{"id":397162,"date":"2023-08-02T00:52:00","date_gmt":"2023-08-02T00:52:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=397162"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-29T14:00:00","slug":"House-unanimously-passes-bail-reform-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/House-unanimously-passes-bail-reform-bill\/","title":{"rendered":"House unanimously passes bail reform bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

The House of Representatives unanimously passed Friday a bill that aims to improve standards of bail proceedings in the CNMI by establishing bail procedures, authorizing denial of bail, imposing conditions of release, and protecting victims.<\/p>\n

With all 18 House members present voting yes to House Bill 23-33, House Substitute 1, the bill now goes to the Senate for action.<\/p>\n

Reps. Reps. Edwin K. Propst (D-Saipan) and Thomas John Dela Cruz Manglona (R-Saipan) were absent, but excused from the session.<\/p>\n

The bill proposes to amend the Code of Criminal Procedure to describe judicial discretion to deny bail under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n

Before the voting, Rep. Marissa Renee Flores (Ind-Saipan), who is the author of the legislation, said this has been a drawn-out bill that has received a lot of feedback from both the Office of the Attorney General and the Office of the Public Defender<\/p>\n

After much discussion, she said, they finally found a balance that protects both the civil rights of the accused while protecting the community from repeat, violent offenders, said Flores, who chairs the House Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee.<\/p>\n

Flores noted that, on that day\u2019s (Friday) newspaper, another individual who was on probation and a repeat violent offender, was again arrested for allegedly choking his wife.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis bill aims to allow the judicial court the freedom and their discretion to establish an appropriate bail, with the prosecution and the public defender conducting due diligence and [their] job to protect the public and\u2026the defendant,\u201d Flores said.<\/p>\n

The committee amended the bill to ensure that judges are given proper discretion to see to it that a person accused of a crime does not endanger another person.<\/p>\n

Those who opposed the bill were Chief Public Defender Douglas W. Hartig, attorneys Charity Hodson, Bruce Berline, Richard T. Miller, and Robert T. Torres; and assistant public defender Molly Denard.<\/p>\n

Those who supported the legislation were Attorney General Edward Manibusan, Chief Prosecutor Chester Hinds, Chief Solicitor Robert Glass Jr., and Rachel Masga Sablan.<\/p>\n

The legislation, known as the \u201cThe Keisha King Bail Reform Act,\u201d is named after King, who was killed on March 12, 2020 by her boyfriend, who was a convicted felon with a substantial criminal history, who shot her.<\/p>\n


Bail reform<\/p>\n

Marissa Renee Flores<\/p>\n

-FerdieDela Torreferdie_delatorre@saipantribune.comhttps:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/f8ac1db21a8bfa5af783981fa1d26074?s=100&d=mm&r=g
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The House of Representatives unanimously passed Friday a bill that aims to improve standards of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-397162","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397162","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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397162"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397162\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397162"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397162"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397162"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}