Miura may end up joining hearing via teleconference

Kazuyoshi Miura may end up participating in Saturday’s hearing in Los Angeles through a telephone conference at the Department of Corrections in Susupe.

Attorney Bruce Berline, one of Miura’s three lawyers on Saipan, yesterday said they were still working on how their client could join the hearing in L.A. that was set for Saturday at 6:30am, Saipan time.

“We’re working on that. I think we’ll have a telephone conference, probably at DOC,” Berline told Saipan Tribune.

The lawyer said if the teleconference pushes through at DOC, the media will not be allowed to go inside the detention facility.

Miura could have used the teleconference facility at the U.S. District Court for the NMI, but the district court is closed on weekends.

The hearing, set for Friday at 1:30pm L.A. time, is on Miura’s motion to quash the arrest warrant and dismiss the extradition proceedings based on double jeopardy.

Celebrity attorney Mark Geragos, counsel for the 60-year-old Miura in L.A., filed the motion to quash.

Berline said the California government, however, has filed a motion to continue the hearing to a later date.

“The original hearing will still go forward but I’m imagining what’s going to happen is that the government’s motion is going to be heard first. I don’t know what’s going to happen after that,” Berline said.

The motion for continuance, he said, is going to be addressed during Saturday’s hearing.

Last Tuesday, Miura appealed Superior Court associate judge Ramona V. Manglona’s decision denying his request to allow him to post bail.

William M. Fitzgerald, one of Miura’s three lawyers on Saipan, filed a notice of appeal in the Superior Court.

In the appeal, Fitzgerald said Miura is appealing to the CNMI Supreme Court judge Manglona’s order denying Miura’s motion for bail modification.

In a written decision issued on June 25, 2008, Manglona ruled that Miura’s argument that his situation presents special circumstances that allow for bail “misses the mark.”

Citing a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in a case that, according to Manglona, resembles in some respects those of Miura as argued, the judge said under the federal Extradition Act, “it is for the California courts to do justice in this case based upon its substantive law and procedures, not the CNMI courts.”

The State of California is seeking Miura’s extradition on charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder in connection with the killing of his wife in 1981. Miura has been in jail since he was arrested at the Saipan airport in February.