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Judge nixes plea bargain in murder case
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Posted on Dec 11 1998
A Superior Court judge rejected yesterday a plea bargain agreement in a murder case after the accused refused to enter a guilty plea.
Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama suggested that the accused, Berlin Sedurante, 39, appeared less contrite to merit a change of the second-degree murder charge to involuntary manslaughter in the death of a Filipino construction worker.
“I just want to know why you’ll have me punished when I did not commit any crime,” Sedurante told the judge in questioning.
The judge said: “How can he have remorse if he is saying he is not guilty?” Sedurante previously had agreed to reverse to a guilty plea, which formed the basis for the plea bargain.
Sedurante, of the Philippines, stood accused for murder in the death of another Filipino last year in a scuffle inside a mini-bus.
Police said he was drunk when he hit the victim following an argument over his insistence to take the space where the victim sat on.
The victim had not recovered after dropping unconscious from the slapping he received.
The victim was taken to the hospital, but doctors pronounced him dead on arrival.
Doctors declared heart attack as the cause of death.
Sedurante acknowledged that he had finished about 10 cans of beer but that he did not slap the victim.
“I did not hurt anybody. Heart attack caused his death,” he told Saipan Tribune.
John Chambers, Sedurante’s court-appointed lawyer, said: “The plea agreement was not acceptable to the court because of some hesitation on the part of my client.”
