Wiseman said if Vincent Felix Lieto Fitial fails to appear at his schedule hearing on Oct. 31, 2011, a bench warrant will be issued.
Fitial denied the charges last week.
Assistant Attorney General Nicole Driscoll, the prosecutor, earlier informed the court that a motion was filed to amend the citation against Fitial to include homicide by vehicle.
Attorney Michael Evangelista, who is representing Fitial, did not object, court documents showed.
Fitial was the driver of the pick-up truck from where the 15-year-old victim, the defendant’s nephew, died on Sept. 1, 2011, after falling off from the vehicle’s backside.
The incident occurred on Aug. 31, 2011 after the defendant and the victim, together with other family members, attended the funeral of another family member at the Tanapag cemetery.
On Sept. 8, 2011, Wiseman granted the request of a couple for a temporary restraining order on the planned autopsy on their son Wilben Herman Lifoifoi.
Wiseman also ordered the release of Lifoifoi’s body to his parents.
The remains were scheduled to be interred on Sept. 9.
Annjuliet Marie Lieto Lifoifoi and Joseph Lifoifoi asked for a TRO on the planned autopsy on their son as scheduled by the AGO.
The couple’s complaint said the “cultural practice of Chamorro and Refaluwasch people of the Northern Mariana Islands is to honor and love our loved ones who have died shown by preparing their bodies by applying coconut oil on their bodies and dressing them in traditional wear before the modern clothes and also by decorating their bodies with mwaar, cultural beads and teer and having a stranger cut up the body is the utmost disrespect to the deceased and the family.”
