The Superior Court yesterday acquitted a 17-year-old teenager on a charge of vehicular homicide, in connection with a vehicular accident that fatally injured a 13-year-old boy during the wee hours after Christmas Day.<\/p>\n
The court, however, found Raymond B. Blas guilty of driving under the influence of alcohol and reckless driving. Associate Judge Juan T. Lizama set Blas\u2019 sentencing on Nov. 17.<\/p>\n
A jury handed down the verdict on the vehicular homicide charge. Lizama then made his determination on the DUI and reckless driving charges, which are both considered misdemeanor offenses.<\/p>\n
The court went on to hand down the verdict after the Supreme Court dismissed the Attorney General\u2019s Office\u2019s appeal asking for the inclusion of a piece of evidence, particularly test results of blood drawn from the defendant, which would indicate his level of intoxication when the vehicular mishap happened after Christmas Day, Dec. 26, 2003.<\/p>\n
Prosecution lawyers had wanted a laboratory technician at the Commonwealth Health Center, Christopher Boone, to testify on the blood test. However, Boone, who was represented by assistant attorney general Debra Knapp, wanted the summons on him quashed.<\/p>\n
The blood tests reportedly indicated that the defendant\u2019s blood alcohol content right after the vehicular accident was 0.16, which was 16 times the legal limit of 0.01 for minors or two times the legal limit of 0.08 for adults.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf not admitted, it is likely that the Commonwealth will not be able to meet its burden of proof in this case,\u201d CNMI chief prosecutor David Hutton earlier said in appeal documents.<\/p>\n
After the verdict was handed down yesterday, Hutton said that the prosecution\u2019s case \u201cwould have been stronger\u201d had the Supreme Court upheld the AGO\u2019s appeal.<\/p>\n
He said, though, that the prosecution respects the decision of the courts and the jury. \u201cI believe justice is served,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
The appeal temporarily stopped the trial court proceedings last week. The Supreme Court ruled on the appeal Friday, which was opposed by Blas\u2019 lawyer, Brien Sers Nicolas, who asked for the appeal\u2019s dismissal.<\/p>\n
\u201cBased on the record before us, we find that the Commonwealth has no right to appeal\u2026at this time,\u201d the Supreme Court said in its judgment. \u201cThis court issues its decision at this time to avoid further delay in the action before the trial court and will issue its reasoning and analysis at a subsequent date.\u201d<\/p>\n
After the jury declared Blas \u201cnot guilty\u201d of vehicular homicide, Lizama explained that he was duty-bound to rule on the DUI and reckless driving charges and that his determination might differ from the jury\u2019s verdict. <\/p>\n
The proceeding packed one side of the courtroom\u2019s gallery yesterday afternoon.<\/p>\n
When the proceeding was over, Blas went out from the courtroom unescorted on his way out from the Guma Hustisia Building. \u201cNo comment,\u201d he said tersely to reporters.<\/p>\n
Prosecution lawyer Grant Sanders said he was disappointed with the jury\u2019s verdict on the vehicular homicide charge, but was satisfied with the judge\u2019s determination on the other charges.<\/p>\n
Sanders added, though, that he respects the decision of the jurors. \u201cThe jury has spoken.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sanders said Blas drove a pickup truck on the wee hours after Christmas Day when the vehicle rammed against a light post, throwing away and injuring the 13-year-old victim, who was among his passengers.<\/p>\n
Sanders said the victim was rushed to the Commonwealth Health Center, but the boy eventually died.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Superior Court yesterday acquitted a 17-year-old teenager on a charge of vehicular homicide, in connection with a vehicular accident that fatally injured a 13-year-old boy during the wee hours after Christmas Day.<\/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-85322","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\/85322","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=85322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85322\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}