{"id":294003,"date":"2019-02-18T06:06:42","date_gmt":"2019-02-17T20:06:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=294003"},"modified":"2019-02-18T06:06:42","modified_gmt":"2019-02-17T20:06:42","slug":"mistrial-declared-in-rape-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/mistrial-declared-in-rape-case\/","title":{"rendered":"Mistrial declared in rape case"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Superior Court declared Friday a mistrial in the ongoing jury trial of a man who has been accused of rape. <\/p>\n

Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja cited \u201cprosecutorial misconduct\u201d for declaring a mistrial in the ongoing jury trial of Manolo Romolor.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter reviewing the parties and listening to the arguments, and the audio of the trial, I am declaring a mistrial due to prosecutorial misconduct. The written order will follow explaining the court\u2019s reasoning in detail. Briefly the court would like to note that there were nearly 80 objections against the Commonwealth, a curative instruction to mischaracterization of the Commonwealth, and numerous instances of testifying and inappropriate use of the complaining witness\u2019 first name. These excessively large amount of errors infected the trial\u2026continued instruction could only shield the jury so much,\u201d Naraja said. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Teri Tenorio<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A mistrial means the trial has been terminated or declared void, but it does not mean charges have been dropped. The prosecution will be able to dismiss the charges, a plea agreement could be discussed, or the case will re-start. <\/p>\n

Romolor is charged with sexual assault in the first degree and disturbing the peace. <\/p>\n

According to Naraja, the official written ruling would be released after he determines whether the prosecutorial misconduct was intentional or not. The case was being prosecuted by assistant attorney general Teri Tenorio.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue whether the prosecutorial misconduct was intentionally meant to cause a mistrial remains under advisement and this would give the court time to issue its written ruling by next week,\u201d Naraja said. \u201cThis would also give the parties enough time to look at the written ruling and decide their own course of action.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bruce Berline<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A status conference for Romolor is set for March 19 to determine how both parties want to proceed with the case. <\/p>\n

During Romolor\u2019s jury trial last Tuesday, defense lawyer Bruce Berline called for the declaration of a mistrial, accusing Tenorio of incompetence and an inability to defend the victim and the CNMI government.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be in trial with a competent prosecutor. That\u2019s how trials are supposed to go, somebody who knows the rules of evidence, knows her duty to protect the system, protect the jurors, to protect the witnesses, and to protect the Judiciary. That\u2019s the duty of the prosecutor,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Berline said Tenorio was vouching for the witness, misstated testimonies, and testified for the witness.<\/p>\n

Tenorio argued that the Commonwealth acted in good faith and that Romolor\u2019s due process rights were not violated, therefore the motion for mistrial should not be granted. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Superior Court declared Friday a mistrial in the ongoing jury trial of a man…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":294013,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[94],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-294003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294003","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\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=294003"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/294003\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294013"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=294003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=294003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=294003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}