Landowner Conrad M. Sablan contends that the Office of the Attorney General\u2019s motion to have Superior Court Associate Judge Joseph N. Camacho disqualified from presiding over his lawsuit is \u201cscandalous, frivolous, and made in bad faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
The OAG filed the motion to disqualify Camacho from handling the case on the sixth day of a bench trial in Sablan\u2019s lawsuit against the Commonwealth Utilities Corp. and the CNMI government, <\/p>\n
In Sablan\u2019s opposition to the CNMI government\u2019s motion to disqualify Camacho, his lawyer, Brien Sers Nicholas, said that levying \u201csuch reckless accusations\u201d against the judge \u201cis totally unacceptable,\u201d especially when the case is one day short of being completed.<\/p>\n
Sers Nicholas said that the CNMI has known of Camacho\u2019s familial relationships and the cases involving his family for quite some time before the start of the trial in Sablan\u2019s lawsuit before the judge, and yet did nothing about it.<\/p>\n
Citing conflict of interest, the CNMI government, through the OAG, moved to disqualify Camacho from presiding over the bench trial in Sablan\u2019s lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Christopher M. Timmons, chief of the OAG Civil Division, argued that Camacho\u2019s impartiality might be questioned because Sers Nicholas represents the judge\u2019s brother and grandmother in a similar lawsuit against the same defendant, the CNMI.<\/p>\n
Timmons said the separate lawsuit involving Camacho\u2019s brother, Claudio Norita, and grandmother, Julia Norita, presents legal issues that the judge will be required to decide in Sablan\u2019s case.<\/p>\n
But in Sablan\u2019s opposition to the OAG\u2019s motion, Sers Nicholas emphasized that this simple but yet undisputed fact that the CNMI\u2019s knowledge has been there for some time without being acted upon until one\/two days before the end of the Sablan trial is proof positive that there was nothing in the first place that would warrant Camacho\u2019s disqualification.<\/p>\n
Sers Nicholas said the CNMI, citing the 2018 lawsuit filed by Camacho\u2019s grandmother and brother, claims that the judge\u2019s family has raised legal issues relating to the proper determination of dates of taking and land valuation, each of which may be affected by Camacho\u2019s evidentiary rulings and his decision in the Sablan case.<\/p>\n
This is complete nonsense, Sers Nicholas said.<\/p>\n
He said the arguments presented by the CNMI are not only self-serving of the highest order but are \u201cmost definitely frivolous and in bad faith\u201d deserving of contempt citations against Timmons and the OAG.<\/p>\n
Sers Nicholas said at the time Sablan\u2019s case was filed with the court in 2015, he (Sers Nicholas) was already representing Claudio Kotomar Norita and Julia Norita in a case pending before the court since 1998.<\/p>\n
The 1998 lawsuit brought by Claudio and Julia Norita seeks compensation against the CNMI for the taking of Julia Norita\u2019s land as part of the Chalan Pale Arnold Road in Tanapag.<\/p>\n
Nicholas said the 2018 lawsuit by Julia Norita, represented by Claudio Norita, is an \u201cindependent action\u201d wherein she is seeking to be relieved from then-Associate David A. Wiseman\u2019s determinations in the 1998 lawsuit.<\/p>\n
The 2018 lawsuit is pending before the court for the second time after having been first dismissed. Guam Alberto C. Lamorena III has been appointed to preside over the 2018 lawsuit as all judges, including Camacho, recused themselves. <\/p>\n
Sers Nicholas said that Camacho\u2019s recusal put Timmons on notice of the familial relationship between Julita Norita and Camacho some 101 days before the start of the trial in Sablan\u2019s case. Yet Timmons did not do anything whatsoever about Camacho continuing to preside over the Sablan case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Landowner Conrad M. Sablan contends that the Office of the Attorney General\u2019s motion to have…<\/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":[26,23676,259,86],"class_list":["post-308097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news","tag-cnmi","tag-julia-norita","tag-lawsuit","tag-oag"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308097","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=308097"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/308097\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=308097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=308097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=308097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}