{"id":283941,"date":"2018-09-06T06:06:07","date_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=283941"},"modified":"2018-09-06T06:06:07","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T20:06:07","slug":"manglona-authorizes-loosening-attorney-client-communication","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/manglona-authorizes-loosening-attorney-client-communication\/","title":{"rendered":"Manglona authorizes loosening attorney-client communication"},"content":{"rendered":"

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona authorized yesterday the disclosure of certain attorney-client communications in the case against a notary public who wants to withdraw his guilty plea in an indictment charging him with lying in a U.S. passport application for another person.<\/p>\n

In granting the U.S. government\u2019s motion, Manglona authorized Liang Li\u2019s former counsel, Mark Scoggins, and Rene Holmes to give information to the government about attorney-client communications they had with Li, both written and oral.<\/p>\n

Manglona said the extent of such communications involve or is related to the claims made in Li\u2019s motion to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea.<\/p>\n

Last April 3, Li pleaded guilty to lying in a passport application.<\/p>\n

Last May 29, Li\u2019s new counsel, Janet H. King, entered an appearance for Li.<\/p>\n

Last Aug. 8, Li filed a pre-sentence motion to allow him to withdraw his guilty plea. He alleged that his former counsel pressured him to take the prosecution\u2019s plea offer by giving him less than a day to consider it, telling him he had no chance of winning if he went to trial, and threatening him with prison time if he did not accept the offer.<\/p>\n

Last Aug. 31, the U.S. government filed a motion for partial waiver and attached as an exhibit a copy of Li\u2019s email sent last Aug. 12 to the U.S. Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

In the email, Li alleged that his former counsel had told him the case against him was \u201csilly and frivolous\u201d and would eventually be dismissed.<\/p>\n

He further alleged that his former counsel scared him by saying he would be sexually assaulted in prison.<\/p>\n

Manglona heard the motion yesterday.<\/p>\n

Manglona said Li concedes that by raising claims based on ineffective assistance of counsel, he has impliedly waived attorney-client privileged \u201cwith respect to communications with his attorneys necessary to prove or disprove his claims.\u201d<\/p>\n

Li asserts, however, that the scope of the waiver should be time-limited to the period from March 30 through April 3, 2018\u2014from the date he received the plea agreement until the date he pleaded guilty.<\/p>\n

The prosecutor asserted that any communications between his former counsel and Li concerning plea negotiations, throughout the course of the representations, have a bearing on whether the representation was adequate with respect to plea offers.<\/p>\n

Manglona agreed with the U.S. government that the court needs to be able to explore communications outside the period when a written plea agreement was on the table so as to give context to the advice the former counsel gave Li.<\/p>\n

The judge said to the extent doubt should exist as to whether a communication is subject to this order, Scoggins and Holmes shall submit them under seal for the court\u2019s review.<\/p>\n

She said Scoggins and Holmes shall submit to King copies of any written materials that are disclosed to the U.S. government.<\/p>\n

The indictment charged Liang Li and Yanan Li with lying in a passport application and false document.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Janet H. King<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Ramona V. Manglona authorized yesterday the disclosure…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":283948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[3791,6722,22280,17533],"class_list":["post-283941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured","tag-last-april","tag-last-aug","tag-liang-li","tag-rene-holmes"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283941","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=283941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/283941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/283948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=283941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=283941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=283941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}