Court OKs jury trial for Arriola

Superior Court Associate Judge Timothy H. Bellas has ordered a jury trial for lawyer Joseph A. Arriola in connection with five counts of sexual abuse of a minor filed against him by the Attorney General’s Office.

Judge Bellas’ decision stemmed from a motion for a jury trial filed by Mr. Arriola on May 3, 2000. The embattled lawyer claimed that denying him a jury trial would violate due process and his right to equal protection under the law. He contended that he was intentionally charged with the offense of sexual abuse of a child, and not sexual molestation of a child, in order to deny him a jury trial.

According to the complaint filed by the Attorney General’s Office, the sexual contacts occurred between Jan. 4, 1998 and July 26, 1998. The victim, identified only as J.C.M., was only 15 years old when Mr. Arriola allegedly abused her.

Under the CNMI law, an individual charged with sexual abuse of a child has no right to a jury trial since a conviction carries with it a sentence of not more than five years imprisonment or a fine of not more than $2,000, or both.

The crime of sexual molestation is a form of child abuse. Compared to sexual abuse of a child, an act of sexual molestation calls for imprisonment of not more than five years, a fine of not more than $5,000, or both.
However, an individual charged with sexual molestation is entitled to a jury trial.
In maintaining that Mr. Arriola has no right to a jury trial, government lawyers said there was no violation of equal protection because there was a rational basis for denying jury trials to those accused of sexual abused of a child.

Moreover, AGO argued that limiting Mr. Arriola to a bench trial for the same conduct prohibited by the offense of sexual molestation of a child is no denial of due process.

In his order, Judge Bellas said the right to a jury trial is guaranteed by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution in prosecutions for serious criminal offenses.

Under the Covenant, as well as under the CNMI Constitution, the right to a trial by jury in criminal proceedings based on local law is statutory. The right to equal protection of the law, guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment and the Commonwealth Constitution, assures like treatment and similar punishment of persons convicted of the same acts committed under similar circumstances.

In 1983, the legislature lowered the penalties imposed on those charged with sexual abuse of a child in order to deny these individuals the right to trial by jury to spare the sexually abused child and his family the emotional trauma that entails a jury trial.

In eliminating the right to a jury trial for those accused of sexual abuse of a child, while leaving the right to a jury trial for those individuals charged with sexual molestation/sexual abuse, the Legislature accomplished two things: 1) effectively created two statutes prescribing different punishments for the same act committed under the same circumstances — by persons in identical situations; and 2) impermissibly vested the prosecutor with the arbitrary and unbridled discretion to charge the same conduct either as sexual abuse of a child or sexual molestation.

“A statutory scheme violates equal protection and due process of law when, as here, it affords benefits to some while denying those benefits to others in a manner that is capricious and arbitrary. To condition the right to a jury trial upon the shifting sands of mere semantics does just that,” Judge Bellas said.

While it is the Legislature’s prerogative to establish and even reduce the penalties that apply to particular criminal offenses, Judge Bellas stressed that equal protection demands that statutory classifications of crimes be based on differences that are real in fact and reasonably related purposes of the legislation.

“A statute which prescribes different degrees of punishment for the same acts committed under like circumstances by persons in like situations violates a person’s right to equal protection of law,” he added.