Native Hawaiian man could face longer prison sentence after conviction for hate crime against white man

A Native Hawaiian man who was convicted of a hate crime against a white man must be re-sentenced a U S appeals court ruled on Thursday potentially leading to additional years in prison Kaulana Alo-Kaonohi was sentenced by a Honolulu judge in to six-and-a-half years after a jury uncovered him and another Native Hawaiian man Levi Aki Jr guilty The jury uncovered the pair to be motivated by race when they punched kicked and used a shovel to beat Christopher Kunzelman in for attempting to move into their remote village in Maui Alo-Kaonohi appealed the conviction and prosecutors cross-appealed challenging the judge's ruling that the hate crime enhancement could not be applied to the sentence HAWAII MEN SENTENCED FOR RACIALLY MOTIVATED ATTACK AGAINST WHITE MANThe th U S Circuit Court of Appeals panel also ruled on Thursday to affirm Alo-Kaonohi's conviction It was unclear exactly how much longer Alo-Kaonohi could be required to spend behind bars Aki's appeal along with prosecutors' cross-appeal of Aki's sentence of about four years were voluntarily dismissed court records show Kunzelman's wife Lori Kunzelman recounted The Associated Press on Thursday that she is glad prosecutors pushed for a longer sentence The Kunzelmans purchased a dilapidated oceanfront house because they longed to leave Arizona after Lori Kunzelman's multiple sclerosis finding We had vacationed on Maui year after year loved loved loved Maui she reported noting that they saw the home as an affordable opportunity that her husband could fix up She announced the beating of her husband destroyed her marriage explaining that her husband suffered brain injuries that led them to go through a divorce Christopher Kunzelman was traveling in Europe and unavailable to address the ruling The pair still own the property but they do not know what to do with it Lori Kunzelman noted The families there won't allow anybody to step foot on that property she disclosed There's so much animosity The use of the word haole a Hawaiian word with meanings that include foreigner and white person was central to the episode Dennis Kunzelman testified that the men called him haole in a derogatory way NATIVE HI MEN TO BE SENTENCED FOR A HATE CRIME AFTER BRUTALLY BEATING A WHITE MANAttorneys for Alo-Kaonohi and Aki stated it was Christopher Kunzelman s entitled and disrespectful attitude that irked them not his race The Hawaii Innocence Project plans to take up the event according to the group's co-director Kenneth Lawson The organization seeks to argue that an ineffective defense did not present to the jury the history of the word haole in Hawaii to show it is not a derogatory term I just don t believe that it s a hate crime Lawson revealed Lawson also announced the defense should have called white non-Hawaiian residents as spectators to testify that they lived in the village without any racial issues The Associated Press contributed to this summary