{"id":1173,"date":"2012-01-17T06:33:48","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T06:33:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=1173"},"modified":"2012-01-17T06:33:48","modified_gmt":"2012-01-17T06:33:48","slug":"us-govt-not-opposed-to-exclude-evidence-of-defendants-four-prior-criminal-convictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/us-govt-not-opposed-to-exclude-evidence-of-defendants-four-prior-criminal-convictions\/","title":{"rendered":"US govt not opposed to exclude evidence of defendant&#8217;s four prior criminal convictions"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>By Ferdie de la Torre<br \/>\nReporter<\/div>\n<p>The U.S. government does not oppose a motion to exclude evidence of prior criminal convictions of Melvin David Diaz, a 49-year-old Guam resident who is facing charges for impregnating a minor girl on Rota.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant U.S. attorney Clyde Lemons Jr. said the prosecution does not object to Diaz&#8217;s motion and does not intend to introduce at trial defendant&#8217;s prior convictions.<\/p>\n<p>Lemons informed the U.S. District Court for the NMI last Wednesday that a provision of Federal Rules of Evidence permits a conviction to be introduced against any witness regardless of whether it is a misdemeanor or felony, only if the offense involves a crime of dishonesty.<\/p>\n<p>Lemon said none of Diaz&#8217;s prior convictions involve such an offense.<\/p>\n<p>Lemons said another provisions of the Federal Rules of Evidence permit evidence of similar cases in sexual assault cases and in child molestation cases.<\/p>\n<p>None of the defendant&#8217;s convictions, the prosecutor said, involve such offenses.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz, through counsel, asserted that his prior four convictions should not be admitted for impeachment either as two convictions are time barred, and the other are for misdemeanors.<\/p>\n<p>The district court last month set the jury trial of Diaz to Feb. 6, 2012 in order for the U.S. government&#8217;s expert to recover from an unexpected illness.<\/p>\n<p>The jury trial was originally set for Dec. 27, 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Diaz is charged with three counts of enticement of a minor and one count of travel with intent to engage in illicit sexual conduct.<\/p>\n<p>According to the indictment, between Aug. 1, 2010 and Sept. 30, 2010, Diaz traveled from Guam to the CNMI for the purpose of engaging in illicit sex with the minor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ferdie de la Torre Reporter The U.S. government does not oppose a motion to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}