Honolulu senior deputy prosecutor Maurice Arrisgado Sr. did battle against many defense lawyers over his 34-year legal career, but even they couldn’t help but like him.

“You couldn’t get mad at him,” defense lawyer Eric Seitz said. “He was a really decent guy. I had nothing but affection for him. … I don’t know of any defense lawyers who hated or despised him.”

Colleagues, friends and relatives say Arrisgado was likable, charismatic, quick-witted and a wonderful storyteller who injected humor where he could, even in the courtroom, often winning over jurors.

Arrisgado died April 26 at age 82 at his Honolulu home surrounded by family.

Born June 19, 1937, in Kaumakani, Kauai, Arrisgado was one of five sons of Pedro and Mary Arrisgado, a Spanish-Filipino plantation worker and his Portuguese wife.

Arrisgado was a pitcher and a quarterback at Waimea High School, attended the University of Hawaii, and upon graduation, joined the Army.

He did three tours in Vietnam, where he met his wife, Francoise. He was a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne, and “yes, he jumped out of planes,” his son Pedric said.

He retired as a major and returned to Honolulu to pursue his second career. He attended UH law school and, by then in his mid-40s, was hired in 1983 by the Honolulu Prosecutor’s Office, headed by Charles Marsland.

He also served under Honolulu prosecutors Keith Kaneshiro (twice) and Peter Carlisle. He retired at the age of 80 in 2017.

Nephew Loren Haugen said: “My uncle would always say that he ‘wanted to die with his boots on.’ After many years of service to our country in the military, that is something that he wasn’t willing to give up, so he continued by protecting our community as a prosecutor for decades to come. It was this dedication to public service that inspired me to follow in his footsteps and became a prosecutor.”

Carlisle was impressed by Arrisgado’s patriotism, that he volunteered for the military during the Vietnam War.

“He was enjoyable to be with, a good prosecutor and always had a positive attitude, somebody who I was happy to have had the pleasure of knowing,” he said.

A skilled trial lawyer, he mentored many young attorneys, inspiring his son, nephew and even a juror to follow in his path.

Scott Spallina, an intern when he met Arrisgado, later worked under him when Arrisgado headed the domestic violence section. Spallina said Arrisgado taught him “how to communicate ideas to juries … Sometimes we get so caught up in thinking … and talking like a lawyer, … he’d have to remind us that we’re here for the people, not for each other.”

Fellow deputy prosecutor Loretta Sheehan said, “He was just a lovely man and an amazing prosecutor,” with an unusual trait. “He had total acceptance for the intrinsic sorrow of the human condition. Despite that knowledge and that front row seat, he remained completely loving and happy. That was an outstanding quality. That’s what everybody loved him for.”

Spallina echoed that sentiment: “With Maury, he never got discouraged, and he was in one of the hardest areas of criminal law, which was domestic violence and child abuse. He handled cases where children starved to death and loved ones were murdered, and he still kept on fighting.”

As for his skills in the courtroom, Seitz said: “He was very folksy and down to earth, not intense, but very good at what he did. He was a formidable opponent.”

A former juror, who called to express her condolences, “was so impressed with his knowledge of the law and his humor that she went to law school and became a prosecutor,” said Arrisgado’s son Pedric, also a trial attorney.

“As lawyers, they’re taught that in courtrooms humor is frowned upon,” Pedric Arrisgado said. “My dad had the ability to smile here and there and walked up to the line without passing it.”

“He coached so many deputies,” many requesting him to second-chair with them, he said.

Pedric Arrisgado said his father took pride in ensuring that those he got convicted stayed in prison. When they came up for parole, he made sure the deputies, and the victims and their family members, were there to remind the parole board of the severity of the charge, he said.

As senior deputy prosecutor, Maurice Arrisgado got an attempted murder conviction in the case against the parents of a severely emaciated 12-year-old girl who weighed just 29 pounds in 2007 when they called an ambulance.

She looked like someone “from Darfur or a concentration camp in World War II,” Arrisgado said at sentencing.

He secured life sentences for Denise and Melvin Wright — 80 years for her and 50 for him.

Maurice Arrisgado was also noticeably dapper in his bold suits and ties, impeccably groomed from his hair and signature mustache to his polished shoes.

Retired Circuit Judge Randal Lee, who also began his career serving with him under Marsland, said Arrisgado, the office prankster, brought levity to the office.

Arrisgado tried to pull a fast one over Lee while Lee presided as judge over a murder case and asked about chain of custody of the body. Arrisgado stood at the bench in front of defense counsel, and told Lee, “You’re old school. There’s no need for chain of custody of the body.”

“The defense counsel wanted to bust out laughing, but Maury, who knew better, was looking at me dead serious,” Lee said.

Arrisgado’s family said his health declined dramatically after a prison guard shot his son Maurice Jr. on March 1, 2019, outside a Kalihi church, two blocks from Oahu Community Correctional Center from which his son had escaped.

State Department of Public Safety personnel put the wounded 47-year-old in a van and took him back to OCCC, where medical staff treated him.

He was then taken by ambulance to a hospital, where he died 33 minutes after the shooting.

Arrisgado is also survived by his wife, Francoise; daughters Jackie, Lisa Debban and Athena Leilani Steinway; and grandchildren, Maddie, Bella, Nicholas, Allison, Jillian, Frank and Annika.