Granillo v. State

majority opinion

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Electronically Filed

Supreme Court

SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX

15-JUL-2026

10:17 AM

Dkt. 29 OP

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF HAWAIʻI

---o0o---DANIEL R. GRANILLO,

Petitioner/Petitioner-Appellant,

vs.

STATE OF HAWAIʻI,

Respondent/Respondent-Appellee.

SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX

CERTIORARI TO THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS

(CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX; CASE NO. 2PR191000004)

JULY 15, 2026

DEVENS, C.J., McKENNA, AND EDDINS, JJ.; WITH

GINOZA, J., CONCURRING SEPARATELY, AND WITH WHOM

CIRCUIT JUDGE KUBOTA, ASSIGNED BY REASON OF VACANCY, JOINS

OPINION OF THE COURT BY EDDINS, J.

The Hawaiʻi Constitution protects people from convictions

based on false evidence. That protection does not fade with

time. False evidence is false evidence. Time does not sideline

the constitutional violation. The harm happens at conviction, *** FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAIʻI REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER ***

not discovery. And that harm is complete when materially false

evidence contributes to conviction.

We hold that when scientific developments invalidate

evidence presented at trial, the false evidence standard

applies.

Here, the prosecution used hair and fiber evidence to

convict a man. Because science has since proven that evidence

false, his right to a fair trial was violated.

In May 1989, Daniel Granillo (Granillo) allegedly kidnapped

and sexually assaulted Laura Price (Price). (We use a pseudonym

for the complainant.) Price said that Granillo grabbed her,

forced her into his car, drove her to the Kahului breakwater,

and sexually assaulted her. A second circuit grand jury

indicted Granillo on one count of kidnapping, two counts of

sexual assault in the first degree, and one count of attempted

sexual assault in the first degree.

Trial was held in July 1990. Price testified. The

prosecution presented circumstantial evidence to corroborate her

account. To boost Price’s credibility and further support its

theory of the case, the State qualified Federal Bureau of

Investigation (FBI) agent Wayne Oakes (Oakes) as an “expert

witness in the area of hair and fiber analysis.”

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Oakes opined that a hair sample found in Granillo’s car had

the same microscopic characteristics as a sample taken from

Price’s head. He also stated that the hair was “consistent

with” originating from Price. Oakes further testified that

fiber samples found in Price’s underwear and on her pants were

“consistent with” coming from Granillo’s car seat cover. He

added that carpet fibers found on Price’s pants were “consistent

with” coming from the floor of Granillo’s car. When asked by

the prosecution on direct examination whether the samples showed

“[Price] was in the car with her pants off and her panties

exposed,” Oakes answered affirmatively.

The defense highlighted inconsistencies in Price’s

narrative. However, it failed to present a focused theory of

the case. Granillo did not testify and called no witnesses.

During closing argument, the prosecution acknowledged that

the elements of the offenses were primarily established by

Price’s testimony. But the State stressed that it had more than

just Price’s word - it had physical evidence. The

“uncontroverted physical evidence,” the prosecution said, paired

with Price’s testimony, showed that Price was in the car with

her pants on, then with her pants off, because Granillo

undressed and sexually assaulted her.

The jury convicted Granillo as charged. The circuit court

sentenced Granillo to forty years. It ran the sexual assault in

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the first degree offense concurrently with the kidnapping

offense (twenty years), and ran the other sexual assault in the

first degree offense concurrently with the attempted sexual

assault in the first degree offense (another twenty years). It

then ran those two sets of concurrent counts consecutively, for

a total of forty years.

The Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) affirmed Granillo’s

conviction. Granillo did not appeal the ICA’s judgment.

In October 2017, nearly thirty years after Granillo’s

conviction, the County of Maui Department of the Prosecuting

Attorney received a letter from the United States Department of

Justice (DOJ). The letter explained that the FBI had determined

that Agent Oakes’ testimony – his expert opinion that the hair

sample tested was consistent with originating from Price - was

“inappropriate” because it overstated the statistical weight

that can be assigned to microscopic hair comparisons. Oakes’

testimony had “exceed[ed] the limits of the science.”

The letter also related that the Innocence Project and the

National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) had

found that Oakes’ claim that he could microscopically

differentiate between hairs from two different individuals was

wrong because he “stated or implied that the evidentiary hair

could be associated with a specific individual to the exclusion

of all others.” That statement also exceeded the science.

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In February 2018, the State notified Granillo, then serving

time in Arizona at Saguaro Correctional Center, of the letter.

In January 2019, Granillo filed a Hawaiʻi Rules of Penal

Procedure (HRPP) Rule 40 post-conviction relief petition.

The circuit court appointed counsel and held a nonevidentiary hearing.

At the hearing, the State conceded that the trial court

improperly admitted Oakes’ hair analysis testimony.

Granillo went further. He argued that the Rule 40 court

should rule that the trial court improperly admitted not only

the hair analysis testimony, but also Oakes’ expert opinion on

fiber. He explained that a 2009 congressional study conducted

by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) found that neither

hair nor fiber analysis techniques can conclusively establish

the exact source of a hair or a fiber. Thus, both Oakes’ hair

and fiber opinions exceeded the science.

The State responded that substantial evidence supported

Granillo’s conviction. It claimed that the DOJ, the Innocence

Project, and NACDL analyzed transcripts in Granillo’s case, but

“did not find error with respect to the testimony of the fiber

evidence[.]” And in light of the other compelling evidence, the

State claimed, the error in admitting the hair evidence was

harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

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The Rule 40 court concluded that Oakes’ hair analysis

testimony “was erroneously admitted because it exceeded the

bounds of science.” Based on compelling evidence of physical

injury and other corroborative testimony, however, the court

deemed the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court did not rule on the admissibility of the fiber

analysis. It denied Granillo’s petition.

The ICA upheld the circuit court’s denial of Granillo’s

HRPP Rule 40 petition, but for different reasons.

First, the ICA held that the lower court should have

applied the McNulty test for newly discovered evidence instead

of the harmless error standard. Per State v. McNulty, the ICA

explained, new evidence warrants a new trial when “(1) the

evidence has been discovered after trial; (2) such evidence

could not have been discovered before or at trial through the

exercise of due diligence; (3) the evidence is material to the

issues and not cumulative or offered solely for purposes of

impeachment; and (4) the evidence is of such a nature as would

probably change the result of a later trial.” 60 Haw. 259, 267-68, 588 P.2d 438, 445 (1978) (citation omitted).

The ICA held that Granillo satisfied the first two McNulty

elements. The DOJ letter regarding Granillo’s trial was

“discovered” after trial and could not have been found before or

at trial.

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But the ICA held that Granillo failed to establish the

third McNulty element - that the evidence was not cumulative.

The ICA concluded that nothing in the DOJ letter or the record

impeached Oakes’ fiber opinion. Oakes’ fiber opinion, the ICA

said, showed that Price was in Granillo’s car with her pants

off, and that her underwear touched the car seat cover. The ICA

therefore concluded that the hair evidence merely duplicated

other evidence placing Price in Granillo’s car.

Because it considered Oakes’ fiber opinion cumulative of

his hair opinion, the ICA declined to reach the fourth element,

whether the evidence would “probably change the result of a

later trial.” See id. at 268, 588 P.2d at 445. It affirmed the

circuit court’s denial of Granillo’s post-conviction petition.

The ICA applied the wrong standard. We hold that the false

evidence standard governs this unique category of invalidated

scientific evidence. The newly discovered evidence standard has

no application in this context.

Newly-discredited scientific evidence is not “newly

discovered evidence.” It more closely resembles “false

evidence.” See Birano v. State, 143 Hawaiʻi 163, 181-82, 426

P.3d 387, 405-06 (2018); State v. Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi 255, 271-72,

465 P.3d 702, 718-19 (2020); United States v. Butler, 955 F.3d

1052, 1057 (D.C. Cir. 2020). If scientific advancements reveal

the unreliability of forensic evidence used to convict, then the

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evidence the jury heard was untrue - not new. We apply the

false evidence standard to post-conviction proceedings

challenging expert testimony that scientific developments later

invalidate.

We take judicial notice of two landmark studies to the

extent that they describe the limits of the microscopic analysis

discipline.

This court may “take judicial notice . . . of the validity

of underlying scientific principles and the reliability of

scientific techniques.” See State v. Vliet, 95 Hawaiʻi 94, 112,

19 P.3d 42, 60 (2001). This court may also take judicial notice

of adjudicative facts if they are “capable of accurate and ready

determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot

reasonably be questioned.” Hawaiʻi Rules of Evidence (HRE) Rule

201(b).

We take judicial notice of the National Research Council of

the National Academies’ (NRC) 2009 report to the extent it

applies to microscopic hair and fiber analysis. Comm. on

Identifying the Needs of the Forensic Sciences Cmty., Nat’l

Rsch. Council, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United

States: A Path Forward (The National Academies Press) (2009)

(2009 NRC Report). We also take judicial notice of the

President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology’s

(PCAST) 2016 follow-up report to the extent it discusses the

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limits of the microscopic comparison discipline, generally.

President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Tech., Forensic

Science in Criminal Courts: Ensuring Scientific Validity of

Feature-Comparison Methods (2016) (2016 PCAST Report).

These two studies demonstrate that (1) consensus regarding

the scientific basis for and limits of microscopic comparison

science has evolved over time, and (2) there are limits to what

experts may assert regarding the statistical significance of

findings using this science. Both facts are readily

ascertainable. See HRE Rule 201(b).

The 2009 NRC Report and the 2016 PCAST Report support the

DOJ’s 2017 letter finding that Oakes’ statements regarding the

source of the hair in Granillo’s case exceeded the science.

These reports likewise establish that similar statistical

assertions regarding the source of fibers found on Price’s

clothing exceeded the science underpinning microscopic analysis.

Based on these studies, we conclude that Oakes’ fiber

opinion was invalid. The evidence was false.

There is a reasonable possibility that the false fiber

evidence contributed to Granillo’s conviction. See Stone, 147

Hawaiʻi at 272, 465 P.3d at 719. “[I]t just takes one

unconvinced juror to hang a jury. The reasonable possibility

standard, then, is satisfied if there’s a showing that it’s

reasonably possible that[] . . . a single juror would have voted

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differently.” State v. Hirata, 152 Hawaiʻi 27, 33, 520 P.3d 225,

231 (2022).

Oakes’ hair and fiber opinion powered the prosecution’s

case. From opening to closing, the prosecution hammered the

persuasive value and evidentiary import of the hair and fiber

evidence. It served as the centerpiece of the State’s case.

The defense exposed multiple inconsistencies in Price’s

testimony and repeatedly challenged her account. Beyond some

circumstantial corroboration of Price’s story, the conviction

turned on her credibility. Thus, scientific evidence placing

her in Granillo’s car bolstered that credibility.

The fiber evidence carried particular weight with the jury

because Oakes’ fiber testimony did more than simply place Price

in Granillo’s car. The hair evidence already placed Price in

the car. But the fiber evidence, as FBI expert Oakes opined,

went further. It reinforced the prosecution’s central theory

that Price was in Granillo’s car with her pants on, then off,

and that Granillo undressed and sexually assaulted her. That

testimony alone would have erased any lingering juror doubts

about her testimony.

Oakes’ testimony also projected scientific certainty that

the hair found in Granillo’s car came from Price, and that the

fibers found on Price’s clothing came from Granillo’s car. The

State’s expert witness delivered his opinions as if they were

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rooted in settled science. An expert opinion from a federal

agent - one who has performed thousands of forensic tests -commands great evidentiary weight. See State v. David, 149

Hawaiʻi 469, 478, 494 P.3d 1202, 1211 (2021) (experts have an

“aura of special reliability and trustworthiness”).

We hold that there is a reasonable possibility that Oakes’

expert opinions contributed to Granillo’s conviction. His due

process rights were violated. We remand for a new trial.

II.

A. Factual and Procedural Background

1. Trial Testimony

In the early morning hours on May 27, 1989, Granillo

allegedly abducted Price from a shopping center parking lot,

drove her to a nearby beach, and sexually assaulted her.

A second circuit grand jury indicted Granillo on one count

of kidnapping, Hawaiʻi Revised Statutes (HRS) § 707-720(1)(d)

(Supp. 1986); two counts of sexual assault in the first degree,

HRS § 707-730(1)(a) (Supp. 1987); and one count of attempted

sexual assault in the first degree, HRS §§ 705-500 (1985) and

707-730(1)(a).

Granillo’s trial was held from July 9, 1990 through July

11, 1990. Price and other witnesses recounted the events as

follows.

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Before the incident, Price spent the evening drinking and

dancing with her boyfriend, Floyd Kemfort, and friends. At some

point, Price and Kemfort quarreled. They left together and

drove her car to the Ah Fook’s Shopping Center. Kemfort grabbed

Price’s car keys and abandoned her in the parking lot.

Price called her friend Robert Adams to pick her up. He

called the police.

Granillo’s friend Terry Tester, who was with Granillo in

the shopping center parking lot, noticed Price crying for help

and called the police.

The police arrived. The first officer to arrive, Glen

Goto, testified that he responded to Tester’s call regarding a

woman crying for help. Another officer, Anthony Poplardo,

testified that he also responded to a report of a female

screaming in the shopping center parking lot.

