Soares’s head hit Tam in the mouth, and Tam released him.
- Soares fled.
- Tam told Holiday Mart clerk Conway Marks to stop Suratt.
- Marks blocked Suratt’s path; after trying unsuccessfully to push past him, Suratt tricked Marks into looking away and fled with the handbag.
- Suratt returned to Holiday Mart a few minutes later without the handbag and was arrested.
- Neither the handbag nor the cigarettes were recovered.
- Soares and Suratt were indicted separately, but the circuit court granted the State’s motion to consolidate their cases for a single jury trial.
- The jury convicted both defendants of second-degree robbery.
- Over defense objection, the trial court instructed the jury that all persons who were present and participated in a crime were responsible for each other’s acts done in furtherance of the crime; the instruction did not require the jury to find that an alleged accomplice acted with the intent required by Hawaii’s accomplice-liability statute.
- The defendants appealed, also arguing that the prosecutor’s improper remarks and conduct, taken together, denied them a fair trial.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by submitting an accomplice-liability instruction where the State’s theory sought to hold a defendant responsible for another’s acts despite the manner in which the case was charged and tried.
2. Whether the accomplice-liability instruction was erroneous because it allowed conviction based on presence and participation without requiring proof of the statutory intent for accomplice liability.
3. Whether the cumulative effect of prosecutorial misconduct and other trial errors deprived the defendants of a fair trial requiring reversal.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Hawaii reversed the defendants’ second-degree robbery convictions.
- The court held the accomplice-liability instruction was substantively wrong because it failed to require the jury to find the mental state necessary to hold one person criminally accountable for another’s conduct.
- The court further concluded that the prosecutor’s improper remarks and conduct, considered in combination with the instructional error, denied the defendants a fair trial.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court’s opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Under Hawaii accomplice-liability law, a person is not guilty based only on being present and taking part; the State must prove the defendant acted with the required intent to aid, further, or facilitate the commission of the offense.
- A jury instruction on accomplice liability that omits the required intent element misstates the law and risks relieving the State of its burden to prove every element beyond a reasonable doubt.
- Although Hawaii has abolished formal distinctions between principals and accomplices, accountability for another’s acts still depends on satisfying the statutory elements of accomplice liability, including the mental state requirement.
- Prosecutorial misconduct can require reversal when, viewed in total, it creates an unfair trial; the reviewing court assesses cumulative impact rather than isolating each incident as harmless.

## Conclusion

State v. Soares reversed consolidated second-degree robbery convictions because the jury was instructed that anyone “present and participating” could be held responsible for another’s acts without a finding of the intent required for accomplice liability, and because the prosecutor’s improper remarks and conduct, in combination with the instructional defect, deprived the defendants of a fair trial.


State v. Soares, 815 P.2d 428, 72 Haw. 278 (1991)