{"id":205437,"date":"2015-06-30T06:00:36","date_gmt":"2015-06-29T20:00:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=205437"},"modified":"2015-06-30T06:00:36","modified_gmt":"2015-06-29T20:00:36","slug":"no-explanation-needed-if-inos-grants-pardon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/no-explanation-needed-if-inos-grants-pardon\/","title":{"rendered":"No explanation needed if Inos grants pardon"},"content":{"rendered":"

Gov. Eloy S. Inos is not obligated to offer an explanation or a reason should he exercise his power to give a pardon.<\/p>\n

\"Guerrero\"<\/a>
Guerrero<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

According to Rep. Joseph \u201cLee Pan\u201d Guerrero (R-Saipan), a former Board of Parole director, the CNMI Constitution allows Inos to give the pardon without any explanation<\/p>\n

It is a matter of signing a document, Guerrero said. The lawmaker said after the court hands down the sentence, Inos could issue the pardon.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe governor can issue the pardon even if the inmate has served one day of his sentence or have not started serving the sentence at all,\u201d Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

According to Guerrero, even if the CNMI Board of Parole disagrees, the governor can still issue the pardon.<\/p>\n

Aside from a full pardon, the governor can also issue is a conditional pardon in which the inmate can render service\u2014at no cost to the government\u2014as part of the conditions of his pardon, Guerrero said.<\/p>\n

The issue of pardon emerged following the one-year prison sentence given to former governor Benigno R. Fitial after the former official was convicted of misconduct in public office and conspiracy to commit theft of services<\/p>\n

The CNMI Board of Parole today arranged a pardon hearing for Fitial.<\/p>\n

Board of Parole chair Ramon B. Camacho earlier placed a newspaper announcement for the pardon hearing at the Pedro P. Tenorio Multi-Purpose Center in Susupe today at 9am and, if necessary, the following day, July 1, at 9am.<\/p>\n

In the announcement, Camacho said the board will be considering whether to support or object to a pardon for Fitial.<\/p>\n

Camacho said after hearing public testimony and discussing the matter, the board will then vote on whether to support or object to Inos\u2019 issuance of a pardon.<\/p>\n

In 2001, then governor Pedro P. Tenorio signed into law Senate Bill 12-102, which allows the highest official of the Commonwealth the power to pardon and exonerate a convicted felon.<\/p>\n

The new law gives the governor the full capacity to grant pardon in accordance with the Crimes and Criminal Procedures under the Commonwealth Code.<\/p>\n

SB 12-102, which is now Public Law 12-41, grants the Commonwealth governor and the Board of Parole a wider elbow room to discharge mandates stipulated under the existing law.<\/p>\n

Under the law, the governor may grant an absolute pardon which frees a person without any conditions, terminates any punishment, and exonerates the person from any guilt or conviction, while a conditional pardon depends on performance of some act by the person for its validity and the partial pardon which remits only a portion of the punishment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gov. Eloy S. Inos is not obligated to offer an explanation or a reason should…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":205440,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3192,50,1755,1411],"class_list":["post-205437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-commonwealth-code","tag-power","tag-sb","tag-senate-bill"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205437","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\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/205440"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}