Officer Goto testified that he observed Granillo and Tester

together in the parking lot. As Goto spoke with Tester, Price

lashed out at both men for calling the police. Officer Goto

told the two men to leave and refocused his attention on Price.

Price showed no visible signs of physical assault, Officer Goto

said. Price refused further assistance and told police she

planned to wait for a friend to come get her.

Following Price’s outburst, Tester testified that he and

Granillo left the parking lot in their separate cars.

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After the police officers left to respond to another call,

a car pulled up next to Price. According to Price, the man

driving told her that “the police couldn’t help [her] but that

he could help [her].” Price said that the man got out of his

car, hit her, forced her into his car, and drove off. He then

held a knife to her neck and chest and threatened to kill her if

she didn’t stop crying.

Price described the man who grabbed her as having “kind of

a husky build” and a “scar” on the left side of his face that

“looked like almost a cleft lip or maybe a knife cut.” At

trial, Price pointed to Granillo sitting next to defense counsel

and identified him as the man who sexually assaulted her. The

record contains no evidence of any out-of-court identification

by Price. No mugshot of Granillo, no photo array, no lineup.

Price, it appears, identified Granillo for the first time at

trial.

Price said Granillo took her to Kahului breakwater on Lower

Beach Road. There, she testified, he parked the car, took out a

knife, and said he wanted to “fuck” her. He “pulled his penis

out and he shoved [Price’s] face down between his legs.”

Without Price’s consent, Granillo forced his penis into her

mouth. She testified that Granillo then pulled down her pants,

and put his hand inside of her vagina. Price testified that

Granillo failed to penetrate her with his penis because he did

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not have an erection, but he persisted in kissing and forcing

himself against her. As she struggled and cried, Granillo told

her to shut up, and “everytime [she] wouldn’t shut up he would

grab [her] hair and bang [her] head against the passenger

window.”

Price related that Granillo then threatened to penetrate

her “from behind.” She interpreted this as a threat to have

anal sex with her. Out of fear, she put her pants on, unlocked

the door, grabbed her purse, jumped out of the car, and hid.

When Granillo could not find her, he drove away.

Price ran to the highway and flagged down a jeep. Price

told the jeep’s driver, Allen Auwae, that she had just been

beaten up and raped. She asked to be driven back to her car at

the shopping center. Upon their arrival, the police and Price’s

friend Adams were there. Auwae described Price as “hysterical,”

screaming, and crying on the drive. She said “something about

the guy’s face.” Auwae also noticed that Price looked dirty

with messy hair.

Officer Poplardo testified that he returned to the shopping

center to find Price “really high strung,” “excited,” and

“running around the parking lot.” Price blamed the police.

“She pointed at [Officer Poplardo] and said it was [his] fault

or [the] police[’s] fault that she got raped.”

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Price produced items from her purse and gave them to

Officer Poplardo, believing they belonged to her assailant. She

could not account for how a can of WD-40, white t-shirt, and

empty peanut wrapper wound up in her purse. Price told Officer

Poplardo that “she could identify the guy if she sees him

again.”

Around 4:00 a.m. Price arrived at Maui Memorial Hospital

for an examination. Emergency room physician Dr. John Mills

examined Price, performing both a general physical exam and a

“somewhat detailed pelvic examination” to “look for any signs of

trauma, [infection, or intercourse].” Price told Dr. Mills that

“she had been forced to perform vaginal intercourse.” She

“denied any fellatio or any sodomy.”

Days after the incident, friends visited Price. They

testified that they saw bruising on Price’s face, left thigh,

and right arm.

During the investigation, police recovered evidence from

Price, Granillo, and Granillo’s car. Maui Police Department

officer Lucille Briel testified that she recovered a tank top,

underwear, pants, and pubic hair from Price. Maui Police

Department Detective Charles Rojas testified that he recovered

two knives, strands of hair, and debris from Granillo’s car. He

also recovered body hairs from Granillo.

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Then Maui Police Department Detective Ivan Takitani

testified that he sent hair samples collected from Price, and

fiber samples taken from Granillo’s car seat covers and floor

carpet to the FBI for analysis and examination.

2. Oakes’ Expert Testimony

The State called FBI agent Wayne Oakes to testify as an

expert witness in hair and fiber analysis. Oakes testified that

he was a “supervisory special agent with the FBI” and had served

with the bureau for approximately twelve-and-a-half years. For

nine-and-a-half of those years, he worked in the FBI’s hair and

fiber division, where he examined hair and fiber samples

submitted by local, state, and other federal law enforcement

agencies. Oakes related that he had conducted around two to

three thousand hair sample analyses.

Based on his examination of the hair samples in this case,

Oakes testified that (1) the hair sample found in Granillo’s

vehicle had been “forcibly removed” because it was broken at the

root end; (2) the two hair samples, one from Granillo’s car and

the other from Price’s head, had the same microscopic

characteristics; and (3) the hair sample from Granillo’s car was

consistent with originating from Price.

Oakes also testified that he could distinguish one person’s

hair from another’s through microscopic comparison alone. He

told the jury, “I would be able to differentiate that person’s

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hair from Mr. Kim’s [the deputy prosecuting attorney] hair by

looking at the microscopic characteristics.”

As for his fiber analysis, Oakes testified that (1) the

fibers found on Price’s underwear were “consistent with coming

from [the seat cover of Granillo’s vehicle],” (2) the marine

acrylic fibers found on Price’s pants were “consistent with

coming from the seat cover of [Granillo’s] vehicle,” and (3)

“the carpet fibers . . . from [Price’s] pants were consistent

with coming from the floor of [Granillo’s] vehicle.” All sets

of compared fibers, Oakes testified, were “microscopically the

same.”

Granillo did not present any witnesses, nor did he testify.

3. Closing Arguments and Verdict

During closing argument, the prosecution recapped Price’s

“uncontroverted” testimony regarding the kidnapping and assault.

Counsel highlighted that Detective Takitani found Price’s

belongings at the alleged scene, corroborating her testimony

that she had been kidnapped to that area. The prosecution

parried purported inconsistencies in Price’s testimony regarding

whether the car was moving when she escaped. He explained that

the car likely rolled on a slight incline because it was a

“stick shift.” The prosecution further argued that the alleged

physical force used by Granillo was corroborated by Price’s

friends, who saw her bruises after the incident.

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The prosecution then countered anticipated attacks on

Price’s credibility with the weight of the forensic evidence

against Granillo. “We have physical evidence,” the State said.

“Physical evidence shows that [Price] was in the car from the

FBI agent who testified this morning.”

The prosecutor explained to the jury that (1) the carpet

samples “matched,” (2) the hair found by Detective Rojas

“matched the hair of [Price],” and (3) that Oakes could tell the

hair was forcibly removed by physically examining it. Counsel

also argued that the green fibers from Granillo’s car were found

in Price’s pants and underwear, and that “each one of these

fibers are identical to each other. They were found to have

matched the seat cover of the driver’s seat of [Granillo’s]

car.” Thus, the prosecution claimed, the physical evidence,

paired with Price’s testimony, showed that (1) she was abducted,

(2) she was in the car with her pants on, then off, and (3) that

the person who undressed Price was Granillo.

The defense’s closing argument focused on inconsistencies

in Price’s testimony. For instance, why was only one strand of

hair found if her head was allegedly slammed against the window

over twenty times? How did items like a WD-40 can end up in

Price’s purse if she was so frightened during the kidnapping and

assault? And why did Dr. Mills not see bruises on Price’s

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thighs when he examined her after the incident? The defense,

though, did not attempt to undermine Oakes’ testimony.

In rebuttal, the prosecution countered the defense’s

arguments regarding inconsistencies in Price’s testimony. It

explained that Price testified well after the investigation.

She had moved back to California and tried to put the incident

“out of her mind.” Other testimony established that Granillo

had motive and opportunity to “take advantage” of Price, who was

crying, screaming, and had already refused help from the police.

Thus, the State concluded, it had proved all elements of each

charge beyond a reasonable doubt.

The jury found Granillo guilty as charged of all four

counts: kidnapping, HRS § 707-720(1)(d); two counts of sexual

assault in the first degree, HRS § 707-730(1)(a); and attempted

sexual assault in the first degree, HRS §§ 705-500 and 707-730(1)(a).

4. Post-Conviction Proceedings

Nearly thirty years after Granillo’s conviction, on October

2, 2017, the Maui prosecutors received a letter from the

Department of Justice. The DOJ letter explained that the FBI

had determined that Agent Oakes’ expert testimony - opining that

the hair sample was consistent with originating from Price - was

“inappropriate” because it overstated the statistical weight

that can be assigned to microscopic hair association. The

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letter also referenced the Innocence Project and NACDL’s finding

that Agent Oakes’ testimony that he could differentiate a

person’s hair from that of the prosecutor in this case was

erroneous.

The State notified Granillo of the letter. At the time, he

was incarcerated in Arizona. A year later, Granillo filed a

HRPP Rule 40 petition.

On January 24, 2019, Granillo filed a Rule 40 petition.

Relevant to this appeal, Granillo argued that the trial court

erred in admitting Oakes’ opinion testimony because (1) the

State did not lay a sufficient foundation regarding the testing

methods and instruments used for the hair and fiber analysis,

and (2) the DOJ letter proves that Oakes’ evidence was erroneous

because his opinion “went beyond the bounds of science.”

The circuit court held a non-evidentiary hearing on

Granillo’s Rule 40 petition. At the hearing, Granillo asked the

court to take judicial notice of the 2009 NRC Report. He argued

that “there was a study by the National Academy of

Sciences . . . that showed that hair and fiber evidence . . .

cannot conclusively match. At most, it can say it could have

come from there, it could have come from anywhere else.” Thus,

he argued, the fiber evidence should also have been deemed

inadmissible.

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The State did not respond to this argument regarding the

2009 NRC Report. (Later, before the ICA, the State only argued

that the DOJ letter “did not render the fiber analysis

inadmissible.”)

The circuit court denied Granillo’s petition.

The court concluded that Oakes’ hair analysis testimony

“was erroneously admitted because it exceeded the bounds of

science.” But that error, the court concluded, was harmless

beyond a reasonable doubt. It held there was “overwhelming and

compelling evidence of physical injury, along with other

corroborative testimony, that demonstrate[d] the defendant’s

guilt beyond a reasonable doubt despite the erroneously-admitted

evidence.” See State v. Veikoso, 126 Hawaiʻi 267, 276, 280, 270

P.3d 997, 1006, 1010 (2011) (improperly admitted evidence

requires a new trial unless it is harmless beyond a reasonable

doubt).

The court did not rule on the admissibility of Oakes’ fiber

opinion.

The court denied Granillo’s Rule 40 petition.

5. Appellate Proceedings

The ICA affirmed. It held that that the Rule 40 court

should have applied the McNulty newly discovered evidence test

instead of the harmless error standard. Even so, the ICA

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concluded that Granillo would not have satisfied the McNulty

test. The circuit court had properly denied the petition.

First, because Granillo’s petition was based on newly

discovered evidence, the ICA determined that the circuit court

should have applied the McNulty test. The McNulty test, the ICA

explained, is used to determine whether new evidence warrants a

new trial:

(1) the evidence has been discovered after trial; (2) such

evidence could not have been discovered before or at trial

through the exercise of due diligence; (3) the evidence is

material to the issues and not cumulative or offered solely

for purposes of impeachment; and (4) the evidence is of

such a nature as would probably change the result of a

later trial.

See Haw. Police Dep’t, Cnty. of Haw. v. Kubota, 155 Hawaiʻi 136,

145, 557 P.3d 865, 874 (2024).

Second, the ICA determined that Granillo did not meet

McNulty’s test. The ICA reasoned that Granillo satisfied the

first two elements. However, he failed to show that the

evidence was not cumulative. As the DOJ letter established,

Oakes’ opinion on the hair evidence was “invalid.” The ICA also

determined that the evidence could not have been discovered at

trial because, as the circuit court concluded, “[the DOJ’s]

determination was made decades after the trial and subsequent

appeal.”

As for part three of the McNulty test, the ICA held that

while the new evidence was material to whether Price had been in

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Granillo’s car, Oakes’ hair analysis testimony was cumulative of

his fiber opinions. Granillo, the ICA said, misrepresented the

DOJ letter when he referred to “bogus and inadmissible hair and

fiber evidence[.]” The ICA concluded that nothing in the DOJ

letter or the record impeached Oakes’ fiber opinion, which in

the ICA’s view, showed that Price was in Granillo’s car with her

pants off and her underwear touching the car seat cover. The

discredited hair evidence was cumulative of the purportedly

valid fiber evidence. The new evidence failed to satisfy the

third part of the McNulty test, the ICA ruled. And thus, the

ICA held, it was unnecessary to address the fourth part of the

test. It never reached whether the evidence would probably

change the result of a later trial.

Granillo appealed. We accepted cert on Granillo’s first

point of error challenging the admissibility of Oakes’ fiber

opinion.

Ahead of oral argument, we ordered supplemental briefing as

to (1) whether this court should take judicial notice of the

2009 NRC Report, (2) “the impact of erroneously admitted

scientific evidence on the right to a fair trial in this case,”

and (3) “the appropriate standard for reviewing post-conviction

claims that evidence presented at trial has been scientifically

discredited.”

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III.

A. Judicial Notice of the 2009 NRC Report and the 2016 PCAST

Report

For decades, FBI agents testified that microscopic hair and

fiber analysis could match samples to specific sources. Courts

admitted the evidence. Juries relied on it. Convictions

followed.

