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Court upholds jury trial for Arriola
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Posted on Nov 13 2000
Superior Court Associate Judge Timothy H. Bellas yesterday denied a motion filed by the CNMI government to reconsider an earlier order for a jury trial on a sexual abuse case involving lawyer Joey A. Arriola.
Judge Bellas said trial by jury in serious criminal cases has long been regarded as an indispensable protection against the possibility of governmental oppression.
The CNMI government wanted to limit Mr. Arriola to a bench trial claiming that there is a rational basis for denying jury trials to those accused of sexual abused of a child.
“A statute which conditions the right to a jury trial upon nonexistent distinctions between child victims, and that same time, prescribes different degrees of punishment for the same acts, committed under like circumstances, by persons in like situations violates a person’s right to a jury trial,” Judge Bellas said.
In opposing the grant of a jury trial, the CNMI government said the Legislature clearly intended to define sexual molestation as requiring a custodial relationship between the perpetrator and the child victim.
Said Judge Bellas: “The court recognizes that the Legislature’s general discretion to deal selectively with those acts which it deems to pose the most significant societal problems is especially broad in the realm of criminal law. The sole limitation which the equal protection imposes upon the legislature in the exercise of this power, however, is that criminal statutes must not prescribe different punishments for the same acts committed under the same circumstances by persons in like situations.”
Judge Bellas gave both parties 30 days to appeal the case before the Supreme Court.
