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The Hawaii Supreme Court has refused to hear the appeal of a Maui man charged with killing one man and attempting to kill two other people in a 1999 shooting in Kipahulu clearing the way for a new trial.
A state jury on Maui found Edward Dean guilty of first-degree attempted murder in 2001 for killing 24-year-old Seth Schimberg, wounding Schimberg’s girlfriend in the arm and shooting at another person with a .32-caliber revolver.
A state judge sentenced Dean to the mandatory penalty — life in prison without the opportunity for parole.
In 2005, the Hawaii Supreme Court overturned Dean’s conviction and ordered a new trial because of faulty jury instructions, because the judge should not have allowed the prosecutor to enter a shotgun into evidence and because the judge should not have allowed certain testimony from Schimberg’s father.
Dean later asked the judge assigned to preside over the new trial to dismiss the case because the prosecutor initially failed to turn over to the defense a page from a police report.
The judge denied Dean’s request. Dean appealed to the state Intermediate Court of Appeals which upheld the lower court’s ruling. Dean then appealed to the Hawaii Supreme Court.
The new trial is scheduled for October.