The evidence was false.

The 2009 National Research Council Report and 2016

President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology Report

exposed forensic techniques that the scientific community had

never validated. Microscopic hair and fiber comparison cannot

isolate a sample’s source. These methods provide only class

evidence, and lack an empirical basis.

Congress commissioned the NRC Report in 2006. The National

Academy of Sciences assembled a committee of leading scientists,

legal practitioners, and scholars. They heard hundreds of hours

of testimony and conducted years of independent research.

The 2009 NRC Report dismantled forensic science that courts

had trusted for generations. Courts had routinely admitted

unscientific evidence and prosecutors used that evidence to

convict. Turns out, microscopic hair and fiber comparison and

other pattern-matching techniques were unsound.

The “evidence” was never evidence.

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Seven years later, the PCAST Report confirmed the systemic

failures in forensic practices identified by the NRC Report.

Expert testimony accepted in courtrooms across the nation had

lacked scientific validity. Testimony like federal agent Oakes’

on Maui exceeded the limits of science. Science doesn’t lie.

Or so jurors were led to believe.

We take judicial notice of the 2009 NRC Report and the 2016

PCAST Report, but only as to their findings on the scientific

limitations of hair and fiber comparison and expert testimony

based on feature-comparison methods. Both reports establish

what microscopic hair and fiber comparison can and cannot prove.

We notice only the reports’ findings on these specific forensic

techniques.

1. The Judicial Notice Standard

Taking judicial notice of scientific principles and

techniques is nothing new for this court. See Vliet, 95 Hawaiʻi

at 112, 19 P.3d at 60 (“[O]ur appellate courts have ‘not

hesitated in the past to take judicial notice [on appeal] of the

validity of underlying scientific principles and the reliability

of scientific techniques.’”) (quoting State v. Ito, 90 Hawaiʻi

225, 243, 978 P.2d 191, 209 (App. 1999)). Courts “may consider

persuasive authorities and[] . . . case law from other

jurisdictions to determine the reliability of a particular

scientific test.” Id. (citations omitted).

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Vliet took judicial notice of Widmark’s formula, accepted

by the United States National Highway Traffic Safety

Administration as “the basic formula for estimating a person’s

blood alcohol concentration.” Id. at 112-13, 19 P.3d at 60-61

(citing United States Department of Transportation, National

Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Office of Program

Development and Evaluation, Computing a BAC Estimate, at 2–3

(1994)). Montalbo took the same approach, judicially noticing

“that the DNA paradigm is not controversial and is widely

accepted in the relevant scientific community.” State v.

Montalbo, 73 Haw. 130, 141, 828 P.2d 1274, 1281 (1992).

Then there’s Fukusaku. In 1997, this court observed that

“scientific principles and procedures underlying hair and fiber

evidence are well-established and of proven reliability.” State

v. Fukusaku, 85 Hawaiʻi 462, 474, 946 P.2d 32, 44 (1997); see

Ito, 90 Hawaiʻi at 236, 978 P.2d at 202 (“[Fukusaku] essentially

took judicial notice of the reliability of the underlying

scientific principles and the methodology employed in hair and

fiber analysis”).

Fukusaku reflected the scientific consensus of its era.

That consensus no longer holds. The 2009 NRC Report and 2016

PCAST Reports revealed what Fukusaku could not have known. Hair

and fiber comparison methods lacked scientific validity. These

authoritative findings compel us to reverse course.

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Hawaiʻi Rules of Evidence Rule 201 permits judicial notice

of adjudicative facts that are “capable of accurate and ready

determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot

reasonably be questioned.” HRE Rule 201(b). Judicial notice is

discretionary. HRE Rule 201(c). Courts may take judicial

notice at any time. HRE Rule 201(f). Further, “an appellate

court may take judicial notice of facts despite the failure of

the trial court to do so, provided that the facts are ‘capable

of immediate and accurate demonstration by resort to easily

accessible sources of indisputable accuracy.’” State v. Puaoi,

78 Hawaiʻi 185, 190, 891 P.2d 272, 277 (1995) (citation omitted).

This court has also taken judicial notice of governmental

reports under this rule. See Off. of Hawaiian Affs. v. State,

96 Hawaiʻi 388, 396 n.13, 31 P.3d 901, 909 n.13 (2001) (noticing

a Federal Aviation Administration letter and “other relevant

federal memoranda, regulations, and legislation”).

Judicial notice here serves a specific purpose. We notice

not the validity and reliability of microscopic comparison

methods themselves, but rather two adjudicative facts that the

NRC and PCAST Reports establish: (1) scientific consensus about

the basis and limits of microscopic comparison techniques has

decisively changed over time, and (2) science imposes definite

constraints on the permissible scope of expert testimony

concerning microscopic hair and fiber analysis.

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HRE Rule 201(b) allows judicial notice of facts readily

determinable from unquestionably accurate sources. The 2009 NRC

Report and the 2016 PCAST Report qualify. Both are governmentcommissioned, authoritative studies by the nation’s leading

scientific institutions.

The NRC and PCAST Reports define microscopic hair and fiber

analysis’s capabilities and the limits of expert testimony based

on such analysis. We hold that judicial notice of these reports

is appropriate to assess whether Oakes’ hair and fiber opinions

exceeded scientific limits.

We begin with the 2009 NRC Report’s findings.

2. The 2009 NRC Report

In 2006, Congress passed the Science, State, Justice,

Commerce, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act. This

“unprecedented congressional charge” required the National

Academy of Sciences to “conduct a comprehensive examination of

the entire field of forensic science across all disciplines.”

Jennifer E. Laurin, Remapping the Path Forward: Toward a

Systemic View of Forensic Science Reform and Oversight, 91 Tex.

L. Rev. 1051, 1058 (2013) (citing H.R. Rep. No. 109-272, at 121

(2005) (Conf. Rep.)).

The NAS formed a sixteen-member committee of leading

research scientists, forensic scientists, legal practitioners,

and legal academics. 2009 NRC Report, supra, at 287-99. The

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commission was co-chaired by Judge Harry Edwards, former chief

judge of the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals. Id.

at 287-88.

The committee “heard hundreds of hours of testimony from

stakeholders in the field — practicing forensic scientists,

social scientists, academics, prosecutors and defense attorneys,

and federal, state, and local law enforcement officials — and

‘engaged in independent research.’” Laurin, supra, at 1067

(footnotes omitted).

The report responded “to growing concerns from the legal

system and the public regarding the effectiveness and scientific

foundation of the forensic disciplines being applied by law

enforcement agencies and crime laboratories.” Sharon L. Plotkin

& Jan S. Kelly, Chapter 1: Crime Scene Investigations Response

to the NAS Report of 2009, in Methodological and Technological

Advances in Death Investigations: Application and Case Studies

13, 14 (Ross, A.H., & Byrd J.H. eds. 2023). Its findings

“largely confirm[ed] the most pessimistic accounts of the

forensic sciences that ha[d] been circulating in academic and,

to some extent, professional quarters.” Laurin, supra, at 1067.

“Techniques long relied on by law enforcement and accepted by

courts - pattern identification analysis ranging from

fingerprints to shoe prints to ballistics, hair and fiber

analysis, and questioned document analysis, among other

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disciplines – [were] called out as never having been

systematically and scientifically validated.” Id. (emphases

added).

The NRC Report unraveled forensic science techniques that

courts and juries had trusted for decades to determine guilt or

innocence. See id.

The NRC Report’s hair analysis findings are unequivocal.

The report found that “[t]he results of analyses from hair

comparisons typically are accepted as class associations; that

is, a conclusion of a ‘match’ means only that the hair could

have come from any person whose hair exhibited - within some

levels of measurement uncertainties - the same microscopic

characteristics, but it cannot uniquely identify one person.”

2009 NRC Report, supra, at 156 (emphasis added). This

information is mostly useful to “‘narrow the pool’ by excluding

certain persons as sources of the hair.” Id.

The report revealed there is no standardized number of

similar features an examiner must find to call a “match.” Id.

at 160. Further, because there was “no scientific support for

the use of hair comparisons for individualization in the absence

of nuclear DNA,” these microscopic comparisons alone are “of

limited probative value.” Id. at 161. Microscopic comparison

of physical features today is mostly used to exclude suspects

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and decide whether hairs are similar enough to pursue DNA

testing. Id. at 160.

The same limitations apply to microscopic fiber analysis.

The 2009 NRC Report found that “[f]ibers associated with a crime

— including synthetic fibers such as nylon, polyester and

acrylic as well as botanical fibers such as ramie or jute, which

are common in ropes or twines - can be examined microscopically

in the same way as hairs, and with the same limitations.” Id.

at 161 (emphasis added). Where there are “relatively

distinctive environmental conditions (e.g., sunlight exposure or

laundering agents),” analysis can “distinguish particular items

from others from the same manufacturing lot.” Id. “Fiber

examiners agree, however, that none of these characteristics is

suitable for individualizing fibers (associating a fiber from a

crime scene with one, and only one, source) and that fiber

evidence can be used only to associate a given fiber with a

class of fibers.” Id. (emphasis added). Thus, “[i]t can never

be stated with certainty that a fiber originated from a

particular textile because other textiles are produced using the

same fiber types and color.” Id. at 161-62 n.90 (citing U.S.

Department of Justice Federal Bureau of Investigation,

Scientific Working Group on Materials Analysis, Introduction to

Forensic Fiber Examination, 1 Forensic Science Communications,

Section 5.4 (1999), available at

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https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/218830.pdf [https://perma.cc/TS4PBM2M].

The report also explained that, like hair analysis, there

are “no set standards[] for the number and quality of

characteristics that must correspond in order to conclude that

two fibers came from the same manufacturing batch.” Id. at 162-63. There haven’t been any studies on fibers to make this

assessment regarding same manufacturing source. Id.

“Similarly,” the study related, there have been no studies

exploring “whether environmentally related changes discerned in

particular fibers are distinctive enough to reliably

individualize their source, and there have been no studies that

characterize either reliability or error rates in the

procedures.” Id. at 163. “Thus, a ‘match’ means only that the

fibers could have come from the same type of garment, carpet, or

furniture; it can provide only class evidence.” Id.

The committee ultimately concluded that many of the

feature-comparison disciplines, like hair and fiber analysis,

“lacked well-defined systems for determining error rates and had

not done studies to establish the uniqueness or relative rarity

or commonality of the particular marks or features examined.”

2016 PCAST Report, supra, at 4 (describing the 2009 NRC Report),

20. “Much forensic evidence — including, for example, bite

marks and firearm and toolmark identifications — is introduced

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in criminal trials without any meaningful scientific validation,

determination of error rates, or reliability testing to explain

the limits of the discipline.” 2009 NRC Report, supra, at 107-08 (footnotes omitted).

For sure, we do not take judicial notice of every

scientific study raised in post-conviction cases. The 2009 NRC

Report is different though. It transformed forensic science

practice, prompted nationwide conviction reviews (like here),

forced the FBI to abandon techniques and revise practices, and

reset judicial standards for evaluating forensic testimony.

Courts now treat the report as the authoritative reference

for evaluating forensic methods previously accepted without

question. See, e.g., More v. State, 880 N.W.2d 487, 509 (Iowa

2016) (“[T]he NRC report is not just another article destined to

be piled high on researchers’ desks before being discarded in

academic dustbins. The NRC is a blockbuster report . . . with

new statistical data previously unavailable to scientists. . . .

While each marginal advance in science cannot form the basis of

a new trial, watershed developments are a different story.”);

State v. Brackett, No. WAS-24-231, 2026 WL 304999, *13 (Me. Feb.

5, 2026); Paul C. Giannelli, The NRC Report and its Implications

for Criminal Litigation, 50 Jurimetrics J. 53 (2009) (describing

the report’s “profound impact on crime laboratories and the

judicial system”); Plotkin & Kelly, supra, at 16 (“The impact of

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the 2009 NAS Report has and will continue to be far-reaching.”);

Laurin, supra, at 1054-55 (“The NAS Report has been widely

heralded as a watershed, and its analysis and recommendations

look to be setting the terms of academic and policy debates

concerning forensic science for the foreseeable future.”).

We take judicial notice of the 2009 NRC Report’s

conclusions regarding microscopic hair and fiber comparison,

including those disciplines’ basis and scientific limitations,

and the permissible scope of expert testimony on such evidence.

3. 2016 PCAST Report

The President’s Council of Advisors on Science and

Technology’s 2016 report affirmed the NRC Report’s conclusions

on the limits of microscopic hair and fiber comparison

techniques. See 2016 PCAST Report, supra, at 54-55, 44-66, 120-21, 136-39.

We take judicial notice of the PCAST Report’s requirements

for scientifically valid expert testimony on feature-comparison

methods. 2016 PCAST Report, supra, at 54-55. We also take

judicial notice of the 2016 PCAST Report to the extent it

evaluates microscopic hair comparison uniform expert guidelines

relied on by the Department of Justice. Id. at 139-40.

