{"id":296220,"date":"2019-03-27T06:06:43","date_gmt":"2019-03-26T20:06:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=296220"},"modified":"2019-03-27T06:06:43","modified_gmt":"2019-03-26T20:06:43","slug":"defense-someone-has-to-pay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/defense-someone-has-to-pay\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense: Someone has to pay"},"content":{"rendered":"

The defense lawyer of a man who was accused of rape believes that the prosecutorial misconduct that resulted in the declaration of a mistrial in the case in February cost him over $1,000 in fees and someone has to pay it.<\/p>\n

During a status conference for Manolo Romolor, a man who allegedly raped an intoxicated woman back in 2016, defense lawyer Bruce Berline filed a verbal motion for sanctions before Superior Court Presiding Judge Roberto Naraja.<\/p>\n

Berline, the court-appointed lawyer, told the court that the amount of time spent preparing and defending his client for a jury trial that ended in a mistrial last February depleted his legal fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prosecutor\u2019s misconduct has wasted thousands and thousands of dollars of my fees so I am doing a motion for sanction because someone has got to pay one way or another,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Berline added that he could take on the case pro bono, but the government would still need to provide funding for legal services, like if an investigator is needed.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cI would like to make an oral motion. There\u2019s no more money for fees. I might continue the case on kind of a pro bono if I can talk to my client about that but one thing I will need is services to be paid by the government\u2026 because he is still indigent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Berline also mentioned that if the funding is not provided, the case would have to be returned to the Office of the Public Defender.<\/p>\n

Assistant attorney general Samantha Vickery, who represented the government in the status conference asked if the defense would subpoena the prosecutor, Teri Tenorio, who was on the case previously.<\/p>\n

However, Berline replied that it would not be necessary.<\/p>\n

Tenorio is no longer with the Office of the Attorney General.<\/p>\n

Naraja ordered Berline to submit an affidavit detailing the arrangement in place regarding his client\u2019s legal fees and to file written motion for sanction.<\/p>\n

Naraja scheduled a hearing for April 30, 2019, at 9am for any motion filed by the parties, including Berline\u2019s motion for sanction.<\/p>\n

Vickery and Berline, for their part, requested for trial transcripts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only thing we would be asking is transcripts, we need transcripts,\u201d Berline said.<\/p>\n

Naraja told the lawyers that he will issue an emergency order for the production of transcripts.<\/p>\n

Romolor\u2019s new jury trial is scheduled for May 13.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The defense lawyer of a man who was accused of rape believes that the prosecutorial…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":296221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-296220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296220","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=296220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}