Prosecutors say recorded telephone conversations from jail show Clembert Kaneholani’s motive for killing a Maui police officer. Gary Kubota/The Maui News

Prosecutors want jurors to hear recorded jail telephone calls they say reveal the motive behind the fatal shooting of a Maui police officer, but the man charged in the case is asking a judge to keep the recordings out of evidence.

Second Circuit Judge Peter Cahill is scheduled to take up a motion Jan. 26 on whether to admit Clembert Kaneholan’s recorded telephone calls into evidence.

In the written motion, Prosecuting Attorney Andrew Martin said the conversations speak to Kaneholani’s motive, arguing the calls show the fatal shooting stemmed from Kaneholani’s anger toward police officers and his wife’s temporary restraining order, which forced him to leave his home and barred him from contact with his children.

The prosecution alleges the jailhouse conversations connect the restraining order issued Aug. 13 to the fatal shooting of Officer Suzanne O on Aug. 15. Officer O was shot in an ambush attack while searching a dark field at the old Paia Sugar Mill for a man who had fired shots at the property’s caretaker.

“Right after, brah, that was it, brah. I wanted to take lives already,” Kaneholani is quoted as saying in one telephone call. “I wanted to take lives, these cops.”

In the calls, Kaneholani talked about his wife sending police to his house and officers taking his son away from him. “I was going to shoot these f— over there at the house and have a shootout at the house,” he said.

In seeking to have the calls excluded as evidence, the defense argued Kaneholani did not give police permission to record the conversations and that there was no court order authorizing the recordings.

Prosecutors said that before making telephone calls from the jail, inmates are warned conversations are subject to being recorded or monitored, except for privileged communications with attorneys.

Kaneholani, 38, faces multiple charges, including first-degree murder.

In August 2015, he was previously charged with first-degree felony theft and a second-degree weapons charge for stealing a rifle from a boat on Kauai. He pleaded no contest to the theft charge and was sentenced to 30 days in jail. He completed his probation in September 2019.

In Hawaii, felons are barred from possessing firearms.

Officer O grew up in American Samoa and joined the Maui Police Department in 2020. She served on the department’s honor guard and was decorated for bravery for her conduct during the 2023 wildfires.

She was posthumously recognized at the 2025 Women of Excellence Awards ceremony by the Maui County Committee on the Status of Women.