What PCAST discovered was unconscionable. Seven years

after the NRC Report exposed false expert testimony about

microscopic comparison techniques, federal experts were still

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doing it. The 2016 PCAST Report concluded that federal

government experts continued to untruthfully testify about the

probability that a sample came from a specific source:

Troublingly, expert witnesses sometimes go beyond the

empirical evidence about the frequency of features — even

to the extent of claiming or implying that a sample came

from a specific source with near-certainty or even absolute

certainty, despite having no scientific basis for such

opinions. From the standpoint of scientific validity,

experts should never be permitted to state or imply in

court that they can draw conclusions with certainty or

near-certainty (such as “zero,” “vanishingly small,”

“essentially zero,” “negligible,” “minimal,” or

“microscopic” error rates; “100 percent certainty” or “to a

reasonable degree of scientific certainty;” or

identification “to the exclusion of all other sources[)].”

See 2016 PCAST Report, supra, at 54 (emphases added) (footnote

omitted).

The report demolished a familiar refuge for unreliable

expert testimony – the appeal to experience. Doing something

for a long time does not make it scientifically valid.

“‘[E]xperience’ or ‘judgment’ cannot be used to establish the

scientific validity and reliability of a metrological method,

such as a forensic feature-comparison method. The frequency

with which a particular pattern or set of features will be

observed in different samples, which is an essential element in

drawing conclusions, is not a matter of ‘judgment.’” Id. at 55.

The council did not undertake a full review of hair or

fiber comparison. Id. at 118. But it did probe the DOJ’s July

2016 Proposed Uniform Language for Testimony and Reports for the

Forensic Hair Examination Discipline and supporting

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documentation. Id. at 118, 136, 139. PCAST found that “[t]he

guidelines appropriately state that examiners may not claim that

they can individualize the source of a hair nor that they have a

zero error rate.” Id. at 139.

PCAST noted that the DOJ guidelines properly permitted

examiners to “state or imply that the questioned human hair is

microscopically consistent with the known hair sample and

accordingly, the source of the known hair sample can be included

as a possible source of the questioned hair.” Id. (quoting

Proposed Uniform Language for Testimony and Reports for the

Forensic Hair Examination Discipline, supra, at 2). But PCAST

imposed a critical limitation to those types of statements.

PCAST explained that examiners are “barred from providing

accurate information about the reliability of such conclusions.”

Id. (emphasis added). PCAST condemned such reliability

testimony as “contrary to the scientific requirement that

forensic feature-comparison methods must be supported by and

accompanied by appropriate empirical estimates of reliability.”

Id. (emphasis added).

The PCAST Report also found that the studies cited by the

DOJ in its supporting documentation “do not provide a scientific

basis for concluding that microscopic hair examination is a

valid and reliable process”:

According to the [DOJ] supporting document, it is not an

“error” but simply a “limitation of the science” when an

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examiner associates a hair with an individual who was not

actually the source of the hair. This is disingenuous.

When an expert witness tells a jury that a hair found at

the scene of a crime is microscopically indistinguishable

from a defendant’s hair, the expert and the prosecution

intend the statement to carry weight. Yet, the document

goes on to say that no information is available about the

proportion of individuals with similar characteristics. As

Chapter 4 makes clear, this is scientifically unacceptable.

Without appropriate estimates of accuracy, an examiner’s

statement that two samples are similar — or even

indistinguishable — is scientifically meaningless: it has

no probative value, and considerable potential for

prejudicial impact.

Id. at 120-21 (emphases added).

In other words, experts may not opine on the accuracy of

microscopic hair comparisons to imply that two samples are from

the same source. See id. “In short,” PCAST concluded, “if

scientific hair analysis is to mean something, there must be

actual empirical evidence about its meaning.” Id. at 121.

We take judicial notice of the PCAST Report’s analysis of

DOJ microscopic hair comparison methods. PCAST confirmed what

the NRC had concluded – without empirical validation, claims

that samples are similar or match lack scientific basis. See

id. at 120-21. We also take judicial notice of PCAST’s analysis

addressing the limits associated with expert testimony on

feature-comparison methods. Id. at 54-55.

4. The DOJ Letter’s Focus on Hair Does Not Dictate Our

Analysis

The DOJ letter reviewed Oakes’ hair testimony. The State

relies heavily on that limited focus. The ICA agreed,

concluding that because the DOJ letter did not discuss fiber

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analysis, the unreliable fiber evidence escapes scrutiny. We

reject that logic.

The DOJ’s decision not to review Oakes’ fiber testimony

says nothing about its reliability. Silence is not endorsement.

The federal agency review sprung from DNA exonerations that

revealed errors in microscopic hair analysis. Hair drove the

effort. Fiber was never part of it.

Microscopic hair analysis was the “second most common type

of flawed forensic evidence” identified in DNA exonerations.

Vanessa Meterko, Strengths and Limitations of Forensic Science:

What DNA Exonerations Have Taught Us and Where to Go From Here

119 W. Va. L. Rev. 639, 642 (2016). After exonerations

involving flawed FBI hair examiner testimony came to light, the

FBI, DOJ, NACDL, and the Innocence Project launched an

“unprecedented collaboration” to independently review “thousands

of cases in which the FBI conducted microscopic hair analysis of

crime scene evidence.” Norman L. Reimer, Microscopic Hair

Comparison Analysis Review Project: A Milestone in the Quest for

Forensic Science, NACDL, https://www.nacdl.org/Article/May2015-TheMicroscopicHairComparisonAn [https://perma.cc/A5GJ-YGPS];

Meterko, supra, at 642-43 (citing FBI Testimony on Microscopic

Hair Analysis Contained Errors in at Least 90 Percent of Cases

in Ongoing Review, Fed. Bureau of Investigation (Apr. 20, 2015),

https://www.fbi.gov/news/press-releases/fbi-testimony-on38

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microscopic-hair-analysis-contained-errors-in-at-least-90-percent-of-cases-in-ongoing-review [https://perma.cc/DDM6-U9UB]). The 2009 NRC Report inspired that review. Meterko,

supra, at 640-41; Reimer, supra. And that review generated the

letter flagging Oakes’ misstatements in his hair analysis

testimony.

The review’s scope was limited to microscopic hair

analysis. That’s not because fiber science is reliable. Hair

exonerations prompted the review. Only ten DNA exoneration

cases nationwide “involved incorrect testimony about ‘other’

less-common disciplines like shoe print and fiber analysis.”

Meterko, supra, at 643.

Nor is the DOJ’s omission a quarrel with the NRC report.

The NRC Report is explicit. Fibers “can be examined

microscopically in the same way as hairs, and with the same

limitations.” 2009 NRC Report, supra, at 161. We analyze

Oakes’ fiber testimony based on those limitations.

B. Oakes’ Fiber Opinions Exceeded the Science

The circuit court and the ICA correctly ruled that Oakes’

hair comparison testimony exceeded scientific limits. But the

ICA erred in ruling that Oakes’ fiber opinions were admissible.

His fiber testimony equally exceeded the science.

The 2009 NRC Report and 2016 PCAST Report establish clear

boundaries for what microscopic fiber analysis can and cannot

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support. Oakes’ testimony exceeded the limits of science in

many ways.

1. Oakes’ Fiber Testimony

We first recap Oakes’ fiber analysis testimony. The FBI

agent’s expert opinion involved three fiber comparisons and a

climactic statement that purported to corroborate the

prosecution’s theory of the case.

Oakes told the jury that “green acrylic textile fibers”

found on Price’s underwear were “microscopically identical” to a

seat sample from Granillo’s car. He said these “fibers” were

“consistent with coming from that item.” (Emphasis added.)

Then Oakes opined that “marine acrylic fibers” found on Price’s

pants were “consistent with coming from the seat cover of

[Granillo’s] vehicle.” (Emphasis added.) As for the “brown and

grey carpet fibers” found on Price’s pants, they were

“microscopically the same” as carpet fibers from the “front left

floor portion of [Granillo’s] vehicle,” Oakes testified.

The prosecution linked the evidence to its theory of the

case. It ended Oakes’ direct examination by asking whether his

fiber findings were “consistent with the allegation that [Price]

was in the car with her pants off and panties exposed[.]” Oakes

answered, “Yes. The fact that I found seat cover fibers in the

debris from the victim’s panties would be consistent with that,

yes.” Oakes offered no qualifying statements.

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On cross-examination, the defense questioned Oakes about

the number of fiber samples collected, and where in the car they

were found. Little else. At the time, no one had reason to

question the FBI’s methodology.

Oakes told the jury that the fibers were “microscopically

identical,” “microscopically the same,” and “consistent with”

coming from Granillo’s car.

These are precisely the types of overstatements the DOJ

deemed inappropriate. Yet the DOJ’s letter to Granillo reached

only Oakes’ hair opinion.

The 2017 DOJ letter provides the framework for analyzing

Oakes’ testimony. While the letter addressed hair analysis, its

conclusions apply equally to fiber analysis. The NRC Report

says so. Fiber analysis has “the same limitations” as hair

analysis. 2009 NRC Report, supra, at 161.

The DOJ determined that Oakes’ hair testimony was

“inappropriate” because it overstated the statistical weight

that can be assigned to a positive microscopic hair association.

Oakes misstated the science when he testified that the hair

found in Granillo’s car was “consistent with originating from

[Price].” The DOJ concluded that Oakes had misled the jury by

“assign[ing] to the positive association a statistical weight or

probability . . . that the questioned hair originated from a

particular source, or an opinion as to the likelihood or

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rareness of the positive association that could lead the jury to

believe that valid statistical weight can be assigned to a

microscopic hair association.”

The DOJ declared, “This type of testimony exceeds the

limits of the science.”

2. Oakes’ Fiber Testimony Exceeded Scientific Limits

We now look at how Oakes’ fiber testimony exceeded

science’s limits. The testimony defied scientific principles in

five respects: it improperly individualized the evidence,

assigned unwarranted statistical weight, concealed the

limitation to class evidence, ignored the absence of validation

studies, and failed to acknowledge that no unique environmental

characteristics distinguished these fibers.

First, Oakes identified a specific source, when the science

permits only class identification. The 2009 NRC Report could

not be clearer. “Fiber examiners, agree, however, that none of

these characteristics is suitable for individualizing fibers

(associating a fiber from a crime scene with one, and only one,

source) and that fiber evidence can be used only to associate a

given fiber with a class of fibers.” 2009 NRC Report, supra, at

161 (emphasis added). The FBI’s Scientific Working Group on

Material Analysis acknowledges, “[i]t can never be stated with

certainty that a fiber originated from a particular textile

because other textiles are produced using the same fiber types

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and color.” Id. at 161-62 n.90 (citing Scientific Working Group

on Materials Analysis, supra) (emphasis added).

Here’s what Oakes testified. The “green acrylic textile

fibers” found on Price’s underwear were “microscopically

identical” to a seat sample from Granillo’s car, and were

“consistent with coming from that item” (the seat cover in

Granillo’s car). (Emphasis added.) He also identified “marine

acrylic fibers” found on Price’s pants as “consistent with

coming from the seat cover of [Granillo’s] vehicle.” (Emphasis

added.) And he opined that the carpet fibers from Price’s pants

were “microscopically the same” as those from the “front left

floor portion of [Granillo’s] vehicle.”

By using language like “that item,” “the seat cover” and

“the front left floor portion,” Oakes identified specific

sources – not a class of fibers. He told the jury the fibers

came from Granillo’s car, not from a type of seat cover or

carpet, or a class of marine acrylic fibers used in automotive

seat covers. This was not class association. It was source

attribution. It had no scientific basis.

Second, Oakes assigned improper statistical weight to his

fiber comparison. Contrary to science, Oakes opined that the

fibers were “microscopically identical” and “microscopically the

same.” He also testified they were “consistent with” coming

from specific items in Granillo’s car.

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He conveyed certainty where none existed. The 2016 PCAST

Report is straightforward. PCAST concludes that it was wrong to

“claim[] or imply[] that a sample came from a specific source

with near-certainty or even absolute certainty, despite having

no scientific basis for such opinions.” 2016 PCAST Report,

supra, at 54. Thus, PCAST stresses, “Without appropriate

estimates of accuracy, an examiner’s statement that two samples

are similar – or even indistinguishable – is scientifically

meaningless: it has no probative value, and considerable

potential for prejudicial impact.” Id. at 143; 2009 NRC Report,

supra, at 161 (“In cases where there seems to be a morphological

[hair] match (based on microscopic examination), it must be

confirmed using mtDNA analysis; microscopic studies alone are of

limited probative value.”) (emphasis added).

“Consistent with” also sounds scientific. To a jury, it

means the fibers matched. When an FBI expert tells the jury

that fibers found on a victim’s underwear are “consistent with”

coming from the defendant’s car seat, the jury hears a sourceto-sample-match. “Microscopically identical” and

“microscopically the same” conjure a similarly illusory aura of

science-backed accuracy. These phrases inform a jury that the

expert examined the fibers under a microscope and they were the

same. They match.

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But science established no such thing. No scientific

studies have characterized reliability or error rates in fiber

comparison techniques. There are no set standards for how many

characteristics must correspond to conclude that fibers came

from the same manufacturing batch. 2009 NRC Report, supra, at

162-63. Without error rate studies, validation research, and

verified standards, Oakes had no foundation for the certainty

his testimony conveyed. See id. Yet convey it he did.

Third, Oakes never told the jury that fiber comparison, as

a discipline, can only produce class-level associations. The

NRC Report concludes that “a ‘match’ means only that the fibers

could have come from the same type of garment, carpet, or

furniture; it can provide only class evidence.” 2009 NRC

Report, supra, at 163. Reliable fiber testimony must

communicate this fundamental limitation. The expert testifying

to a “match” must clarify that “matching” fibers means only that

the questioned fibers and the known sample share class

characteristics – they could have come from any number of items.

