The state appeals court overturned a murder conviction today and ordered a new trial for a Hawaii island man accused of fatally shooting a friend after finding him having sex with the defendant’s girlfriend.

A jury found Malaki McBride guilty of murdering Tyrone Torres in the 2007 shotgun shooting at Nanawale Estates.

In a unanimous decision, a three-member panel of the Hawaii Intermediate Court of Appeals ruled that the trial judge gave the jury erroneous instructions.

The instruction dealt with the trial’s key issue of whether McBride was so emotionally or mentally distraught that he should be convicted of the lesser charge of manslaughter.

The appeals court ruled that Circuit Judge Glenn Hara’s oral instruction to the panel was “wrong on the law” and  “utterly confusing and misleading.”

McBride was 17 at the time of the shooting. The Family Court waived its jurisdiction to clear the way for his trial.