The trial in the lawsuit against Biktot Hokog and principals of the MV Luta would proceed in court sometime in the near-term. <\/p>\n
Per the Bellas decision, Hokog can\u2019t be sued as a legislator. But the court leaves everything else in the lawsuit for judicial disposition.<\/p>\n
The issues include the violation of the ethics law (Open Government Act) and the illegal release of the $400,000 without legislative appropriation. <\/p>\n
Lest we forget, the ethics law came via a legislative initiative where voters approved accountability for all public officials. It\u2019s a powerful voice of \u201cwe the people\u201d to ensure corruption doesn\u2019t spread in our democratic institutions.<\/p>\n
I heard the Office of the Public Auditor has completed ocular review of the $400,000. Its findings and recommendations piques my interest.<\/p>\n
Pertinent provisions of law says, \u201cIf the person investigated is the governor or lieutenant governor and the public auditor finds that corrective action should be taken, the public auditor shall make his or her report public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Where the law turns interesting is the mandate that the public auditor submits such report to the Attorney General\u2019s Office for disposition. What would the AG do in the event of findings of violation of laws and recommended actions given that it represents Hokog in this case? Would the AG still do due diligence to recover the $400,000 in taxpayers\u2019 money? It\u2019s an interesting conflicting case of representation that should not have been permitted from the outset.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s hope, though, that through trial or evidentiary hearing we would find, via a demand for an accounting of expenditure, how and where the money was spent. Moving the MV Luta from Louisiana to Rota won\u2019t cost more than $150,000. How much of the $400,000 went for the trip and where else was the balance in taxpayers\u2019 money spent?<\/p>\n
The innocent, comprising of all taxpayers, must be protected in this and every other scheme to milk them of their hard-earned taxes. As it is, every public official is culpable to wrongfully dispose of public funds either out of pure ignorance or willful disposition.<\/p>\n
Perils of \u2018touch DNA\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n The assumption that DNA is synonymous with \u201cguilty\u201d in the investigation of crimes isn\u2019t quite what we make it to be! There\u2019s \u201ctouch DNA\u201d that \u201cexposes the double edge sword of forensic science,\u201d according to a piece by Michelle Malkin, a conservative blogger and nationally syndicated columnist.<\/p>\n \u201cWith just an innocent handshake, an indirect transfer of epithelial cells, you could find yourself suspected of heinous crimes, charged with rape or convicted of murder,\u201d she pointed out. She\u2019s committed to shedding light on the use and abuse of touch DNA in the criminal justice system. \u201cDetection methods involving tinier and tinier DNA samples have advanced rapidly during the last three decades.\u201d<\/p>\n She asserts that the \u201cmere presence of DNA does not prove a crime happened. It does not tell you how or when the material got to its discovered location. Contrary to Hollywood crime show oversimplifications, DNA is not a synonym for \u2018guilty\u2019.”<\/p>\n \u201cAt the annual American Academy of Forensic Sciences conference last February, experts spotlighted the case of a homeless man charged with murdering a Silicon Valley mogul at his mansion\u2014despite the accused being hospitalized, nearly comatose and under 24\/7 medical supervision the night the crime occurred in 2012,\u201d Malkin related.<\/p>\n \u201cAs Scientific American reported, the defendant’s DNA had been transferred inadvertently by paramedics who had touched and treated him three hours before arriving at the businessman’s home. The EMTs used the same oxygen monitor on both men’s fingers, unknowingly transferring skin cell DNA from the homeless man to the multimillionaire he had never met.<\/p>\n \u201cThe case provided a definitive example of \u2018a DNA transfer implicating an innocent person,\u2019\u201d the journal noted, and illustrated “a growing opinion that the criminal justice system’s reliance on DNA evidence, often treated as infallible, actually carries significant risks,\u201d she pointed out.<\/p>\n It\u2019s good for our system of justice here to be wary of this finding so DNA isn\u2019t used as the infallible tool or synonymous with \u201cguilty.\u201d It\u2019s bad enough that here on the islands you\u2019re guilty until proven otherwise. But isn\u2019t it more like an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a competent court of law? Where did I learn this?<\/p>\n Land compensation<\/strong><\/p>\n We are humbled by a move by the NMI to pay longstanding land taking cases due the landowners for more than 30 to 60 years. Payment is focused on the largest amount owed in an effort to cut down interests the NMI must still pay as it settles other cases.<\/p>\n The issue reminded the undersigned what\u2019s owed the family (grandparents) for the use of their land in Oleai for public access (main thoroughfare and entrance to the Oleai Elementary School).<\/p>\n Grandpa (Elias P. Sablan) could not possibly submit any claims to it. He was the land title officer, the equivalence of the secretary of the Department of Public Land. It would have raised eyebrows, legitimate the claim may be. <\/p>\n Over 30 years later, I sat in his chair as secretary of DPL and purposely skipped the issue altogether. I recalled grandpa\u2019s words about public service, that it is about \u201cothers\u201d first, thus the fitting decision to shove any claims to the Oleai land. I\u2019m now out of the bind and ready to litigate the issue to claim what\u2019s rightfully the purview of the Sablan clan.<\/p>\n For the longest time we\u2019ve heard the redundancy of \u201cjust compensation.\u201d Putting in a claim for it now is the only way to ensure that my grandparents are justly paid for their property they\u2019ve given up for the main road in Oleai.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The trial in the lawsuit against Biktot Hokog and principals of the MV Luta would…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[68,3602,259,257],"class_list":["post-244369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","tag-ag","tag-dna","tag-lawsuit","tag-nmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244369","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244369\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}