And experts cannot rule out any of them.

Perhaps with the right guardrails, Oakes’ testimony could

have been admissible. But statements that fibers are

“consistent with” another item must be crystal clear that the

consistency is solely class-based, and does not establish a

source match. “Consistency” walks a fine line with “match.”

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Context is everything. Here, absent any qualifying

language explaining the scientific limits of the class evidence

as to source, Oakes’ “consistency” language skirted the class

qualifiers and conveyed a “match” that exceeded the science.

Without understanding that fiber evidence is limited to class

evidence, the jury had every reason to conclude that Oakes

matched the fibers to Granillo’s car. And only Granillo’s car.

Fourth, there was no testimony about validation studies.

The NRC Report found, “There have been no studies of fibers

(e.g., the variability of their characteristics during and after

manufacturing) on which to base . . . a threshold [for

concluding that two fibers came from the same manufacturing

batch.]” Id. at 163 (emphasis added). The report continued,

“Similarly, there have been no studies to inform judgments about

whether environmentally related changes discerned in particular

fibers are distinctive enough to reliably individualize their

source, and there have been no studies that characterize either

reliability or error rates in the procedures.” Id. (emphases

added).

The research does not exist. The scientific community has

conducted no validation research determining that fiber

comparison works for the purposes of ruling out or specifically

identifying sources. No studies exist showing that when an

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examiner says two fibers “match,” they actually come from the

same source with any measurable frequency.

Oakes’ expert testimony relied on his training and

experience. PCAST confronted this analytical flaw head-on.

“‘[E]xperience’ or ‘judgment’ cannot be used to establish the

scientific validity and reliability of a metrological method,

such as a forensic feature-comparison method. The frequency

with which a particular pattern or set of features will be

observed in different samples, which is an essential element in

drawing conclusions, is not a matter of ‘judgment.’” 2016 PCAST

Report, supra, at 55 (emphasis added).

Experience doesn’t validate a technique. Oakes’ testimony

hinged entirely on his nearly ten years in the FBI’s hair and

fiber division. But time on the job is not a substitute for

empirical validation. No amount of experience transforms

assertion into science.

Fifth, no unique environmental characteristics were

identified. The NRC Report recognizes one narrow exception to

fiber analysis’ limitations. “In some cases, clothing and

carpets have been subjected to relatively distinctive

environmental conditions (e.g., sunlight exposure or laundering

agents) that impart characteristics that can distinguish

particular items from others from the same manufacturing lot.”

2009 NRC Report, supra, at 161. Even then, the Report cautions,

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“none of these characteristics is suitable for individualizing

fibers.” Id.

Oakes simply said the fibers were “microscopically

identical” and “consistent with” coming from Granillo’s car. He

identified no unique environmental characteristics separating

these fibers from others in the same manufacturing lot. Yet

Oakes testified as if they could belong to only one car.

We now turn to Oakes’ climactic opinion: the fibers were

“consistent with” Price being in Granillo’s car “with her pants

off and panties exposed.” This culmination compounded all that

came before.

The prosecution asked, “[A]re [your findings] consistent

with the allegation that [Price] was in the car with her pants

off and panties exposed?” “Yes,” Oakes answered. “The fact

that I found seat cover fibers in the debris from the victim’s

panties would be consistent with that, yes.”

Oakes’ testimony exceeded the science.

First, his opinion assumes the predicate – the fibers came

from Granillo’s seat cover. The science did not support that

premise. Second, Oakes validated the prosecution’s theory.

“Consistent with” gave the State’s narrative the shine of

scientific confirmation. That is not what a neutral expert

does. That’s what an advocate does. Third, the opinion

converted class-level fiber evidence into proof of guilt. The

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jury, in effect, heard: “The FBI’s fiber analysis confirms that

[Price] was in Granillo’s car with her underwear exposed.”

That’s precisely what the DOJ letter condemned in Oakes’ hair

testimony. Oakes’ expert opinion did what the DOJ letter said

was inappropriate for hair opinions. It assigned “statistical

weight or probability . . . that the questioned [evidence]

originated from a particular source” in a manner that “could

lead the jury to believe that valid statistical weight can be

assigned” to the association.

Thus, Oakes’ culminating opinion didn’t just exceed the

science. It was the predictable result of all that preceded it

– assumed conclusions, unearned certainty, and concealed

limitations.

We repeat. The 2009 NRC Report could not be clearer. Hair

and fiber analysis have “the same limitations.” Fibers “can be

examined microscopically in the same way as hairs, and with the

same limitations.” 2009 NRC Report, supra, at 161 (emphasis

added).

This parallel structure is not something we can sidestep.

It controls our analysis. The DOJ found Oakes’ hair testimony

exceeded scientific limits. The circuit court and the ICA

agreed. Hair and fiber comparison analysis share “the same

limitations.” See id. What’s true for one is true for the

other.

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Here’s the side-by-side comparison. For hair, Oakes

testified that the sample was “consistent with originating from

[Price].” The DOJ concluded this improperly “assigned to the

positive association a statistical weight or probability” and

“exceed[ed] the limits of the science.” For fiber, Oakes

testified that the samples were “consistent with coming from

[Granillo’s car seat].” The science does not distinguish

between the two. Neither do we.

The ICA erred in deeming the hair testimony invalid while

treating the fiber testimony as valid. Both disciplines have

“the same limitations.” What invalidated the hair testimony,

invalidated the fiber testimony. To hold otherwise would be

analytically erratic and scientifically indefensible.

Last, Oakes’ fiber testimony cannot withstand current

scientific understanding or evidentiary standards. No credible

expert would testify that way today. No court would admit it.

See HRE Rule 702; State v. Spies, 157 Hawaiʻi 75, 88, 575 P.3d

708, 721 (2025) (“[an] expert’s analysis must meet a threshold

level of reliability and trustworthiness”) (citation omitted).

Testimony that would be inadmissible now was false when admitted

in 1990.

C. The False Evidence Standard Applies to Discredited

Scientific Testimony

The ICA applied the wrong standard. McNulty’s newly

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discovered evidence standard does not govern post-conviction

relief petitions concerning discredited scientific testimony.

Newly-discredited scientific evidence is not new evidence. The

expert testimony was never properly-admitted evidence to begin

with. The testimony was always false.

The presentation of materially false evidence violates due

process. McNulty’s “newly discovered evidence” standard does

not align with never-true evidence. The false evidence

standard, rooted in constitutional due process, controls.

We hold that when scientific developments invalidate

testimony presented at trial, the false evidence standard

applies.

Beyond due process, the false evidence standard promotes

accurate convictions, aligns legal standards with scientific

reality, and creates appropriate incentives for the responsible

use of forensic science. Within the HRPP Rule 40 postconviction framework, the false evidence standard governs claims

based on scientifically invalidated testimony.

Apply that standard here. The result follows. An FBI

agent’s scientific testimony powered the prosecution’s case and

boxed in Granillo’s defense.

Because that testimony was materially false, Granillo’s

article I, section 5 right to a fair trial was violated. He is

entitled to a new trial.

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We start with the false evidence standard.

1. The False Evidence Standard

Under the Hawaiʻi Constitution, due process protects the

right to a fair trial. Haw. Const. art. I, § 5. This court has

held that the right to a fair trial is violated when there is a

“reasonable possibility” that false evidence contributed to the

conviction. Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at 271, 465 P.3d at 718; Birano,

143 Hawaiʻi at 181-82, 426 P.3d at 405-06.

The principle is not unique to Hawaiʻi. The United States

Supreme Court long ago established that a conviction obtained

through false evidence violates due process. See Mooney v.

Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112 (1935) (conviction obtained through

perjured testimony violates due process); Napue v. Illinois, 360

U.S. 264, 269 (1959) (the State may not knowingly use false

evidence to obtain a conviction); Giglio v. United States, 405

U.S. 150, 153 (1972) (knowingly using false evidence is

“incompatible with ‘rudimentary demands of justice’”). The D.C.

Circuit applied this principle to the same type of forensic

evidence at issue here. See Butler, 955 F.3d at 1057.

The false evidence must be material. Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at

270, 465 P.3d at 717; State v. Teves, 5 Haw. App. 90, 96, 679

P.2d 136, 141 (App. 1984) (a new trial under HRPP Rule 33

requires false testimony of a “material prosecution witness”);

Butler, 955 F.3d at 1057-58. The standard recognizes that false

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evidence cases “involve a corruption of the truth-seeking

function of the trial process.” See United States v. Agurs, 427

U.S. 97, 104 (1976); see also Butler, 955 F.3d at 1058 (same).

The false evidence standard protects a fundamental

constitutional right: the right to a fair trial untainted by

materially false testimony.

We begin with the standard the ICA applied, and then

explain why the false evidence standard is better suited to

discredited scientific evidence.

2. McNulty’s Newly Discovered Evidence Mismatch

McNulty doesn’t fit. Unlike the false evidence standard,

the newly discovered evidence standard does not align with

later-discredited scientific testimony. The two standards serve

different purposes and address different situations.

Per McNulty, newly discovered evidence warrants a new trial

when the evidence (1) is discovered after trial; (2) could not

have been discovered before or at trial through due diligence;

(3) is material and not cumulative; and (4) would probably

change the outcome of a retrial. 60 Haw. at 267-68, 588 P.2d at

445.

This standard contemplates evidence. That is, facts about

what happened. The “new” evidence provides information about

historical facts. For instance, a new alibi witness, documents

that existed at trial but weren’t found despite diligent search,

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a post-trial confession by another person, or DNA test results

that technological advances made available. The evidence was

either present at trial but undiscovered, or new facts arose

afterward.

Under the McNulty “newly discovered evidence” standard, the

court adds new evidence and weighs its impact. But in

Granillo’s case, the court must subtract powerful forensic

evidence that has been proven false. McNulty is ill-suited for

cases involving later-discredited science. A different, less

demanding standard applies.

Scientific propositions are true or false based on

empirical reality, not contemporary belief. When the FBI agent

shared his expert opinions with Maui County jurors, the

testimony was either scientifically valid or not.

McNulty works for the type of evidence it covers – evidence

that was not around at trial. But what about evidence that was

never true, always false? What standard applies when forensic

science testimony is later revealed to lack scientific validity?

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals’ analysis in Butler is

instructive. Butler confronted the same question we face, on

nearly identical facts. 955 F.3d at 1053. The D.C. Circuit

reversed a person’s murder conviction based on improperly

admitted hair microscopy evidence. Id. At trial, the

prosecution’s expert testified that hairs recovered from the

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victim’s clothing were “microscopically the same” as Butler’s

hair, “alike in all identifiable microscopic characteristics” to

Butler’s hair, and “matched [Butler’s hair] in all microscopic

characteristics.” Id. at 1055-56. When asked how likely it was

for two hairs to be microscopically alike yet come from

different people, the expert said that in approximately 10,000

examinations, this happened “four or five times,” something the

prosecutor highlighted in closing. Id. at 1056.

In 2015, over forty years after Butler’s conviction, the

DOJ determined that the testimony against him “exceeded the

limits of science.” Id. at 1057. Based on the government’s

disclosure, the evidence was “invalid.” Id. Butler sought

post-conviction relief. Id.

The D.C. Circuit Court held that the hair evidence

constituted “false evidence.” Id. The government conceded the

testimony “was false and exceeded the limits of science.” Id.

It also acknowledged that it “knew or should have known of hair

microscopy evidence’s inadequacies at the time of trial.” Id.

With falsity established, Butler turned to the dispositive

question - materiality. “[T]he sole question for us is whether

the prosecution’s use of the false hair testimony against Butler

was material.” Id.

Butler’s materiality analysis aligns with our own. False

evidence is material, the D.C. Circuit held, if it “could in any

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reasonable likelihood have affected the judgment of the jury.”

Id. at 1058 (citation omitted). Because false evidence corrupts

truth-detecting and undermines constitutional guarantees, the

standard must be “quite easily satisfied.” Id.

Stone’s reasonable possibility standard serves the same

function. Both Stone and Butler place the constitutional focus

on the integrity of the conviction. Neither asks whether the

remaining evidence is strong enough to save the verdict. The

newly discovered evidence standard does.

The difference in burden matters. Per Stone, the defendant

need only show a “reasonable possibility that the false

testimony could have contributed to . . . conviction.” 147

Hawaiʻi at 271, 465 P.3d at 718 (applying the false evidence

standard to a motion for a new trial under HRPP Rule 33). Per

McNulty, the defendant must show that the “evidence is of such a

nature as would probably change the result of a later trial.”

Kubota, 155 Hawaiʻi at 145, 557 P.3d at 874 (emphasis added).

Newly discovered evidence’s forward-looking standard

focuses on speculation about what a hypothetical jury might do

at a retrial. This is an inherently uncertain inquiry that may

fail to register the false evidence’s full impact.

Because convictions obtained by false evidence disrupt the

accuracy of factfinding and have a constitutional dimension, the

comparatively lighter false evidence standard fits. When a jury

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hears false testimony – particularly false scientific testimony

cloaked in the FBI’s aura of authority - there can be little

confidence in the verdict. A reasonable possibility standard

better assesses false scientific evidence’s actual effect on the

jury.

