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Patuawa Mihaka Nathan, now 20, stared ahead - his lawyers showingmore visible relief than him - as jurors announced the not guilty verdicts for both murder and manslaughter today in the High Court at Auckland following two weeks of testimony and three days of deliberations.
Justice Paul Radich ordered the immediate release of Nathan, who had spent the duration of the trial on electronically monitored bail.
Father-son defence team Quentin and Gowan Duff spent much of the trial focused on the troubled history of 30-year-old victim Challas Nathan, a recently released prisoner with a Crips tattoo on his face who his own family described as having aspired to be an “alpha”.
Anyone who challenged his dominance or made him “feel small” could expect a violent response, another sibling said, while the mother of Challas Nathan’s five children described him trying to stab her on an earlier occasion. The former partner said she had also seen Challas Nathan viciously attack his younger brother on multiple occasions.
“Patuawa was terrified. His history [with Challas Nathan] gave him good reason,” Quentin Duff told jurors during his closing address last week, sarcastically referring to the victim as “Saint Challas”.
“Patuawa had good reason to know he’d made a terrible mistake and he was in for the fight of his life.”
But prosecutors ‘Aminiasi Kefu and Charlie Piho shared a much different characterisation of what had happened that night, describing a defendant who ignored multiple opportunities to avoid what turned out to be a fatal confrontation.
Patuawa Mihaka Nathan, 20, appears in the High Court at Auckland for his murder trial. Photo / Jason Oxenham
The first signs of discord occurred around 11pm, when an argument broke out between Challas Nathan and their father over who was responsible for the father’s cellphone getting wet. Patuawa Nathan said he didn’t like the way his brother was disrespecting their father so he told Challas Nathan to leave - calling 111 at one point but not staying on the line and telling his brother he had called probation to have his electronically monitored bail rescinded.
While Challas Nathan certainly had a history, he had been working to better himself and had shown maturity that night by walking away from the argument, Kefu told jurors during his closing address, explaining that the older brother walked to his room and closed the door.
“People, recognising what happened, patted him on the back,” Kefu said. “Because Challas was doing the right thing. Challas was doing the responsible thing by walking away from confrontation.”
But because he was on home detention, he had nowhere else to retreat to, Kefu said.
It should have ended there, but instead Patuawa Nathan followed his brother to his room, grabbing a knife from the kitchen along the way and yelling he would “f***ing kill him” before pounding on his bedroom door, prosecutors said.
“He was now a grown man, and he wanted Challas out of that house no matter what it took,” Kefu said. “He was blinded by anger and he was blinded by rage.”
Challas Nathan was killed by his younger, Patuawa Nathan, at their Wattle Downs home in October 2022.
Prosecutors said the older brother didn’t want to come out of his room, and when he did open the door he was unarmed. Kefu suggested that Challas Nathan was likely trying to get past his brother when the first stab wound was inflicted.
“This is exactly what he walked down the hall ready to carry out,” Kefu said of the defendant, reminding jurors of Patuawa Nathan’s own words in a recorded police interview after he was told his brother had died: “F***ing told you, c***. F***ing told you I wasn’t joking.”
Both knife thrusts were intentional, with enough force to twice fracture Challas Nathan’s ribs, Kefu said.
He described the defendant squatting over his brother after he fell to the ground following the first stab wound, dominating the victim as he said: “Take that. Take that, you c***!” Others intervened, pulling Patuawa Nathan off his brother, they said.
“This was not by any reasonable measure self-defence,” Kefu argued. “This was murder.
“In that short moment of madness ... Patuawa went from celebrating his 19th birthday to fatally stabbing his older brother... Regret does not reverse what he intended in that moment.”
The defence argued that Patuawa Nathan arming himself with a knife did not show an intention to kill but instead a naive, failed attempt to make sure Challas Nathan kept his distance and didn’t lash out in violence as he was kicked out of the house.
“It is a gross mischaracterisation of the circumstances ... for you to believe Patuawa was taking a knife to a fistfight,” Quentin Duff explained. “He was trying to prevent one.”
But the defendant failed to forsee that, instead of working as a deterrent, the knife would be the final straw causing his brother to be overcome with a “red mist” that night, the defence lawyer said.
“He’s no longer looking at his little brother,” Quentin Duff said of the victim’s alleged charge. “He’s looking at a narc, a snitch, a person who stood up to his mana, the mana o the Crips. Challas could no longer discern whānau from foe.”
In that moment, he argued, his client had a right to defend himself from what he knew could be serious harm.
After roughly 22 hours of deliberations, jurors agreed.
Craig Kapitan is an Auckland-based journalist covering courts and justice. He joined the Herald in 2021 and has reported on courts since 2002 in three newsrooms in the US and New Zealand.
