Court stays proceedings in illegal drug case

The Superior Court temporarily stopped proceedings in an illegal drug case pending an appeal by the CNMI government on an earlier ruling that suppressed evidence obtained through warrantless wiretapping.

Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama said the court should grant the request of the CNMI prosecutor because the defendant did not object to it.

Initially, the lawyer of defendant Jesus A. DeLeon Guerrero, Matthew T. Gregory, opposed the request for stay, but he changed his position during a court hearing.

Lizama said that, although the defendant withdrew his opposition to the stay request, he was reluctant to grant it.

“The court is confident that its decision will be upheld and sees no proper grounds for granting a stay,” Lizama said. “The court is reluctant to see this already elderly case delayed yet again.”

The Attorney General’s Office filed the case against DeLeon Guerrero in 2002.

“However, the court has concluded that, absent extraordinary grounds, a stay should not be denied when the non-moving party does not object,” the judge said.

Lizama’s earlier ruling suppressed tape-recorded evidence obtained through wiretapping that was not sanctioned by a court warrant. He ruled that the CNMI Constitution affords greater protection against intrusion to privacy compared with the system practiced in some other U.S. states and territories.

Gregory had asserted the constitutional prohibition against “wiretapping, electronic eavesdropping or other comparable means of surveillance…except pursuant to a warrant.”

The suppressed evidence consists of separately recorded conversations allegedly between DeLeon Guerrero and a confidential informant cooperating with the CNMI-Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force.

The judge dismissed the AGO’s contention that the consent of one party is sufficient to allow warrantless wiretapping. He noted that, while one-party consent is sufficient for a warrant exemption to conduct wiretapping and similar means of surveillance, the policy is only clear law in Ninth Circuit federal courts.

The AGO contended that 36 American states have statutes allowing wiretapped conversations with the consent of only one party, but Lizama noted that 13 other states have specifically required that all parties consent.

The judge said the CNMI’s constitutional requirement for a warrant should be construed as affording greater protection against the government’s electronic intrusion to privacy.