This lesser burden makes sense both practically and from

fairness perspectives. If defendants had to show that they

would “probably” have been acquitted without the false

testimony, most would fail. As in Granillo’s case, prosecutions

rarely turn on forensic evidence alone. Under a “probability”

standard, the government’s use of invalid science would go

largely unchecked. So long as other evidence makes acquittal

improbable, junk science expert testimony would be permissible.

The degree of backwards-looking certainty required to find

“probability” glosses over the harm wrought by false scientific

evidence.

In contrast, the “reasonable possibility” standard asks the

correct constitutional question. Did the false evidence

undermine confidence in the actual verdict? This backwardlooking inquiry understands that when a conviction relies even

partially on false evidence, the verdict’s reliability is

compromised. Despite how confident reviewing courts reading

transcripts years later might feel about a verdict based on

other evidence.

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As Agurs reasoned, the harm is “a corruption of the truthseeking function of the trial process.” 427 U.S. at 104. That

corruption occurs the moment false evidence is presented. Not

years later when an appellate court speculates it would

“probably” have changed the outcome.

3. The Updated Science in This Case is Not Newly

Discovered Evidence

Neither the 2009 NRC Report’s nor the 2016 PCAST Report’s

findings qualify as “newly discovered evidence.” Those reports

reveal no new facts about what happened, identify no new

witnesses, and do not uncover previously hidden documents. See

State v. Mabuti, 72 Haw. 106, 112, 807 P.2d 1264, 1268 (1991);

State v. Caraballo, 62 Haw. 309, 316-18, 615 P.2d 91, 97 (1980).

Rather, these two groundbreaking reports supply

authoritative scientific analysis showing that expert testimony

used to secure convictions across the country lacked validity.

Federal agents, like Oakes, assured jurors in courtrooms like

Maui’s that they had scientifically determined with certainty

exactly where hair and fiber samples originated. That assurance

was untrue.

Reports documenting scientific advances operate differently

than newly discovered evidence. The 2009 and 2016 reports

evaluated the scientific validity of expert opinions used to

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convict. They changed the view of pre-existing evidence. They

did not discover new evidence.

The distinction matters. Justice Sotomayor recently

explained that “newly-discredited forensic evidence is different

from other newly-discovered facts.” McCrory v. Alabama, 144 S.

Ct. 2483, 2487 (Mem) (2024) (Sotomayor, J., statement

“respecting the denial of certiorari”). “Evidence that an

entire mode of forensic analysis has no scientific basis[] . . .

is of a different category from evidence that might call into

question a witness’s credibility or motive to testify.” Id. A

jury convicted McCrory of murder “based on forensic bitemark

testimony that has now been roundly condemned by the scientific

community[.]” Id. at 2483. That evidence wasn’t new evidence,

Justice Sotomayor explained. See id. “Unlike a new witness to

a murder or a new analysis of DNA evidence, the new evidence is

simply a scientific consensus that the old evidence was

unreliable. In McCrory’s case, for example, it is not that the

dental mold was not of McCrory’s teeth or that the victim had no

marks on her arm. It is simply that a modern scientist would be

unable to testify that the two had anything to do with each

other.” Id. at 2487.

The “new evidence” here is not a witness Granillo failed to

call or a document he failed to produce. It is scientific

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consensus that the expert’s testimony exceeded the limits of

science.

Oakes’ hair and fiber testimony is discredited not by the

discovery of new evidence. It is discredited by a fundamental

shift in the scientific understanding of the evidence that was

presented at trial. We now know that back then the State used

unsound scientific methods to convict.

Newly discovered facts are a different type of evidence.

See Mabuti, 72 Haw. at 112, 807 P.2d at 1268. Mabuti’s motion

for a new trial was “based on the late development of

the discovery of a previously unknown witness, whose purported

testimony contested the credibility of one of the State’s

witnesses.” Id. Because newly discovered evidence – an actual

new witness - was at issue, McNulty applied. Id.; see also

Caraballo, 62 Haw. at 316-18, 615 P.2d at 97.

The 2009 NRC Report did not make Oakes’ testimony false.

It revealed that his testimony was always false. From the

start, his testimony about the significance of his fiber

analysis lacked scientific support. So there was no newly

discovered fact about microscopic hair and fiber comparison.

The Report revealed that the empirical foundation for Oakes’

expert opinions never existed. What changed was the criminal

justice system’s awareness of that reality.

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As one scholar put it, “[t]he fact that a consensus of

scientific experts in a particular field once agreed on a

principle but, based on new scientific data, no longer does is

not the type of newly discovered evidence that most freshevidence doctrines contemplate. There was no misconduct by the

prosecutors in presenting the evidence prior to the change in

consensus precisely because, at the time of trial, the testimony

represented the consensus of the field.” Carrie Leonetti, The

Innocence Checklist, 58 Am. Crim. L. Rev. 97, 121 (2021).

Granillo’s case concerns false evidence, not newly

discovered evidence. The appeal centers not on the belated

discovery of new facts, but on the original admission of

unreliable scientific evidence presented by an FBI agent.

4. Constitutional Rights Override Prudential Concerns

Under Rule 40

There’s another reason that McNulty does not apply.

Constitutional rights eclipse prudential rules. Due process

does not yield to finality interests or judicial efficiency

concerns. See State v. Cruz, 486 P.3d 1, 3 (N.M. 2021)

(“[F]undamental constitutional rights cannot be jettisoned for

the sake of judicial efficiency.”).

The false evidence standard descends from due process.

Haw. Const. art. I, § 5; see Napue, 360 U.S. at 269 (“[A]

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conviction obtained through use of false evidence[] . . . must

fall under the Fourteenth Amendment”).

In contrast, court rules create the new evidence standard.

HRPP Rule 40 reflects prudential concerns about when postconviction relief is appropriate. The due diligence requirement

and probability-of-different-outcome standard promote finality

and deter “sandbagging,” the strategic withholding of evidence

at trial only to raise it later. See McNulty, 60 Haw. at 268,

588 P.2d at 445 (“the composite knowledge of both the accused

and his counsel will be considered” to determine whether the

defendant diligently tried to locate the evidence); Eason v.

State, 157 Hawaiʻi 252, 267, 576 P.3d 765, 780 (2025) (Rule 40’s

limitations on post-conviction relief “provid[e] a balanced

approach to post-convictions proceedings that maintain the

integrity of criminal convictions while also comporting with

constitutional due process requirements.”) (quoting Judiciary,

Testimony to House Committee on Judiciary on S.B. 2, Proposed

H.D. 1, 30th Leg., Reg. Sess. (Mar. 27, 2019)).

But these are not constitutional commands. They are judgemade rules that address prudential concerns appropriate only for

discrete circumstances.

Newly discovered evidence is a prudential doctrine. False

evidence is a constitutional violation. When the government

obtains a conviction using false evidence, the conviction

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offends due process. Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at 271, 465 P.3d at 718.

Constitutional protections require applying the false evidence

standard rather than McNulty’s prudential rule.

We pause to note that historically, due process was

violated when the prosecution knew or should have known at trial

that the evidence was false. Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at 271, 465 P.3d

at 718; Napue, 360 U.S. at 269 (“[A] State may not knowingly use

false evidence, including false testimony, to obtain a tainted

conviction[.]”).

Later-discredited science though presents an unanswered

question. The testimony was false when given. The falsity had

not yet been recognized. The constitutional harm flows from

using false evidence to convict, not from the prosecutor’s

awareness of falsity.

We hold that for cases involving discredited science,

whether the State knew or should have known the testimony was

false at trial is inconsequential. Convictions secured through

false evidence violate due process, even if scientific advances

revealed the falsity only after trial. See Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at

272, 465 P.3d at 719.

The concurrence would require the prosecution to have known

the scientific evidence was false before the false evidence

standard applies. The Hawaiʻi Constitution requires no such

thing.

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We acknowledge the federal lineage. In Napue, the

prosecutor let a witness deny a deal the prosecutor knew

existed. 360 U.S. at 267. In Giglio, one prosecutor made a

deal with a witness that the trial prosecutor never knew about.

The witness denied any agreement on the stand. No one corrected

him. But the Court held the office responsible. 405 U.S. at

154. Knowledge mattered in Napue and Giglio because the

constitutional wrong was the prosecution’s deliberate corruption

of the trial. The remedy matched the wrong.

Napue and Giglio did not hold that knowledge is a

constitutional precondition for relief. They held that the

knowing use of false evidence violates due process. Neither

case confronted whether the unknowing use of false evidence also

violates due process. The issue never came up.

The suggestion that knowledge is necessary traces to

dictum. In Agurs, the Court characterized the Mooney line of

cases as involving “the knowing use of perjured testimony.” 427

U.S. at 103. But knowing use already stretches beyond actual

knowledge.

In Giglio, the trial prosecutor never personally knew the

testimony was false. 405 U.S. at 154. The Court imputed

knowledge from another attorney in the office. If the doctrine

expanded once from actual knowledge to imputed knowledge, there

is no principled reason it cannot expand again to reach cases

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where no one knew because the scientific community itself had

not yet recognized the falsity. See Anne Bowen Poulin,

Convictions Based on Lies: Defining Due Process Protection, 116

Penn St. L. Rev. 331, 340 (2011).

Still, even with that expansion, every case in the Mooney

line involved some form of knowledge. No United States Supreme

Court case has held that its absence bars relief. Id. at 393;

see also Evenstad v. Carlson, 470 F.3d 777, 783 (8th Cir. 2006)

(observing that the Supreme Court has not resolved whether the

unknowing use of false evidence violates due process).

One case points in the opposite direction. In Mesarosh v.

United States, the Court ordered a new trial after learning that

a key prosecution witness had testified falsely, even though the

prosecution had presented the testimony unknowingly. 352 U.S.

1, 9 (1956). “The dignity of the United States Government will

not permit the conviction of any person on tainted testimony.”

Id. Mesarosh focused on the integrity of the conviction, not

the prosecutor’s state of mind.

This court’s precedent goes further. In Stone, the deputy

prosecuting attorney did not know the officer’s testimony was

false until after trial. 147 Hawaiʻi at 272, 465 P.3d at 719.

We held that this did not matter. “[T]he good faith of the

prosecutor in failing to correct false testimony regarding

impeachment material has no bearing on whether a defendant

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received a fair trial as required by due process.” Id. (quoting

Birano, 143 Hawaiʻi at 189, 426 P.3d at 413). If the

prosecutor’s good faith is irrelevant when a witness testifies

falsely at trial, it cannot become relevant when an entire

forensic field is later debunked. The principle is the same.

What matters is whether the trial was fair. Not whether the

prosecutor knew it wasn’t.

The concurring opinion reads Stone for more than that. It

traces Stone through its adoption of the Teves four-factor test

for new-trial motions, points to the fourth factor (harmless

beyond a reasonable doubt), and concludes that Stone forecloses

the false evidence standard’s materiality inquiry.

Stone did apply harmless error. But what Stone applied

does not control the question before us.

Start with procedure. Stone arrived on a motion for new

trial under HRPP Rule 33. 147 Hawaiʻi at 265, 465 P.3d at 712.

The Teves test exists for Rule 33 motions. 5 Haw. App. at 96,

679 P.2d at 141. Its four factors are tailored to that posture:

(1) the testimony of a material prosecution witness was false,

(2) the defendant did not discover the falseness until after

trial, (3) the late discovery was not due to lack of diligence,

and (4) the false testimony was not harmless beyond a reasonable

doubt because there was a reasonable possibility it contributed

to the conviction. Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at 270, 465 P.3d at 717

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(citing Teves, 5 Haw. App. at 96, 679 P.2d at 141). Stone

applied Teves because Teves was the test for the case before it.

A Rule 33 motion based on a single officer’s lie discovered

shortly after trial. Id. at 270-71, 465 P.3d at 717-18.

Granillo is different. Granillo is a Rule 40 petition

involving expert testimony that the scientific community, NRC,

PCAST, and the DOJ have all since repudiated. The first three

Teves factors do not fit. Factor two asks whether the defendant

discovered the falsity after trial. In a discredited-science

case, no one discovered any falsity at the time because no one

yet thought the science was wrong. Factor three asks about due

diligence. No diligence in 1990 could have revealed what the

2009 NRC Report would later announce. Those Teves factors were

not built for this kind of claim.

Yet the concurring opinion borrows only the fourth Teves

factor and drops it into Granillo’s case. It treats one prong

of a Rule 33 framework as the freestanding constitutional

standard for a Rule 40 petition. The harmless-error language

gets carried over, severed from the framework that gave it

meaning. That conflates two standards into one.

One more point about what Stone actually held. The Teves

test Stone applied requires, as factor one, that the false

testimony be that of a “material prosecution witness.” 5 Haw.

App. at 96, 679 P.2d at 141. The test begins with materiality.

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A material prosecution witness is one whose false evidence would

influence the verdict. See Stone, 147 Hawaiʻi at 269, 465 P.3d

at 716 (the officer was the only witness to the defendant’s

alleged possession of methamphetamine).

Factor four operates only once materiality clears. Stone

applied both, in sequence, as a single test. Materiality and

harmless error are part of one Teves test, not opposing

standards.

