Miura counsel wants new extension to file a petition

The legal counsel of Kazuyoshi Miura wants another extension to file a petition for habeas corpus in challenging the extradition case filed against the Japanese businessman.

Attorney Mark Hanson, one of Miura’s three lawyers on Saipan, told Saipan Tribune yesterday that their legal team and chief prosecutor Jeffery Warfield Sr. will submit a stipulation for a new extension today, Friday, to Superior Court associate judge Ramona V. Manglona.

“It looks like we’re going to try to wait for one more time,” Hanson said.

The lawyer said he and co-counsel Bruce Berline had a meeting with Manglona yesterday afternoon about another extension, but Warfield failed to come.

“But we basically agreed to some dates when we talked with the judge about it,” Hanson pointed out.

He said the primary reason for the need to have another extension is to see what is going to develop in the California Superior Court.

Hanson said they want to see the outcome of the California hearing that was set for May 9.

“It may change for what we have to do here. So we will see what’s going to happen,” he said.

Last March 19, Manglona granted Miura’s request to give him a month to file the petition for habeas corpus.

Manglona gave Miura’s legal team no later than April 18 to file the petition for habeas corpus and allowed the Attorney General’s Office to file its opposition on or before May 2.

The judge said the defendant’s counsel would have until May 8 to reply to the government’s opposition.

Manglona set the hearing on the petition and the extradition complaint for May 28 at 1:30pm.

Last April 17, Miura’s legal team and Warfield agreed to request the court to allow a two-week extension for Miura to file his petition for habeas corpus. Following the stipulation, Manglona granted the request.

Berline and Warfield reached the extension agreement due to the scheduled April 23 hearing in the Superior Court of Los Angeles.

In the stipulation, Berline and Warfield said the April 23 hearing is about Miura’s motion to quash the underlying California arrest warrant against the defendant in the L.A. Superior Court.

The lawyers said a ruling from that motion “may be dispositive” of the extradition matter filed against Miura in the CNMI Superior Court.

The 60-year-old Miura was arrested by Saipan authorities at the Saipan International Airport on Feb. 22 in connection with the murder of his wife, Kazumi Miura, in L.A. in 1981.

Miura had already been convicted in Japan in 1994 of the crime. The verdict, however, was overturned by Japan’s high court 10 years ago.