‘Justices must protect Miura from LAPD tactics’

The CNMI Supreme Court must protect Kazuyoshi Miura from the Los Angeles Police Department’s “subversive tactics” and prevent him from being taken to California while his appeal is pending, according to one of Miura’s lawyers yesterday.

Attorney Mark B. Hanson said the State of California knows that if it could grab the 61-year-old Miura before a stay was issued, they would effectively deny both the Japanese businessman and the CNMI Supreme Court the opportunity to decide the issues now before it.

In Miura’s 30-page opening brief filed before the high court, the lawyer said a well established case law explains why the LAPD hurriedly flew to Saipan last Sept. 15—just four days after Superior Court associate judge Ramona V. Manglona denied Miura’s application for habeas corpus.

“As underhanded and subversive as it would have appeared, had the LAPD planned better and arrived on Saipan to spirit Mr. Miura out of the CNMI prior to the stay being issued, neither this court nor Mr. Miura could do anything about it,” said Hanson, who, along with Bruce Berline and William Fitzgerald, are Miura’s lawyers on Saipan.

Last Sept. 12, Manglona denied Miura’s petition for habeas corpus and ordered his extradition to L.A. This prompted Miura’s lawyers to file that day with the CNMI Supreme Court an emergency motion for a stay of extradition and removal, pending their appeal.

In the afternoon of Sept. 15, chief justice Miguel S. Demapan granted the stay request and set the arguments for today, Sept. 23, at 2pm. Hours later, four LAPD detectives arrived on Saipan, supposedly to pick up Miura. The stay ruling prevented this, prompting the detectives to leave the island.

In Miura’s appeal brief, Hanson said if their client is taken to California—even if by force and in violation of CNMI law and the CNMI Constitution—the overwhelming and long standing case law holds that the Commonwealth is powerless to compel California to release and return Miura to the CNMI even if the appeal was not rendered moot and he were to prevail in his appeal.

Hanson said either Miura does not stand substantially charged with a crime in the State of California or the State of California’s almost 20-year delay in seeking his extradition denies him the due process guaranteed him by the U.S. Constitution.

In either case, he pointed out, the State of California has no right to request Miura’s rendition from the CNMI.

Hanson said Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s warrant on which Miura is currently being held is illegal and should be quashed and he should be released at once.

The lawyer said if Miura leaves the CNMI, any right he has to habeas corpus relief from CNMI courts would no longer be available to him because the CNMI courts would lose personal jurisdiction over him and any appeals would be moot.

Hanson said California itself is unsure whether it is actually precluded from even prosecuting Miura because of the applicability of California’s statute, which grants him immunity from any further prosecution.

If the demanding state (California) is questioning the validity of its own process, he said, then certainly the CNMI high tribunal cannot say for certain that those document are sufficient to substantially charge Miura with a crime.

In the CNMI government’s opposition to the appeal, acting chief prosecutor Jeffery L. Warfield Sr. said Miura is engaging in “semantical gymnastics” to argue that the affirmative defense of double jeopardy renders him not substantially charged.

Warfield said that Miura has conceded in California that he is substantially charged; he may not now argue the contrary in the Commonwealth.

The acting chief prosecutor said the appeal should be summarily denied and that the CNMI Supreme Court should make a finding that, in view of long established and well settled U.S. Supreme Court precedent, “there was absolutely no merit to his original application or this subsequent appeal so that petitioner is dissuaded from continuing this dilatory course through the federal courts.”

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

Petitioner, he said, does not contest the issues of identity, the sufficiency of the documents nor whether he was present in California when the crimes were committed and has since left the state.

Miura’s sole contention, the acting chief prosecutor said, is that he is immune from prosecution based on a California double-jeopardy statute that is the subject of a matter currently pending before the California courts and which the CNMI high court is legally prohibited from reviewing.

Warfield said that Manglona made the proper and correct decision in denying the writ of habeas corpus.

Miura is currently being held at the Department of Corrections pursuant to an arrest warrant for extradition signed by Fitial on March 12, 2008, after receiving a request from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Warfield conceded that if Miura had been extradited prior to his appeal being reviewed, he would have lost the ability to do so.

“However, in light of the fact that this [court] has already granted the stay request and accepted the appeal for hearing, it is the Commonwealth’s position that this issue is now moot,” he stressed.