Stone has work to do here. Stone tells us prosecutorial

knowledge is not required for a false evidence claim under

article I, section 5. 147 Hawaiʻi at 272, 465 P.3d at 719. That

is the principle we draw from it. We do not draw a Rule 40

discredited science standard from a Rule 33 newly discovered

evidence case. Stone did not face this posture. Stone did not

confront this kind of evidence. Stone did not announce a

standard for cases it had not seen.

The right doctrinal frame here is the one the D.C. Circuit

applied in Butler. Butler addressed this exact problem. A

conviction built on FBI hair and fiber testimony the DOJ has

disavowed, decades after trial, in a post-conviction posture.

Butler applied materiality. 955 F.3d at 1058. Article I,

section 5 calls for the same protective standard when the same

kind of injury comes through our courts. We do not transplant

the Teves framework into the Rule 40 context. We adopt the

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materiality standard that Butler applied to the same kind of

conviction.

The concurrence hinges on the prosecution’s concession of

knowledge in Butler. That admission, though, does not excuse

what the State failed to know. It did not drive the court’s

analysis. Instead, Butler framed the dispositive question as

“whether the prosecution’s use of the false hair testimony

against Butler was material.” Id. at 1057. Not whether the

prosecution knew. The D.C. Circuit’s holding hinged on

materiality, not mental state. False evidence is material if it

“could in any reasonable likelihood have affected the judgment

of the jury.” Id. at 1058.

The government’s admission in Butler resolved a preliminary

question: whether the testimony was false. Once that was

established, the court moved to harm. Knowledge was not a

doctrinal requirement of the holding. It was a reason the court

did not need to linger on the threshold question of falsity.

The government agreed the evidence was false and that it knew or

should have known. That shortcut made the path to materiality

shorter. It did not make knowledge a condition of relief.

Discredited science proves the point. No one lied. No one

concealed. The prosecution, the defense, and the court all

relied on a scientific consensus that turned out to be wrong.

The constitutional injury is not prosecutorial bad faith. It’s

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the use of false evidence to convict. The song remains the

same. Only the source of the falsity changed.

The concurrence leans on Fukusaku for this exact point. In

1997, this court called the “principles and procedures

underlying hair and fiber evidence . . . well-established and of

proven reliability.” 85 Hawaiʻi at 474, 946 P.2d at 44.

Granillo’s trial was in 1990. No prosecutor, no defense lawyer,

no judge could have known what the 2009 NRC Report would later

reveal.

Granted - no one could have known.

Granillo is not less wrongly convicted because everyone in

1990 acted in good faith. He sits in prison on testimony the

science no longer supports. Good faith describes the lawyers.

It does not describe the defendant’s plight. A standard that

requires fault before relief leaves them without a remedy.

Article I, section 5 exists for cases like this one.

Conditioning relief on knowledge would shield an entire

category of constitutional violations. Convictions obtained

through evidence that no one yet knew was false would fall

outside the false evidence standard. The defendant’s

constitutional injury would be the same. The verdict would be

equally unreliable. The trial would be equally unfair. But the

defendant could only seek relief under the newly discovered

evidence standard, a far heavier burden. Knowledge does not

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make the evidence more or less false. And its absence does not

salvage the verdict.

A knowledge requirement would also create perverse

incentives. “If the prosecution is able to defeat the

defendant’s argument that false testimony violated due process

simply by insulating itself from knowledge of information

pertinent to the case, the constitutional protection of the

right to a fair trial is compromised.” Poulin, supra, at 349.

Prosecutors would have less reason to rigorously vet forensic

testimony before trial. The government would benefit by staying

behind the science as forensic methodologies progress. Racing

to convict before scientific consensus catches up would go

unchecked. Constitutional protections do not depend on whether

the legal system recognizes current scientific reality.

The concurring opinion looks outside Hawaiʻi for support.

To a concurrence in Ex Parte Warner cautioning against sidestepping prosecutorial knowledge. 721 S.W.3d 436, 445 (Tex.

Crim. App. 2025) (Finley, J., concurring). Warner is one

judge’s separate writing on a denied habeas petition. It binds

no one. Not even in Texas. And the federal due process

doctrine that animates it cannot tell this court how to read

article I, section 5.

We are not side-stepping anything. We are doing what state

constitutionalism asks us to do. Stand our ground.

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The concurrence seizes on the federal precedent the Texas

court’s concurring judge cited. The United States Supreme Court

has “never held that an unknowing use of false evidence violates

due process,” that judge wrote. Warner, 721 S.W.3d at 443

(Finley, J., concurring). The concurrence also cites Glossip v.

Oklahoma, 604 U.S. 226 (2025), as confirming a knowledge

requirement. But Glossip addressed a knowing-use case. It

involved a prosecutor who knew. Id. at 228. It did not

confront what shakes out when an entire branch of forensic

science collapses.

That statement is not a boundary. Glossip described the

precedent as it stood. It did not shut the door on cases like

this one.

The concurrence’s insistence that the prosecution’s

knowledge concession in Butler counsels adoption of Stone in

this context, like its reliance on Glossip, ultimately depends

on the premise that federal constitutional doctrine controls

this court’s interpretation of article I, section 5. It does

not.

We interpret the Hawaiʻi Constitution on its own terms. The

United State Supreme Court’s construction of the federal Due

Process Clause does not define the protections of our state’s

due process clause. This court “reason[s] independently,

untethered from the Supreme Court’s analysis of the United

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States Constitution.” State v. Wilson, 154 Hawaiʻi 8, 14, 543

P.3d 440, 446 (2024).

The Court that now defines federal due process does not

honor the work of 1954. It revives the work of 1857. The work

of 1896. The Constitution must be interpreted “according to its

true intent and meaning when it was adopted.” Dred Scott v.

Sandford, 60 U.S. 393, 405 (1857).

Today’s hubristic originalists use the same method to

control modern life. See City & Cnty. of Honolulu v. Sunoco LP,

153 Hawaiʻi 326, 361, 537 P.3d 1173, 1208 (2023) (Eddins, J.,

concurring) (“A justice’s personal values and ideas about the

very old days suddenly control the lives of present and future

generations.”).

The Court overrides what Congress passed. It overrides

what the people chose. All to serve its own ends.

What this Court has done to constitutional rights,

democratic institutions, and the rule of law explains why

Hawaiʻi’s Constitution takes no instruction from it.

Article I, section 5 provides versatile and sovereign

protection. This court does not anchor Hawaiʻi’s due process

rights to the federal floor. Especially one that keeps sinking.

We take no guidance on the meaning of due process from a

court that gutted due process protections in Dobbs v. Jackson

Women’s Health Org., 597 U.S. 215 (2022). Zuffante called it

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straight. Dobbs erased a “generations-long constitutional

right, stripping autonomy from half the population, and

empowering states to force birth.” State v. Zuffante, 157

Hawaiʻi 194, 200, 576 P.3d 243, 249 (2025).

Article I, section 5 does not import that results-driven

approach to due process. We follow principles, not agendas.

The Supreme Court’s imperious ideology does not stop at due

process. The same jurisprudence has cratered democracy itself.

Start with the Voting Rights Act.

The Roberts Court did what Congress never would. It

rewrote the Voting Rights Act of 1965, a cornerstone of American

civil rights, democratically enacted and repeatedly

reauthorized. Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013),

began the judicial demolition, inventing a textually unsupported

equal-sovereignty fiction and striking down preclearance on a

hunch that the law worked too well. Brnovich v. Democratic

National Committee, 594 U.S. 647 (2021), fabricated “guideposts”

nowhere in Section 2 to greenlight racial discrimination in

voting. Louisiana v. Callais, 608 U.S. ___, 146 S. Ct. 1131

(Apr. 29, 2026), buried what remained of the crown jewel of the

civil rights movement. Pretend law for a real statute.

The Court then ditched its own thirty-two day default for

releasing decisions and hustled out its judgment mid-primary, a

favor granted over objection only twice in twenty-five years.

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Callais v. Louisiana, 608 U.S. __ , 146 S. Ct. 1111, 1113 (May

4, 2026) (Jackson, J., dissenting). Weeks later, on its shadow

docket, the Court tossed an eleven-day trial record built on

fifty-one witnesses, 790 exhibits, 2,600 pages of testimony, and

a 270-page opinion by a three-judge court. See Singleton v.

Allen, 782 F. Supp. 3d 1092, 1115, 1355 (N.D. Ala. 2025). It

resurrected a tainted congressional map the three-judge

factfinders found deliberately entrenched racial bias against

Black voters. Allen v. Milligan, 608 U.S. ___, 146 S. Ct. 1377

(June 2, 2026); see also Hilo Bay Marina, LLC v. State, 156

Hawaiʻi 478, 516, 575 P.3d 568, 606 (2025) (The “Court’s frequent

misrepresentation of the factual record and its throw-judgesunder-the-bus disdain for district courts, the fact-finders of

the federal judiciary, harm the justice system.”).

The Roberts Court sees only white. It refuses to

acknowledge who the Equal Protection Clause was written to

protect. The freed people, their descendants, and all others

denied equal citizenship. U.S. Const. amend. XIV, § 1. It

turns its back on what is in plain sight. The Fourteenth

Amendment is not colorblind. It never was.

The Court calls the Constitution colorblind while

engineering the dilution of Black votes, the unraveling of hardfought civil rights remedies, and the erasure of Black

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history. That is not blindness. That is white sight, by

design.

A Constitution interpreted this way is not colorblind. It

is whatever the Court needs it to be. A way to advance its

partisan project. The damage to democracy extends beyond the

Voting Rights Act.

In Citizens United v. Fed. Election Comm’n, 558 U.S. 310

(2010), the Court claimed fidelity to text, history, and

tradition while invalidating yet another democratically vetted

law, handing corporations the same speech rights as flesh-andblood Americans and letting dollars talk louder than voters.

See Sunoco, 153 Hawaiʻi at 362, 537 P.3d at 1209 (Eddins, J.,

concurring) (originalism applies selectively and vanishes

inconveniently); Leo E. Strine, Jr. & Nicholas Walter,

Originalist or Original: The Difficulties of Reconciling

Citizens United with Corporate Law History, 91 Notre Dame L.

Rev. 877 (2016) (Citizens United cannot be reconciled with

corporate law history).

Other decisions followed. The Court abandoned partisan

gerrymandering to the gerrymanderers, refusing for the first

time to remedy a constitutional violation because it believed

the task beyond judicial competence. Rucho v. Common Cause, 588

U.S. 684 (2019); see id. at 721 (Kagan, J., dissenting). It

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placed a president above the law. Trump v. United States, 603

U.S. 593 (2024).

Last month, Nat’l Republican Senatorial Comm. v. Fed.

Election Comm’n, 609 U.S. ___ (June 30, 2026), made Citizens

United look quaint, shredding coordinated spending limits

Congress had enacted, and ensuring that those who bankroll

elections drown out the ordinary person. Billionaires spend to

be repaid. Everyone else just votes. The Roberts Court has

made sure one’s wealth counts more than another’s vote.

Rulings run in one direction, time after time. Weakening

protections for those with less power. Fortifying those with

more. The pattern speaks for itself. A court that

systematically dismantles democratic safeguards, steamrolls

constitutional liberties, and tramples human dignity does not

chart the course for the Hawaiʻi Constitution.

Our constitutional system was designed for times like

these. Federalism is not a formality. It is the architecture.

The framers built dual sovereignty into the structure of

American government as an independent check against concentrated

federal power. A Supreme Court driven by agenda and intent on

swiping power that belongs to the people is exactly what that

check was built for.

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When six justices walk away from those they are supposed to

protect, state constitutions hold the line. That is not

defiance. That is the design.

State constitutionalism makes it easy to consider Roberts

Court jurisprudence “white noise.” See Hilo Bay Marina, 156

Hawaiʻi at 518, 575 P.3d at 608.

Add it all up. Draining due process. Rolling back voting

rights. Flooding elections with money. Rubber-stamping

gerrymandering. Crowning a president. Blessing discrimination

in the name of the Constitution. Fulton v. City of

Philadelphia, Pa., 593 U.S. 522 (2021); 303 Creative LLC v.

Elenis, 600 U.S. 570 (2023). Looking at naked racism and seeing

none of it. Mullin v. Doe, 609 U.S. ___ (June 25, 2026) (racist

words not “overtly racial”). Making the country more dangerous

with a Second Amendment unmoored from text or history and

unrecognizable to the framers who wrote it. New York State

Rifle & Pistol Ass’n, Inc. v. Bruen, 597 U.S. 1 (2022); Wilson,

154 Hawaiʻi at 22, 543 P.3d at 454 (“disabl[ing] the states’

responsibility to protect public safety, reduce gun violence,

and safeguard peaceful public movement” with its deadly

jurisprudence). Then striking down a careful law and showing

disdain for Hawaiʻi’s constitutional traditions. Wolford v.

Lopez, 609 U.S. ___ (June 25, 2026).

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Subverting congressional choices with a homemade “major

questions” power grab that plays “get-out-of-text-free cards” to

block agencies from doing what Congress told them to do. West

Virginia v. Env’t Prot. Agency, 597 U.S. 697, 779 (2022) (Kagan,

J., dissenting). Then commandeering the interpretive authority

Congress gave federal agencies, overruling Chevron after forty

years because, to this particular Court, precedent is advisory.

Loper Bright Enters. v. Raimondo, 603 U.S. 369 (2024).

This term, transmuting federal spending programs into

private contracts, the Court forged the Spending Clause to

“reduce[] some of Congress’s greatest legislative achievements.”

