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Retired cop’s bid for acquittal, new trial in fruit bat case nixed
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Posted on Jul 24 2011
The federal court on Friday denied a bid for acquittal or a new trial filed by Adrian Mendiola, a retired police lieutenant who was found both guilty and not guilty of charges relating to the poaching of Mariana fruit bats on Rota.
U.S. District Court for the NMI designated judge John Houston denied Mendiola’s motions for judgment of acquittal or, as an alternative, a request for a new trial.
Houston said he will issue a written order that will basically incorporate the same grounds the court had previously stated in this case.
Attorney Ramon K. Quichocho appeared for Mendiola, who waived his right to appear at the hearing. Assistant U.S. attorney Kirk Schuler argued for the U.S. government.
A federal jury on May 13, 2011, found Mendiola guilty of unlawful possession of a threatened wildlife, but not guilty of unlawful receipt of acquisition of threatened wildlife.
In Mendiola’s motions, Quichocho argued that only an acquittal will dispel “any shadow arising from conjectures or assumptions made by the jury that was cast on the appearance of justice in the case.”
In the alternative, Quichocho said, a new trial is required because a shadow arising from the court’s error in giving its supplemental instruction can only be dispelled with a new trial.
The lawyer said the case requires a new trial because the record is devoid of any evidence to show that the bats found in the freezer were of the subspecies Pteropus were indeed the federally protected Pteropus mariannus mariannus.
Schuler asserted, among other things, that Mendiola’s motions have no merit.
