Murder defendant Joseph Tui believed killing his cellmate at Oahu Community Correctional Center made him a star and got his name in the news, a former OCCC mental health nurse supervisor testified in state court Friday.
Jackie Lee said Tui “seemed kinda proud of his actions because it would give him street cred in front of the other inmates.”
“He said, ‘Now they know who they dealing with,’” Lee testified.
Tui, 35, is on trial in Circuit Court for the March 9, 2013, beating death of 76-year-old Cyrl Chung. He told police he killed Chung because he was mad at an inmate in another cell who was taunting him and calling him racial slurs.
Tui faces a mandatory life prison term without the opportunity for parole, the harshest penalty under state law, because he was imprisoned at the time of the fatal beating.
The trial is to decide whether Tui should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. Tui has agreed to accept all of the police statements as fact and have a judge, rather than a jury, decide his fate. The only trial witnesses are mental health professionals and experts.
One of the experts is defense witness Terence Wade, a clinical psychologist.
Wade says Tui should be found not guilty by reason of insanity. He said at the time of the beating, Tui did not realize what he was doing was wrong because he was suffering from a brain injury and long-term post-traumatic stress disorder.
“Beating someone in prison seems like an insane act,” Wade said.
He said beating a 76-year-old, 120-pound man and boasting about also sexually assaulting him gave Tui the opposite kind of street credibility he was hoping for.
There is no evidence that Chung was sexually assaulted and Wade said Tui told him all he did was pull Chung’s pants down.
Tui is prescribed medication for a previous schizoaffective disorder diagnosis with bipolar manic and depressive episodes.
Lee said Tui had been refusing to take his medication. But, she said, Tui exhibited and reported no symptoms of psychosis in the days and weeks before or after the beating.
She said she has known Tui for more than 10 years, from her jobs at OCCC and previously at the Hawaii State Hospital. Lee said Tui has admitted to her that he threatens suicide and says things he hopes will make people believe he is crazy in order to get medication to help him sleep or to get better placement in the facility.
The trial continues next week with testimony from three mental health experts.
