A Hawaii man convicted last year of brutally murdering another Hawaiian while both were housed in a private prison in Eloy more than a decade ago will be back in a Pinal County courtroom in August for an update on his sentencing.
Miti Maugaotega Jr. was convicted by a Pinal County jury in December 2022 of first degree murder for stabbing fellow inmate Bronson Nunuha about 150 times in February 2010 in a cell at the Saguaro Correctional Center in Eloy operated by Corrections Corporation of America.
The jury, however, was unable to reach a decision as to whether the death penalty should be imposed as requested by the Pinal County Attorney’s Office, which argued Nunuha’s murder was “cruel, heinous and depraved.” As a result, the jury was dismissed and Judge Robert C. Olson will conduct a status review on Aug.7 to find out how the parties wish to proceed.
If the county attorney withdraws the death penalty as a possible sentence then Olson is mandated by law to impose a life sentence. Otherwise, another jury can be empaneled to take up the death penalty option.
Maugaotega, 37, has two other felony cases pending against him in Pinal County Superior Court. One from 2013 charges him with two counts of aggravated assault. The other, from 2016, involves promoting prison contraband.
Hawaii has utilized out-of-state prisons to house their more violent offenders since 1995. Corrections officials with the Hawaii Department of Public Safety began sending inmates to Saguaro Correctional Center in 2007.
Court records show Maugaotega was only 17 when he shot a man during a burglary in Hawaii. A judge there imposed the equivalent of 11 life sentences against the teen, citing in part Maugaotega’s lengthy criminal record and “total disregard to the rights of others.”
Maugaotega was initially placed at a prison in Mississippi before being moved to Arizona. It is unclear how long he was at Saguaro Correctional before Nunuha was killed in 2010, but Maugaotega admitted after the murder he was already active in the USO Family prison gang operating at the Eloy facility.
At the time, there were nearly 1,900 Hawaii inmates incarcerated at the private prison, part of a $60 million annual contract between Hawaii and the company, which now conducts business as CoreCivic. The number of Hawaii inmates is believed to be under 1,000 in 2022.
Maugaotega’s Hawaiian co-defendant, Micah Kanahele, was at Saguaro Correctional serving 20-year sentences for killing two men in Hawaii. He pleaded guilty in the Pinal County murder in 2017 after the Pinal County prosecutor withdrew the death penalty as an option.
Kanahele was sentenced to serve a natural life sentence, although public records indicate he is not currently incarcerated in an Arizona state-run prison.
The brutal murder of Nunuha was not the only murder at Saguaro Correctional in 2010.
Inmate Clifford Medina of Hawaii was strangled to death in his cell by fellow Hawaiian Mahinaulik Silva in June 2010. Silva, then only 21, pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Public records show Silva completed his original Hawaii sentence less than one year after the killing. He is at the Arizona State Prison Complex – Tucson serving the prison term imposed for the murder conviction and is set to be released in July 2029.