{"id":224822,"date":"2016-04-07T06:06:28","date_gmt":"2016-04-06T20:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=224822"},"modified":"2016-04-07T06:06:28","modified_gmt":"2016-04-06T20:06:28","slug":"court-orders-mathewsons-trial-heard-rota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/court-orders-mathewsons-trial-heard-rota\/","title":{"rendered":"Court orders Mathewson\u2019s trial heard on Rota"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_199712\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-199712\" style=\"width: 252px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/William-Kapono-Mathewson.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-199712\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/William-Kapono-Mathewson-252x300.jpg\" alt=\"William Kapono Mathewson\" width=\"252\" height=\"300\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-199712\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-199712\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Kapono Mathewson<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho yesterday set a jury trial date in the case against William Kapono Mathewson, a man charged with beating and stabbing Dr. Francois Claassens with a fishing spear in the neck.<\/p>\n<p>At a status conference, Camacho ordered that the jury trial of Mathewson will commence at the Rota Superior Court on Oct. 11, 2016, at 9am.<\/p>\n<p>Camacho set a pre-trial conference on July 13, 2016, at 9am, at which time all pretrial motions will be heard and admissibility issues will be addressed.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant attorney general Chester Hinds, counsel for the government, requested for the October 2016 trial as they wish to get their own mental health expert to do a mental evaluation on Mathewson.<\/p>\n<p>Mathewson has already been evaluated by the defense\u2019s mental expert, Saipan Tribune learned.<\/p>\n<p>Camacho ordered the parties to make reservations for advance travel, hotel, and car to avoid any delays of the trial.<\/p>\n<p>Camacho said any request for additional funding for expert by the Office of the Public Defender must be made in writing.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Public Defender Douglas Hartig and assistant public defender Michael Sato are counsel for Mathewson.<\/p>\n<p>On April 29, 2015, Camacho granted the request of assistant public defender Sato to appoint a psychiatrist who will examine Mathewson. The prosecution did not oppose Sato\u2019s request.<\/p>\n<p>In requesting for appointment of psychiatrist, Sato disclosed that Mathewson will rely upon the defense of insanity at the time when he committed the alleged crime.<\/p>\n<p>Mathewson, a farmer\/fisherman, allegedly stabbed the then-60-year-old Claassens in the neck with a fishing spear and clubbed him on the head with a big pot and chain.<\/p>\n<p>The brutal attack happened in the backyard of the doctor\u2019s house in Teneto Village on Rota on April 4, 2015. Mathewson\u2019s house is located near the doctor\u2019s residence. <\/p>\n<p>Claassens has recovered from his injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho yesterday set a jury trial date in the&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3831,6215,3578,3993],"class_list":["post-224822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-francois-claassens","tag-rota-superior-court","tag-teneto-village","tag-william-kapono-mathewson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224822","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\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224822\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}