The Attorney General\u2019s Office asserted yesterday that Kazuyoshi Miura\u2019s petition for habeas corpus is wholly without merit and presents no new issues.<\/p>\n
Assistant attorney general Jeffery L. Warfield Sr. said Miura\u2019s petition is \u201cnothing more than a veiled attempt\u201d at appealing the Superior Court\u2019s prior ruling denying his motion to dismiss.<\/p>\n
\u201cPetitioner has failed to raise a cognizable issue that is subject to review in a habeas corpus proceeding challenging extradition,\u201d said Warfield in the CNMI government\u2019s opposition to the petition.<\/p>\n
The government lawyer pointed out that Miura does not contest the issues of identity, the sufficiency of the documents nor whether he was present in California when the crimes were committed.<\/p>\n
Warfield said Miura\u2019s sole contention is that he is immune from prosecution based on a California double-jeopardy statute that he is the subject of a matter currently pending before the California courts.<\/p>\n
The CNMI Superior Court, he said, is legally prohibited from reviewing such immunity issue.<\/p>\n
Warfield said the local court should deny the petition as Miura\u2019s arrest and detention is lawful since he is a fugitive wanted for extradition by California for the crimes of murder and conspiracy to commit murder.<\/p>\n
Bruce Berline, one of Miura\u2019s lawyers, said Saturday they would talk with the prosecution whether or not to once more postpone the hearing on Saipan following a Los Angeles county judge\u2019s announcement that he would issue a decision by Sept. 26 on Miura\u2019s motion to dismiss the murder and conspiracy charges.<\/p>\n
Berline said that during Saturday\u2019s hearing in L.A. Superior Court, Judge Steven Van Sicklen placed the motion under advisement and set another hearing for Sept. 26. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe Sept. 26 hearing will be solely for the judge to render his decision in this matter and we go from there,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Berline said they don\u2019t know what they are going to do with the scheduled Sept. 12 hearing on Saipan.<\/p>\n
The Superior Court postponed many times the hearing and the filing deadline on the petition for habeas corpus following stipulations by Miura\u2019s counsels and the prosecution.<\/p>\n
Miura is accused of conspiring to kill his wife, who was shot when they were visiting L.A. in 1981. Miura was convicted of murder in Japan, but the verdict was overturned in 1998 by the country\u2019s high court.<\/p>\n
The 61-year-old Miura was arrested in connection with the murder while on a business trip to Saipan last February. Miura remains in jail as he fights his extradition to LA. from Saipan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Attorney General\u2019s Office asserted yesterday that Kazuyoshi Miura\u2019s petition for habeas corpus is wholly without merit and presents no new issues.<\/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-126026","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\/126026","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=126026"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/126026\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=126026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=126026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=126026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}