Man gets life sentence
in fatal beating

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By Debra Barayuga
dbarayuga@starbulletin.com

A 57-year-old man was sentenced yesterday to life with the possibility of parole for beating an acquaintance to death with a baseball bat in October 2000.

A jury had found Sapatumoeese Maluia guilty of second-degree murder last October for assaulting Feao Tupuola Jr., 48, in the head and upper body at Keehi Lagoon Park. The two were former cellmates at Halawa Correctional Facility.

Maluia said yesterday he still believes he acted in self-defense. "I had a right to defend myself, and I'm only sorry that Tupuola died as a result of that," he said.

In giving Maluia the statutory maximum, Circuit Judge Richard Perkins rejected the state's request to "enhance" the sentence to life without the possibility of parole.

Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter argued that state law gives the court discretion to give an enhanced sentence to someone convicted of second-degree murder if they had previously been convicted of murder. He cited Maluia's 1974 conviction for shooting his girlfriend and her mother to death.

Perkins agreed with deputy public defender Todd Eddins, who argued that the statute applies to murder convictions occurring after the effective date of the law in 1996.

The previous murders occurred 23 years earlier, and therefore Maluia's conviction last year is not subject to enhanced sentencing, Eddins said.