State v. Bunag

── State v. Bunag ── Court: Hawaii Supreme Court Date: April 20, 2026 Category: General *** FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAIʻI REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER *** Electronically Filed Supreme Court SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX 20-APR-2026 08:42 AM Dkt. 7 OP IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF HAWAIʻI ---o0o--- STATE OF HAWAIʻI, Respondent/Plaintiff-Appellee, vs. ALDEN BUNAG, Petitioner/Defendant-Appellant. SCWC-XX-XXXXXXX CERTIORARI TO THE INTERMEDIATE COURT OF APPEALS (CAAP-XX-XXXXXXX; CASE NO. 1CPC-XX-XXXXXXX) APRIL 20, 2026 McKENNA, ACTING C.J., EDDINS, GINOZA, AND DEVENS, JJ., AND CIRCUIT JUDGE DREWYER, ASSIGNED BY REASON OF VACANCY OPINION OF THE COURT BY EDDINS, J. I. A sentencing court must state its reasons for imposing a consecutive sentence on the record at the time of sentencing. Not in a written order filed weeks later. And not by parroting what the prosecutor said. *** FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAIʻI REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER *** Here, the circuit court did both. Its on-the-record rationale for a consecutive sentence was deficient, yet the Intermediate Court of Appeals (ICA) affirmed. First, to uphold the consecutive sentence, the ICA relied on a written order filed after the defendant appealed. Written orders after sentencing provide no cover for an inadequate courtroom explanation as to “the need for consecutive sentences and the sentence a defendant ‘would have received under the presumption of concurrent sentencing.’” State v. Bautista, 153 Hawaiʻi 284, 290, 535 P.3d 1029, 1035 (2023) (quoting Lewi v. State, 145 Hawaiʻi 333, 351, 452 P.3d 330, 348 (2019)). Second, a what-she-said outsourcing of the court’s responsibility for imposing a consecutive sentence falls short. The court’s rationale must be independently articulated, not borrowed wholesale from a prosecutor’s argument. See State v. Hussein, 122 Hawaiʻi 495, 510, 229 P.3d 313, 328 (2010). Apart from these errors, the thin rationale the court did offer, a recitation of the case’s circumstances, said nothing about why a consecutive term was justified. We remand for resentencing. II. From August 2016 to September 2017, Alden Bunag (Bunag) worked as a substitute teacher at a middle school. He sexually assaulted a thirteen-year-old student, Luke (a pseudonym), on 2 *** FOR PUBLICATION IN WEST’S HAWAIʻI REPORTS AND PACIFIC REPORTER *** multiple occasions in a classroom at the school. He recorded at least two assaults. He shared at least one video with adults via an online chatroom. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents later found child pornography on Bunag’s phone and evidence of further distribution to others online. Luke confirmed more than three instances of oral and anal penetration. He told FBI agents he had asked Bunag to delete the recording but was unsure whether Bunag complied. Luke reported that the abuse took a serious toll on his mental health. He attempted to take his own life. In January 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Hawaiʻi sentenced Bunag to seventeen-and-a-half-years for production of child pornography. Meanwhile state proceedings had been underway since September 2022, when an Oʻahu grand jury indicted Bunag on four offenses: count 1, continuous