LIHUE — Day four of a manslaughter trial in Fifth Circuit Court was cut short Thursday morning when a technical malfunction left the court without the ability to record proceedings.
Chief Judge Randal Valenciano interrupted questioning of the prosecution’s first witness of the day, announcing to the jury, “I have just received a message that the Judiciary system is being affected statewide.”
After a 15-minute recess, with the technical issue still unresolved, Valenciano dismissed the jury until next week. The trial will resume Tuesday morning at around 8:30.
The defendant, Cody Safadago, 48, is standing trial for several felonies, among them manslaughter, which carries a potential life sentence because of his prior convictions. Safadago is accused of stealing a truck and driving it while drunk down Kuhio Highway at 88 mph, eventually swerving into oncoming traffic and hitting 19 year-old Kayla Huddy-Lemn’s sedan head-on, killing her.
No witnesses saw him emerge from the truck, but he was seen near the scene of the accident in the immediate aftermath with cuts and bruises police and prosecutors say were consistent with injuries of a person involved in a car accident.
Before the technical glitch interruption, Deputy Prosecuting Attorney Sean Van Demark had been questioning Shawn Hanna, an officer with the Kauai Police Department who investigated the car crash.
Much of the testimony he provided had been covered by prior witnesses, but while Hanna was on the stand, an internal KPD investigation was directly addressed for the first time in the trial.
Before he moved to another position in KPD last year, Hanna testified that he had been the acting sergeant position with the KPD’s Traffic Safety Unit. During his time there, Hanna said he helped to create a test officers have to pass before they can join the unit.
Hanna answered a handful of yes-or-no questions about the internal police investigation, admitting that he had provided a copy of the test to officer Joseph “Russell” Himongala ahead of time. He also said that because he cooperated with the investigation all “allegations of untruthfulness” were dismissed.
County and police officials have refused to disclose any information regarding the scope and conclusions of the investigation, but Valenciano has ordered that at least some of the KPD’s internal records related to the matter will be admissible in court. Safadago’s defense attorney Emmanuel Guerrero said he will probably submit some of those records as evidence starting Tuesday.
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Caleb Loehrer, staff writer, can be reached at 245-0441 or cloehrer@thegardenisland.com.
