Ex-CUC chair’s 4th attempt to suspend imposition of sentence denied

The CNMI Supreme Court has denied former Commonwealth Utilities Corp. board chair Francisco Q. Guerrero’s second motion to reconsider its denial of his request to suspend the imposition of his sentence pending resolution of his appeal over his conviction.
Guerrero lacks a compelling reason to relitigate the motion for stay, states the high court order penned by Chief Justice Alexandro C. Castro and concurred by Associate Justice John A. Manglona and Justice Pro Tem Timothy H. Bellas.

Last July, a Superior Court jury acquitted the 63-year-old Guerrero of two counts of a sexual abuse of a minor in the second degree, but Associate Judge David A. Wiseman, who presided over the trial, found him guilty of 11 charges: three counts of assault and battery, five counts of disturbing the peace, two counts of indecent exposure in the second degree, and sexual abuse of a minor in the fourth degree.

Wiseman sentenced Guerrero to six years in prison, which he will serve without the possibility of parole.

Guerrero then asked the Superior Court to suspend his sentence because the government did not turn over alleged Brady material that the Attorney General Investigation Unit’s report prepared at or around the time of Guerrero’s arrest. Wiseman denied the motion.

Brady material refers to a piece of evidence known to the prosecution that is important for establishing the innocence or reducing the punishment of a defendant.

Following Wiseman’s denial, Guerrero filed a similar motion with the CNMI Supreme Court. The high court denied the motion, but remanded the matter to Superior Court with instruction for the trial court to determine whether the AGIU report contained Brady material.

After the high court decision but before Wiseman could evaluate the AGIU report, Guerrero filed a motion to reconsider the high court’s denial of stay.

Guerrero claimed, among other things, that the high court did not have authority to remand the AGIU-report issue for further proceedings. The high court denied his motion to reconsider.

Guerrero again asked the high court to reconsider the stay’s denial. The latest motion comes on the heels of Wiseman’s review of the AGIU report.

According to Wiseman’s findings, the report did not include Brady materials for three reasons: One, it did not contain any evidence favorable to Guerrero. Two, Guerrero has now seen the report but still has not claimed or shown how the evidence would be favorable to his case. Three, the report contained substantially the same information as a later report that the Commonwealth provided Guerrero.

Wiseman said that since Guerrero received the later report, not having the first one did not result in any prejudice.

In the high court’s order on Tuesday, the justices said that Guerrero’s motion is more properly viewed as his fourth attempt to stay sentencing (once at the trial level, thrice at the appellate level).

The justices said they established the following rule: a defendant may not file more than one motion to stay sentencing except when compelling circumstances justify further motions.

The justices said the general prohibition against multiple motions serves the principles of finality and judicial economy by encouraging defendants to bring all of their meritorious claims in a single motion.

Meanwhile, the justices said they must address whether the government’s failure to turn over the original AGIU report violated the Brady rule because the report contained materials bearing on Guerrero’s guilt.

Under the Brady rule, due process is violated if the government withholds evidence that is both favorable to the accused and material to either guilt or sentencing.

Here, the justices said, the AGIU report contains no favorable evidence and is therefore not Brady material.

Guerrero was ordered to start serving his sentence on Dec. 1, 2013. According to the court’s commitment order, Guerrero began sexually molesting the now 17-year-old girl in 2010 when she was in the 9th grade and continued doing so up to May 2012 on five different occasions.