Landor v. Louisiana Dep’t of Corr. & Pub. Safety, 609 U.S. ___

(June 23, 2026) (Jackson, J., dissenting). Days later, it freed

the President to fire at will the very commissioners a law

shielded from removal, discarding a unanimous opinion,

Humphrey’s Executor, on a cherry-picked slice of history - a

century of settled practice recast as a mistake, competent

governance sacrificed to the partisan cause. Trump v.

Slaughter, 609 U.S. ___ (June 29, 2026). The next morning,

fair-weather textualists – living constitution originalists,

really - deserted the text and our nation’s history the moment

it promised citizenship, one vote from writing that right out of

the Constitution. Trump v. Barbara, 609 U.S. ___ (June 30,

2026).

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That’s not all life tenure and zero accountability have

produced lately. But it’s enough.

Article I, section 5 needs no part of this. The Hawaiʻi

Constitution was built to stand on its own. And so it does.

We hold that prosecution knowledge is not required to

invoke the false evidence standard under article I, section 5.

The concurrence pushes harmless beyond a reasonable doubt

because, in its view, materiality is too generous. That

criticism mistakes the function each standard serves.

Harmless beyond a reasonable doubt asks how strong the

State’s other evidence looks once the constitutional error is

set aside. Could the conviction stand without the tainted

testimony? If yes, the error is harmless. The inquiry centers

on the strength of what remains.

Materiality asks a different question. Could the false

testimony have affected the jury’s judgment? The focus is not

on what remains in the State’s case. It is on what the false

evidence may have done to the verdict the jury actually

returned.

The constitutional violation under article I, section 5 is

a verdict built on false evidence, not weakness of the State’s

case. That is why materiality is the better fit. It asks the

constitutional question. Harmless beyond a reasonable doubt

asks a sufficiency question. The two are not the same.

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Stone did not equate them. Stone applied Teves because

Teves fit a Rule 33 motion. Granillo asks a different question

in a different posture. Each standard does protective work in

the doctrinal context for which it was designed.

The false evidence standard provides a doctrinal framework

for an emerging category of post-conviction claims: convictions

built on forensic evidence that science later discredits.

Harmless error provides no such framework.

Scientific evidence carries outsized persuasive force.

False scientific evidence fundamentally compromises the fairness

of a trial. The constitutional violation is complete when false

scientific evidence contributes to conviction. Not when the

prosecution belatedly learns of the falsity.

The concurrence points to Butler’s own description, that

materiality is “a veritable hair trigger for setting aside the

conviction.” 955 F.3d at 1058. It warns that, in another case,

the standard could “mandate a wholly unjust result.”

That worry misreads the standard. The trigger is sensitive

by constitutional design. False evidence twists the trial’s

truth-seeking function. The standard must register the

distortion. That’s not a defect. That’s the protection at

work.

Materiality is not automatic reversal. It asks whether

false evidence could in reasonable likelihood have affected the

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jury’s judgment. Id. Slight-weight testimony fails it.

Overwhelming independent proof may defeat it. The standard is

no rubber stamp.

The concurring opinion also arrives at the same result here

under the harmless-error standard. Granillo gets a new trial

either way. The “wholly unjust result” lives only in a

hypothetical case the opinion imagines but does not describe.

On this record, the answer does not change.

We hold that the false evidence standard governs when

scientific testimony is later revealed as invalid.

Constitutionally, convictions obtained with false evidence

violate due process regardless of when the falsity becomes

apparent. Doctrinally, Butler applies this standard to forensic

science discredited by the 2009 NRC Report. As a matter of

policy, the standard promotes accurate convictions, responds to

scientific advances, and incentivizes careful vetting of expert

testimony.

This standard requires neither due diligence nor a showing

that acquittal was probable. A defendant need only show a

reasonable possibility that the false evidence contributed to

the conviction.

We now apply the false evidence standard to Granillo’s

case.

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5. The Fiber Evidence is Material

We hold that there is a reasonable possibility that Oakes’

expert opinions contributed to Granillo’s conviction. See

Hirata, 152 Hawaiʻi at 33, 520 P.3d at 231. His hair and fiber

testimony was material.

From opening statement to closing argument, the State made

Oakes’ testimony the centerpiece of its case. The hair and

fiber evidence did not just corroborate Price’s account, it gave

contested witness testimony the veneer of scientific certainty.

The message to the jury was clear. Even if it doubted Price’s

testimony, the science could not be doubted. The FBI said the

hair matched. It said the fiber matched. And scientific

evidence doesn’t lie.

In opening, the prosecution told the jury that “physical

evidence adduced through hair and fiber analysis [placed Price]

in [Granillo’s] car that evening.” This was no passing

reference. The prosecution started its case by telling the jury

that the hair and fiber would corroborate Price’s account. It

framed its theory of the case around a promise to the jury: that

scientific analysis would prove Price was in Granillo’s car with

her pants off.

The State bookended its theme during closing. It devoted

substantial attention to the fiber evidence and preempted

challenges to Price’s credibility. The hair and fiber evidence,

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paired with Price’s testimony, proved three things, the State

urged. The scientific evidence showed that (1) she was

abducted, (2) she was in Granillo’s car with her pants on, then

off, and (3) the person who undressed and sexually assaulted

Price was Granillo.

The State’s second point relied entirely on Oakes’ fiber

testimony. The fiber evidence proved its theory. The

prosecutor explained that the “green fibers” from Granillo’s car

were found in Price’s pants and underwear, “[a]nd each one of

these fibers are identical to each other. They were found to

have matched the seat cover of the driver’s seat of [Granillo’s]

car.” (Emphases added.)

Without the fiber evidence “proof” that Price’s underwear

had contacted Granillo’s seat cover, the prosecution had no

scientific evidence that Price’s clothing had been removed in

Granillo’s car. The evidence “establishing” that Price was in

Granillo’s car with her pants down could have affected the

jury’s verdict. Thus, the evidence was material.

Expert testimony carries great weight in jury

deliberations. This court has observed that when it comes to

“experts’ ‘aura of special reliability and trustworthiness,’

there is a danger that jurors will ‘abdicate their role of

critical assessment’ or ‘surrender their own common sense in

weighing testimony.’” David, 149 Hawaiʻi at 478, 494 P.3d at

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1211 (quoting State v. Batangan, 71 Haw. 552, 556, 799 P.2d 48,

51 (1990)). Experts opining on physical evidence connecting

defendants to a crime hold significant sway.

Here, Oakes touted his expert credentials and knowledge.

He wasn’t just any expert. He was a “supervisory special agent

with the FBI.” He had worked there for twelve-and-a-half years.

For nine-and-a-half years, he performed hair and fiber

examinations in the FBI’s specialized hair and fiber forensic

division. Local, state, and other federal law enforcement

agencies across the nation relied on him to analyze hair and

fiber samples. Oakes estimated that he had conducted two to

three thousand hair sample analyses.

Given his credentials, the jury had every reason to trust

Oakes.

Oakes delivered his conclusions with scientific certainty.

The hair came from Price. The fibers came from Granillo’s car.

When a well-credentialed expert says “microscopically

identical” and “match,” the testimony conveys hard, objective,

empirical fact. The microscope doesn’t lie. The fibers match

or they don’t. Oakes’ perceived objectivity gave his scientific

conclusions unearned credibility. As the PCAST Report

recognized, when experts testify about forensic comparisons,

“the expert and the prosecution intend the statement to carry

weight.” 2016 PCAST Report, supra, at 121.

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That weight only increases when an expert stops just short

of certainty. Oakes did not say that the fibers “might” have

come from Granillo’s car or “could” have come from his car. He

told the jury they were “consistent with” coming from specific

items in Granillo’s car. To a jury, that language was

indistinguishable from certainty.

The defense didn’t question Oakes’ methodology. It asked

about the number of samples and collection locations. But it

did not challenge the scientific validity of fiber comparison

analysis itself. No one did. Courts nationwide had accepted

fiber comparison evidence, and the FBI had used it for decades.

Granillo did not present any witnesses or offer a coherent

alternative theory of the case. The defense, in both its

opening and closing, focused entirely on inconsistencies in

Price’s testimony.

False evidence forces the defendant’s hand. After the

State presented Oakes’ fiber evidence linking Price to

Granillo’s car, there was no way Granillo’s defense could have

credibly argued Price was never in his car.

Naturally, the defense focused on undermining Price’s

credibility as to the events that took place in the car. And it

avoided drawing attention to the evidence purportedly placing

Price there with her pants and underwear off.

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False government agency-backed evidence that effectively

forecloses other evidence compromises the defendant’s ability to

present a complete defense at trial. That is a due process

violation. See David, 149 Hawaiʻi at 481, 494 P.3d at 1214 (“A

defendant’s right to present a complete defense is vital to due

process.”) (citation omitted).

As a result, the trial was not fair.

The prosecution’s case relied on Price’s account. The

defense attacked her credibility. Without the false forensic

evidence to bolster Price’s testimony, the prosecution’s case

weakened.

First, Price inconsistently testified about the nature of

the alleged sexual assault. She told the emergency room

physician that “she had been forced to perform vaginal

intercourse.” And according to the emergency room doctor, she

“denied any fellatio or any sodomy.” Yet at trial, Price

testified that Granillo forced her to perform oral sex and that

there was no vaginal intercourse. She said Granillo “made [her]

perform or attempt to perform fellatio upon him.” She also

testified that Granillo did not enter her with his penis because

he did not have an erection and that Granillo put his hand in

her vagina.

Second, Price gave contradictory accounts of her escape. At

first, she testified she was wearing slippers when she was

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grabbed from her car. However, she later testified that when

she escaped at the breakwater, she was barefoot because she had

left her shoes in her car. On direct, Price testified that she

jumped out of the car, and then the car started up. On cross,

she said the car was moving when she jumped from it.

Third, Price testified that Granillo repeatedly grabbed her

hair and banged her head against the passenger window. Before

the grand jury, she said this happened “approximately twenty

times.” Yet the emergency room physician recounted that Price

reported no head pain. When confronted with her prior “twenty

times” statement, Price responded, “it wasn’t the twenty times.”

The defense argued in closing that had her head truly been

slammed against the window twenty times, more than a single

strand of hair would have been found in the car.

Fourth, the responding officer testified that his report

omitted “any details of what type of sexual assault or what went

on in this sexual assault” because Price continually changed the

details about how she was taken from her car and sexually

assaulted. Due to these inconsistencies, the officer, on his

supervisor’s advice, reported only the “basic story,” leaving

the “detective who would be taking the case” to “get the details

of the story out of her.”

Fifth, Price testified that she had never seen Granillo

before the assault. The first time she saw him was when he

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pulled up “and told [her] that the police were of no use to

[her.]” Officer Goto, though, testified that when he initially

responded to the report of a woman crying for help, he had

directed Tester and Granillo to leave the parking lot while

Price was still there. He further testified that Price, Tester,

and Granillo at one point yelled at one another. This testimony

suggested that Price had seen Granillo before he allegedly

returned to kidnap her. Further, Granillo himself acknowledged

to a detective that he was present at the shopping center at the

same time as Price.

The Rule 40 court found “overwhelming and compelling”

evidence of guilt. We disagree.

A careful examination of the record shows that only the

hair and fiber evidence conclusively established that both Price

and Granillo had been in his car together. And only the fiber

evidence placed Price in the car with her pants off.

The non-forensic evidence demonstrated that Price was

stranded at the shopping center when police first arrived,

officers directed Granillo to leave, something happened to

Price, she ended up at the breakwater, and she suffered

injuries. The evidence also showed that a hat with a

carpenter’s union decal and Price’s cosmetics were found at the

breakwater, Granillo was a carpenter, a WD-40 can and white t89

*** FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAIʻI REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER ***

shirt ended up in Price’s purse, and two knives were later found

in Granillo’s car.

This evidence did not establish that after leaving the

parking lot, Granillo returned and approached Price, forced her

into his car, caused her injuries, and sexually assaulted her.

Nor did it establish that she was in his car at the breakwater.

The hair and fiber evidence filled this gap.

The hair and fiber evidence was consequential. Oakes’

testimony provided the only direct evidence that (1) Price had

been in Granillo’s car (hair “matched” Price); (2) Price’s

underwear had contacted his car’s seat cover (fibers on her

underwear); and (3) Price’s pants had contacted his car’s carpet

(carpet fibers on her pants). The fiber evidence corroborated

the prosecution’s central theory that Price was in Granillo’s

car with her pants on, then off.

Granillo’s conviction depended on Price’s word. No other

evidence placed her in his car. The hair and fiber evidence

provided that connection. And the fiber evidence was the only

non-testimonial proof that Price had been in Granillo’s car with

her pants removed and underwear exposed. Without this evidence,

the prosecution’s theory relied entirely on disputed testimony.

We hold that the presentation of materially false evidence

violated Granillo’s article I, section 5 right to a fair trial.

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IV.

We vacate the ICA’s July 30, 2025 Judgment on Appeal, the

circuit court’s December 16, 2022 order denying petitioner’s

Rule 40 petition, and final judgment. We remand for a new

trial.

Earle A. Partington /s/ Vladimir P. Devens for petitioner

/s/ Sabrina S. McKenna

Gerald K. Enriques

for respondent /s/ Todd W. Eddins

Granillo v. State

Authorities cited

Opinion · public domain