But criminal lawyer Michael Dotts doubts if Superior Court Associate Judge Ramona Manglona, who already denied Miura’s first bail attempt, will let the suspect free.
“We’ll it’s a little bit difficult. There is no third-party release for a capital crime in California,” said Dotts in a phone interview.
He said Miura’s extradition case will set a precedent for other foreign nationals facing extradition, thus, the local judiciary is proceeding very cautiously.
Bruce Berline, the chief counsel of Miura’s three-man defense team, filed another bail motion for Miura last Friday.
The CNMI prosecutors are scheduled to file its rebuttal today, Wednesday, and the bail hearing is scheduled for Friday at 2 p.m.
Berline hopes the judge will be persuaded on leading cases where defendants in the U.S. were allowed to post bail although they face capital offense — murder — which is punishable by death or life imprisonment.
He said they will accept any conditions so long as Miura, who is wanted in California for the charge of allegedly plotting the death of his then 28-year-old wife.
“We’re open for conditions. We expect conditions. We just need him to get out of the jail. The precedent has already been set in Stogner vs. California. For heaven’s sake, it’s about ex post facto law,” said Berline.
He said it’s unconstitutional to keep Miura, 60, in jail pending his extradition to California where a separate motion to quash his warrant of arrest was filed in yet another legal attempt to free him.
“This is the most extreme prejudice possible on an extradition case,” the attorney said and stressed that his client’s right to liberty and freedom embodied under the U.S. Constitution’s Fifth Amendment is violated
Dotts said while it is true that defendants in some murder cases in the U.S. were allowed to post bail, they involve “unusual circumstantial evidence.”
“Like if a defendant is 80 years old and there are some medical emergencies involved. But Mr. Miura is relatively young at 60. He’s not that old,” he said.
He said if Miura’s attorneys can establish his medical needs to be free from jail, then the judge may reconsider.
He added that the CNMI doesn’t have any sophisticated gadget that can monitor a defendant’s whereabouts 24 hours a day.
“He was captured therefore he’s a flight risk. We don’t have the sophistication that California has in monitoring his whereabouts,” he said saying the CNMI jail system doesn’t have the ankle-bracelet with GPS that blips every time a defendant goes outside his confined zone.
Miura has been detained by the Department of Corrections since Feb. 22.
He was arrested at Saipan’s airport en route to Tokyo from holidaying on the island.
Government records showed Miura has been in and out of Saipan at least four times over the past 18 months before his arrest that was tipped off by the Los Angeles Police Department.
