High court affirms trial court’s post-conviction relief order

Posted on Aug 12 2015

On Monday, Aug. 10, 2015, the Supreme Court issued its decision in Commonwealth v. Bashar, 2015 MP 4. There, the defendant, Mohammad A. Bashar, appealed the trial court’s order denying his motion to set aside his plea of no contest to marriage fraud, claiming ineffective assistance of counsel.

The high court concluded the trial court did not abuse its discretion in considering the timeliness of Bashar’s motion because it was not the only basis underlying the denial. The high court also held the trial court properly denied the motion without an evidentiary hearing because Bashar did not demonstrate that the existing record was insufficient to resolve issues concerning his ineffective assistance claim. Finally, the high court found that Bashar failed to support his claim that counsel did not inform him about the adverse immigration consequence of his plea. Therefore, the trial court’s order was affirmed.

The Supreme Court’s opinion is available at http://www.cnmilaw.org/supreme15.html. (NMI Judiciary)

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