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New trial on murder case ordered
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Posted on Jan 12 2001
The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed an earlier decision of the CNMI Supreme Court affirming the lower court’s decision convicting Joseph A. Bowie for the premeditated murder of Elaudio Laude and kidnapping of his friend Nilo Rivera.
Mr. Laude and Mr. Rivera were victims of a heinous crime in November 1992 which all started in an automobile accident. Pretending that they were police officers, Mr. Bowie and his companion Efrain Reyes brought the two victims Mr. Laude and Mr. Rivera to the house of Efrain’s brother Mario Reyes .
The two Filipinos were savagely beaten by a group of Chamorros consisting of the Reyes brothers and Mr. Bowie’s friends. Mr. Rivera was able to escape but Mr. Laude died, his mangled body found the following morning on the side of a road and his abandoned car recovered at another location.
In his appeal to the Ninth Circuit, Mr. Bowie sought the reversal of the convictions and asked for a new trial due to the Commonwealth’s admitted decision not to investigate concrete documentary evidence . The evidence showed that the prosecution’s accomplice witnesses against Mr. Bowie conspired to testify falsely against him.
Others accused in the case were brothers Mario and Efrain Reyes, John Villagomez, Bruce Lee Manglona and Lucas Manglona — who all got lesser sentence for the crime in a plea agreement they signed.
A letter written by Mario Reyes and was found by Sgt. Pedro Camacho San Nicolas during the investigation of the case showed that he had asked the others accused in the crime to testify against Mr. Bowie. In fact, Mario had admitted in the letter that he was the one who murdered Mr. Laude.
Unfortunately, the prosecution had already made a decision to push through with the plea agreements and not to develop any evidence or information that would hurt their case or damage the credibility of conniving witnesses, the Ninth Circuit Court said.
“The Attorney General’s faulty decision and calculated course of non-action in this case deprived Bowie of the fair process that was his due under our Constitution before he could be deprived of his liberty,” the court added. The Ninth Circuit Court remanded the case for a new trial. (LFR)
