Man who shot policeman pleads guilty
A 28-year old man admitted to intentionally firing shots at two officers at Makapuu Point in 1998, striking one in the abdomen as they attempted to arrest him for breaking into a rental car.
Yesterday's guilty plea by Peter Moses enables him to be eligible for parole at some point, although he still will be sentenced to life in prison.
Moses had been scheduled to go to court for a second trial next month on first-degree attempted murder charges.
Now it will be up to the parole board to decide how long Moses will serve before he can be released into the community.
Moses pleaded guilty to the amended charge of attempted second-degree murder for shooting Officer Earl Haskell during a scuffle over the officer's gun. The 20-year-old Moses initially was convicted in September 1999 of first-degree attempted murder and was sentenced to a life term without parole, Hawaii's harshest sentence.
But the conviction was overturned twice and sent back to Circuit Court for a retrial.
Under a plea agreement, Moses also pleaded guilty to firing a single gunshot at Officer John Veneri, illegally possessing a loaded semiautomatic firearm, threatening Officer Laura Chong with the handgun and breaking into a rental car.
In exchange, the state agreed not to seek enhanced sentencing other than the five-year mandatory minimum imposed for illegal possession of a loaded semiautomatic.
Moses, who has spent the past eight years in prison, agreed to plead guilty to the amended charges because he wanted to take responsibility, said defense attorney Stuart Fujioka.
"He regrets what he did and wants to spare the victims -- Haskell, Veneri and Chong -- from going through another trial," he said.
Deputy Prosecutor Rom Trader said the agreement puts to rest a horrible event in the lives of the three officers and a case that has come up on appeal twice, resulting in the court ordering a retrial. "It took its toll on every one of them," Trader said.
Of the three officers, only Chong remains with the Honolulu Police Department. Veneri has retired. Haskell, after a painful recovery from losing parts of his colon and intestine, has since joined the Big Island police department.
While Haskell "has largely recovered, the great difficulty is if you go through an event such as that, you're never the same person," Trader said.
At trial, Haskell testified that after being shot once, he thought of his family and believed he was going to die as Moses held the gun to his head. Moses was distracted by Veneri, who fired at him multiple times.
Moses' defense was that the shooting was accidental and that he was fighting for his life.
The plea is significant because Moses agreed to accept a life term with no agreement regarding a minimum term, and it also spares the state the uncertainties of a jury trial, Trader said.
The Hawaii Supreme Court in 2005 ruled Moses was denied effective counsel when his public defender turned over his medical records to the prosecution.
Moses will be sentenced March 5.
