{"id":23275,"date":"2012-07-05T05:14:46","date_gmt":"2012-07-05T05:14:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newspaper.ctsi-logistics.com\/?p=23275"},"modified":"2012-07-05T05:14:46","modified_gmt":"2012-07-05T05:14:46","slug":"mafnas-takes-witness-stand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/mafnas-takes-witness-stand\/","title":{"rendered":"Mafnas takes witness stand"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Department of Corrections Commissioner Ramon C. Mafnas took the witness stand on Tuesday in the Superior Court to explain the circumstances behind a traffic stop he made that is now being questioned by the Office of Public Defender.<\/div>\n<p>Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho heard the public defender&#8217;s motion to suppress evidence in the traffic case against Waitree Sawikan.<\/p>\n<p>After listening to Mafnas&#8217; testimony and arguments of counsels, Camacho placed the matter under advisement. Camacho said he will issue a written decision in the next few days.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant attorney general Chemere K. McField called to the witness stand Mafnas, who was a commissioner of the Department of Public Safety when he made the traffic stop on Sawikan on Sept. 24, 2011.<\/p>\n<p>Mafnas basically explained the circumstances that prompted him to stop Sawikan who was driving a moped on Beach Road.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Public Defender Adam Hardwicke, counsel for Sawikan, did not call any witness.<\/p>\n<p>Hardwicke questioned the constitutionality of the traffic stop on Sawikan made by a person he only described as a \u201cwhite haired male person.\u201d McField identified the person as Mafnas.<\/p>\n<p>Hardwicke asked the court to exclude any and all evidence gathered as a result of the \u201cunlawful traffic stop.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Hardwicke said the was traffic stop was made in violation of Sawikan&#8217;s federal and constitutional right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures.<\/p>\n<p>Hardwicke said his client was never informed who this \u201cwhite haired person wearing a police outfit\u201d was because the person never identified himself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAdditionally, Mr. Sawikan was never informed by this unknown person why he was forced to pull over in the first place,\u201d Hardwicke said.<\/p>\n<p>By Ferdie de la Torre<br \/>\nReporter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Department of Corrections Commissioner Ramon C. Mafnas took the witness stand on Tuesday 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":[160,215,88],"class_list":["post-23275","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-beach-road","tag-public-safety","tag-superior-court"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23275","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=23275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}