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Miura asks federal court for his release
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Posted on Sep 28 2008
Kazuyoshi Miura has asked the U.S. District Court for the NMI to order Department of Corrections commissioner Lino S. Tenorio to release him from custody.
In Miura’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus filed on Friday in federal court, attorney Mark B. Hanson asserted that their client’s continued detention in the CNMI is in violation of his constitutional rights guaranteed him by the U.S. Constitution.
Hanson said the CNMI courts have denied Miura habeas corpus relief and ordered his extradition to California.
“The Commonwealth courts’ decisions involve an unreasonable application of established federal law,” said Hanson who is among Miura’s three lawyers on Saipan.
The CNMI courts, he pointed out, erred in their application of U.S. Supreme Court precedence and have ordered the extradition of the 61-year-old Miura to California based on Gov. Benigno R. Fitial’s warrant.
On Friday, U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Alex R. Munson granted Miura’s emergency motion for a stay of Superior Court associate judge Ramona V. Manglona’s extradition order.
This developed as Miura’s lawyers filed the emergency motion as well as a petition for habeas corpus before the federal court Friday afternoon.
In a one-page order, Munson said Miura’s emergency motion for a stay of extradition is granted until further order of the court.
Munson set a hearing for today, Monday, at 9am. No other information was specified in the order.
On Saturday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Steven Van Sicklen ruled that Miura cannot be tried for murder in the 1981 shooting of his wife. He, however, did not dismiss the charge of conspiracy to commit murder.
More Japanese journalists are expected to cover today’s hearing in federal court. As of yesterday morning, some members of the Japanese TVs, were seen surveying the vicinity of Horiguchi Building in Garapan where the federal court is located.
The visiting journalists were looking at possible angles where they can take footages of Miura before and after the hearing.
