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Judge: OAG need not produce door taken from La Fiesta
Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho allowed yesterday the Office of the Attorney General not to produce during the trial of Joseph A. Crisostomo the actual metal door that was collected from the former La Fiesta Mall and sent to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Camacho, however, directed the OAG to obtain a door virtually identical in size and composition to the metal door that was recovered from the crime scene and sent to the FBI for fingerprint analysis. He ordered the government to produce that door to Crisostomo on or before March 31, 2014.
Crisostomo’s jury trial will start on April 7. He is accused of killing bartender Emerita Romero at the former La Fiesta.
At a pretrial conference on Friday, the government, through Chief Prosecutor Brian Flaherty and assistant attorney general Margo Brown-Badawy, objected to the introduction of one of Crisostomo’s exhibits, the metal door.
The prosecution argued that it doesn’t have the door, and is thus unable to produce it. They asked the court not to require the government to produce the door for trial.
The prosecution also noted that it is prohibitively expensive to ship the door back to Saipan.
Attorney Janet H. King, counsel for Crisostomo, argued that having the door at hand is important for the defendant’s defense for the jury to see the physical aspects of the door.
King said that without seeing the door, which covered the entryway to the room where Romero’s body was found, the jury will not be able to understand the importance of the finding that Crisostomo’s fingerprints were not on the door.
King said that earlier communications with the OAG included assurances that the door would be returned to the CNMI after the fingerprint analysis is completed.
In his order, Camacho said that based on the information provided by both parties, the production of the door is not material to Crisostomo’s case because the combination of the fingerprint test results, photographs of the door, and access to a similar door for demonstration purposes constitute evidence comparable to the actual door that was recovered from the former mall.
