‘AGO sensationalizes, files misleading arguments’

The Attorney General’s Office has included factually erroneous and legally misleading arguments to further sensationalize its role in the extradition case against Kazuyoshi Miura, according to one of Miura’s lawyer, Bruce Berline.

The AGO’s argument that the 61-year-old Miura had eluded prosecution “is silly,” said Berline in their reply yesterday to the CNMI government’s opposition to the Japanese businessman’s petition for habeas corpus.

The lawyer said they did not make it an issue in their petition, but the CNMI government, through the AGO, unnecessarily continues to state that the Japanese businessman fled prosecution in California.

“Perhaps it is solely to try to embarrass Mr. Miura, but the fact of the matter is that the government’s statements are baseless,” Berline argued in court papers.

He pointed out that, as clearly set forth in the affidavit of Detective Rick Jackson of the Los Angeles Police Department, Miura returned to L.A. no less than six times after the shooting of his wife in November 1981.

In addition to returning to L.A. once in 1981, Miura traveled to L.A. thrice in 1982. In 1983, Miura traveled to L.A. twice—once in May and once in October, according to the lawyer.

What is also erroneous, Berline said, is the government’s apparent belief that Miura even knew about the 1988 California arrest warrant prior to his 2008 arrest on Saipan.

“In short, Mr. Miura has not fled justice,” he said. “The government’s arguments are misleading and wrong.”

Berline said the government also erroneously suggests that Miura was somehow “eluding prosecution all these years.”

“There is no basis for such a statement by the government. It is well known that Mr. Miura was prosecuted, convicted, acquitted and spent many years in jail for these decades-old allegations,” he said.

Moreover, Berline said, the CNMI government knows full well that the businessman did not even know the charges were pending in California “all of these years.”

He said the government tends to further sensationalize its role in the case because “it really offers no rational counter-argument to Miura’s claim that the State of California has waived any right to demand Miura’s extradition.”

“In order to protect Mr. Miura’s well settled due process rights, this court should find that the State of California is now estopped from seeking his extradition from the Commonwealth,” Berline added.

In its opposition, the AGO had asserted that Miura’s petition is wholly without merit and presents no new issues.

Assistant Attorney General Jeffery L. Warfield Sr. said Miura’s petition is “nothing more than a veiled attempt” at appealing the Superior Court’s prior ruling denying his motion to dismiss.

“Petitioner has failed to raise a cognizable issue that is subject to review in a habeas corpus proceeding challenging extradition,” said Warfield.

The hearing of the petition was set for today, Friday, at 10am before Superior Court associate judge Ramona V. Manglona.

L.A. Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen is expected to issue a written decision by Sept. 26 on Miura’s motion to dismiss the murder and conspiracy charges.

Miura is accused of conspiring to kill his wife, who was shot when they were visiting L.A. in 1981. Miura was convicted of murder in Japan, but the verdict was overturned in 1998 by the country’s high court.

He was arrested in connection with the murder while on a business trip to Saipan last February. Miura remains in jail as he fights his extradition to LA. from Saipan.