The Jury Found What Neither Attorney Asked For

Guilty of Attempted Manslaughter Based Upon Extreme Mental or Emotional Disturbance.

Unanimous. All twelve jurors polled. All twelve confirmed.

Not attempted murder. Not assault. Not acquittal. The one verdict on the form that neither the prosecution nor the defense ever asked the jury to return.

I have been covering this trial for nine days across dozens of videos. I sat through every witness, every cross-examination, every objection. I told you before deliberations that I thought this jury would find a compromise. I thought the landing spot would be Assault in the Second Degree. I was wrong about the specific charge. I was right about the dynamic.

This jury did exactly what juries do when the top charge feels like too much and acquittal feels like not enough. They found the middle. The difference is that this middle was one the defense spent an entire hearing trying to keep off the table.

Otake Saw This Coming

Go back to the jury instructions hearing. Thomas Otake fought to block the EMED instruction. He did not want Attempted Manslaughter on the verdict form. His argument was clear: there was no evidentiary basis for EMED. Judge Wong disagreed and allowed the instruction over defense objection.

Otake knew. If EMED was on the form, it became the gravitational center. Not guilty enough for attempted murder. Not innocent enough to acquit. Not low enough for assault. EMED was the landing spot that felt proportional, and Otake understood that the moment the jury saw it as an option, they would be drawn to it.

That is why he never argued EMED in his closing. Arguing it would have been handing the jury the off-ramp. His only play was all-in on self-defense. When the EMED instruction survived, Otake's best strategy was to pretend it did not exist and hope the jury would do the same.

They didn't.

Garner Saw It Too

Joel Garner is not a fool. He knew EMED was on the form. He knew it was dangerous. That is why he preemptively attacked it in his closing argument, telling the jury this was not a man acting under extreme emotional disturbance but a man engaged in logical problem-solving. Push her off the cliff. That doesn't work. Use the syringe. That doesn't work. Pick up the rock.

Three plans, Garner told the jury. Three rational decisions. That is not emotional disturbance. That is attempted murder.

The jury heard him. And they disagreed.

What the Jury Actually Found

EMED is not an excuse. It is not a free pass. It is a legal finding that says: yes, this person attempted to cause death, but they did it while under the influence of extreme mental or emotional disturbance for which there is a reasonable explanation.

The jury rejected self-defense. Gerhardt Konig did not act in lawful self-defense on that trail. The jury rejected attempted murder. Gerhardt Konig did not intentionally or knowingly attempt to kill Arielle with the cold, calculated intent the prosecution described. What twelve people found is somewhere in between: he did it, but something was happening to him emotionally that the law recognizes as a mitigating factor.

Think about what that means in the context of this trial. The affair. The marriage falling apart. The birthday trip that became a crime scene. The jury looked at all of it and said: this man snapped. He is not innocent. But this was not a premeditated execution either.

The Art Supplies Tell the Story

This morning, before anyone in that courtroom knew what was coming, the jury sent a note. They wanted blue painter's tape. Large post-it notes. Colored dry erase pens. Another whiteboard. An easel with a notepad. Regular markers.

They were not rushing to a verdict. They were building one. They mapped this case on the walls of the deliberation room. Six verdict options. Nine days of testimony. Three doctors' assessments. DNA ratios. A disputed confession. Financial timelines. And they organized all of it with tape, markers, and sticky notes until twelve people could agree.

The judge provided the supplies at 10:35 AM. The verdict came at 2:18 PM. About four hours of organized deliberation after a full day yesterday. This was not a snap judgment. This was the work.

The Sentencing Landscape

Here is where this gets interesting. Attempted Manslaughter is a Class A felony in Hawaii. Normally, a Class A felony conviction means a mandatory indeterminate sentence of 20 years. No probation. No suspension.

But manslaughter is the one exception. Hawaii Revised Statutes Section 706-659 specifically exempts Section 707-702, the manslaughter statute, from that mandatory sentence. The legislature carved out this one crime and gave judges full discretion. The reasoning was that manslaughter covers everything from vehicular fatalities to domestic violence situations, and a one-size-fits-all mandatory sentence did not serve justice across that range.

So the sentencing range for Gerhardt Konig is probation to 20 years. That is not a typo. The same Class A felony that locks every other defendant into 20 years gives Judge Wong the authority to sentence Konig to probation if the pre-sentence investigation supports it.

Sentencing is set for August 13 at 8:30 AM. A pre-sentence investigation has been ordered. Between now and then, a probation officer will compile Konig's full background: criminal history, personal circumstances, employment, mental health, community ties, and victim impact. Judge Wong will use that report to decide where on the spectrum between probation and 20 years this case lands.

The talk about probation is real. It is legally available. Whether it is appropriate is a different question entirely, and it is the question that will define the next chapter of this case.

What I Got Right and What I Got Wrong

I told you this jury would compromise. I said the gravitational pull of the lesser included offenses would be too strong. I predicted Assault in the Second Degree because I thought the medical math would be the driving force: GCS 15, no skull fractures, three doctors saying no substantial risk of death, home the next day. That math pointed to the assault tier.

What I underestimated was the EMED instruction. I watched Otake fight to exclude it and I focused on the strategic implications of it being on the form. What I should have focused on was how powerful EMED would be as a narrative for this jury. The assault tier says "he hurt her but not badly enough for attempted murder." EMED says "he tried to cause her death but he was emotionally overwhelmed when he did it." For a jury that watched the testimony about the affair, the collapsing marriage, the birthday trip, and the phone call to Emile, EMED told a story that made sense of the whole picture. Assault did not.

The jury did not choose the option that matched the injuries. They chose the option that matched the story.

One More Thing People Are Getting Wrong

I have already seen people online calling this "second degree manslaughter." There is no such thing in Hawaii. Hawaii does not have degrees of manslaughter. There is Manslaughter under HRS Section 707-702. One statute. One crime. Class A felony.

The "second degree" refers to the original charge: Attempted Murder in the Second Degree. The EMED defense mitigated that charge down to Attempted Manslaughter. The degree belongs to the murder charge, not the manslaughter conviction. If you see someone calling it second degree manslaughter, now you know better.

That is what we do here. We watch. We educate. We get it right.

▶ WATCH THE VERDICT Verdict Is In for Gerhardt Konig | Attempted Murder Trial

The trial is over. Sentencing is August 13. The story continues.