A federal judge this week ordered the release or retrial of a man convicted of a 1995 murder on Maui, saying he improperly wasn't allowed to call three witnesses during his trial more than a decade ago, The Maui News reported today

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In the 1997 trial in 2nd Circuit Court, Taryn Christian was convicted of second-degree murder of Vilmar Cabaccang. The 23-year-old Kihei resident was stabbed numerous times with a double-bladed knife in the early-morning hours of July 14, 1995, after he and his girlfriend chased a man who broke into Cabaccang's customized Honda Civic parked on Kulanihakoi Street.

Witnesses identified Christian, then a 19-year-old Kula resident, as the man they saw at the crime scene.

But in a petition filed in U.S. District Court in Honolulu in 2004, Christian claimed he was denied a fair trial. One of his claims was that jurors wrongly weren't allowed to hear the testimony of three people who would have said that another man confessed to the killing.

The trial judge didn't allow the testimony, finding that the trustworthiness of the statements wasn't clearly shown. The Hawaii Supreme Court upheld the decision.

In his order filed Tuesday in federal court in Honolulu, U.S. District Judge David Ezra said excluding the testimony "was contrary to clearly established federal law."

The court ordered that Christian be released with conditions within seven days, unless the state decides to retry him for the murder. The state was ordered to report to the court within 10 days.

"We support the order and agree with it," said Honolulu attorney Keith Shigetomi, who represented Christian along with Oklahoma attorney Mark Barrett. "The judge has ordered that he did not get a fair trial in state court."

Maui County First Deputy Prosecutor Peter Hanano said Thursday that the state will appeal the court's decision.

Christian, a South African citizen who was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole, has been incarcerated on the Mainland. He is expected to be brought back to Hawaii.

While finding that Christian should have been allowed to call the three witnesses, Ezra denied seven other claims he made, including actual innocence.

Although Christian has alleged that James Hina Burkhart stabbed Cabaccang, new DNA testing found no indication that Burkhart was at the crime scene, according to expert reports filed in court. But DNA consistent with Christian was found in bloodstains on a jacket, which also contained bloodstains consistent with the victim Cabaccang, the experts reported. Police recovered the jacket near the crime scene.

Christian also was identified as a potential donor to DNA from a knife sheath found at the scene.

The DNA testing, which began last year, was requested by Christian as part of his federal petition.

The three witnesses that Christian attempted to call during his trial were William Auld, Patricia Mullins and Robert Boisey Pimentel.

Christian's trial attorney reported that Auld, who shared a jail cell with Burkhart in 1995, would testify that Burkhart admitted to stabbing Cabaccang.

Mullins was described as a friend of Burkhart and someone who had known Cabaccang for a long time.

She reportedly would have testified that Burkhart confessed to killing Cabaccang during a conversation about two days after the murder.

Pimentel supposedly would have said that Burkhart had an unusual knife that matched descriptions of the knife used in the attack on Cabaccang.

Burkhart - who was called to testify at the trial but asserted his Fifth Amendment right - gave a statement to a detective denying involvement in the stabbing. The prosecution said another witness could testify that Burkhart was somewhere else the night of the stabbing.

* Lila Fujimoto can be reached at lfujimoto@mauinews.com.