State v. Maluia

Concurring Opinion by

ACOBA, J.

While I join in the majority,1 I write separately because, with all due respect, the *28dissent’s qualification of the “prosecutorial misconduct” test would distort the function assigned prosecutors under our system. As stated in the majority opinion, the fact is that “prosecutorial misconduct” is a broad term long employed in our cases. While the cases may, but do not always involve “bad faith or [an] inflammatory act” or necessarily an express violation of the Hawai‘1 Rules of Professional Conduct, they encompass these and other instances of error. As…