House Floor Leader Joseph James N. Camacho has introduced a bill that seeks to clarify an inconsistency with CNMI\u2019s jury system.<\/p>\n
Camacho\u2019s House Bill 16-148 requires that all charges in the same court proceeding be submitted to the jury when one charge entitles a defendant to a jury trial.<\/p>\n
He said it is necessary to remove inconsistent verdicts when a jury hears felony charges and the judge hears misdemeanor charges in a case arising out of the same events or transactions.<\/p>\n
At present, a jury hears the case on felony charges. Felonies are crimes that are punishable with imprisonment of more than one year.<\/p>\n
Also, a judge hears the case on misdemeanor charges. Misdemeanors are crimes that are punishable with imprisonment of less than one year.<\/p>\n
Camacho told Saipan Tribune that often, when a case has both felony and misdemeanor charges, the jury and the judge arrive at inconsistent verdicts.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor example, the jury can find a person not guilty on murder but the judge will find the person guilty of assault and battery,\u201d said Camacho, who is a lawyer.<\/p>\n
He said it is the intention of his bill to mandate that when a jury is already impaneled, the jury shall hear all of the felony and misdemeanor charges.<\/p>\n
The lawmaker emphasized that there is no additional cost or expense since the jury is already sitting to hear the felony charges.<\/p>\n
In the bill, Camacho underscored the importance of removing the inconsistency of entrusting a jury to deliberate on serious felony charges yet minor misdemeanor charges are handled by the judge.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is a matter of policy that juries are the true and proper body to deliberate on a defendant\u2019s guilt or innocence. It is a matter of public policy that the people when acting as juries are the true and proper measure of the community\u2019s norms, mores and standard,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Under the legislation, \u201c any person accused by information of committing a felony punishable by more than five years imprisonment or by more than $2,000 fine, or both, shall be entitled to a trial by a jury of six persons.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bill provides that when trial by jury is required on one count, the right shall extend to all counts in the information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
House Floor Leader Joseph James N. Camacho has introduced a bill that seeks to clarify an inconsistency with CNMI\u2019s jury system.<\/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-125816","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\/125816","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=125816"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125816\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}