Meth-using and rageful killer fails in appeal against her murder conviction

Moetū Kaitai was jailed for life for the murder of Kalvin Kana when she appeared in the High Court at Rotorua. Photo / Andrew Warner

A woman who shot and killed a man in a Tokoroa garage has failed in an appeal against her conviction for murder.

Moetū Kaitai is serving a life prison sentence for the murder of Kalvin Kana in May 2020.

Justice Matthew Muir imposed the sentence, with a minimum non-parole period of 10 years and nine months, after Kaitai was convicted following a jury trial in the High Court at Tokoroa in August 2022.

The trial was told that Kaitai was high on methamphetamine and a “powder keg filled with rage” when she shot Kana dead in the garage of a Tokoroa property, where he was playing darts with two friends.

Evidence at the trial showed there was a confrontation, in which Kaitai loaded and pointed the firearm at Kana, who grabbed the barrel moments before the fatal shot.

Kaitai appealed the conviction in the Court of Appeal on three grounds, all relating to the judge’s summing-up to the jury.

Her lawyer, Tiana Epati, argued that the summing-up lacked neutrality, failed to properly put forward the defence case, and left the jury with the impression that Kaitai bore the onus of proof.

Her appeal said the combination of these “errors” resulted in a miscarriage of justice.

However, the Court of Appeal justices dismissed the appeal, saying that the matters Kaitai raised did not warrant their intervention.

They said the judge had “neatly encapsulated in a straightforward and clear way” in his summing-up what the jury was required to decide.

In particular, the judge fairly captured the defence argument that the gun went off due to involuntary or accidental discharge, they said.

Kaitai’s sentencing hearing was told that she had lived in a gang environment and had been involved with Black Power and drug-dealing since her teens. She was 31 at the time of her trial.

She was said to be a heavy user of methamphetamine and had experienced several abusive relationships. She had been assaulted on the night before she shot Kana dead.

“I didn’t intend it. It wasn’t my intention. I was just sick of males attacking me,” Kaitai said in a statement read to the Court of Appeal by her lawyer, Epati.