An aghast Superior Court associate judge Juan T. Lizama scolded lawyers of the Attorney General\u2019s Office yesterday upon learning that they wrongfully allowed a mother to sit in for a defendant, her minor daughter, during an arraignment four years ago.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s absurd! That\u2019s improper,\u201d said Lizama while conducting a review of the traffic case filed against Endalin Cruz, who is now 19, yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf the AGO [lawyer] is hearing my word, I say, \u2018You\u2019re crazy! It\u2019s absurd. It\u2019s improper,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Lizama also admonished the mother for agreeing to appear on behalf of her daughter.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know that you\u2019re not the defendant. Why did you do that? You\u2019re not supposed to do that. The AGO should not have done that. Even if they told you \u2018I\u2019ll pay you half a million dollars,\u2019 don\u2019t do it if you know it\u2019s wrong,\u201d said the judge.<\/p>\n
He narrated that he also encountered a similar case yesterday morning with a father coming to the courtroom to settle his son\u2019s traffic case.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe father came to pay. It\u2019s absurd to take the father\u2019s plea on behalf of the son,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Besides, he said the defendant only needed to pay the fine downstairs since yesterday was the last day for payment.<\/p>\n
The judge then turned to Cruz\u2019 mother and told her, \u201cMaa\u2019m, next time, don\u2019t do that. Don\u2019t go to the court [to sit in] for someone else.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the AGO, Lizama said, \u201cShame on those at the AGO who allowed this\u2026 What bothers me is the AGO taking plea for people who is not a defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n
During the hearing, Lizama learned that the Cruz family had overpaid the court $225 for bond.<\/p>\n
He set the bond yesterday at $250, and ordered the return of the $225 excess to defendant.<\/p>\n
Meantime, Cruz in an interview said that she knew about her pending bench warrant only last week when she tried to get a police clearance for employment purposes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe clearance was held and I had to pay the bond [to be released],\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
She said she was being cited for not being qualified to drive and for lack of a seat in the car for children below five years old.<\/p>\n
Cruz said that on Dec. 28, 1999, she had to drive the car because her mom was complaining of a bad neck\/back problem. \u201cI had to drive because we had to drop food to my sister. My mom was there beside me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She said police pulled them over when they saw two children below five years quarreling at the back of the car without car seats. <\/p>\n
She said there was a third baby passenger who was younger than the two. <\/p>\n
Actually there was a baby car seat but there no belt, she said. <\/p>\n
Cruz said she was 15 at that timeShe said the police issued her and her mom tickets for their traffic violation.<\/p>\n
Since she was a minor, she said that they were told that her mom could just appear in court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
An aghast Superior Court associate judge Juan T. Lizama scolded lawyers of the Attorney General\u2019s Office yesterday upon learning that they wrongfully allowed a mother to sit in for a defendant, her minor daughter, during an arraignment four years ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-81449","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\/81449","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=81449"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81449\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81449"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81449"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81449"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}