Bruce Berline, the lead counsel of the Japanese clothing importer, said his client is now waiting for the authorities to bring him to LA.
“He told me that it was time to go to California and continue the fight [there]. I agreed with that. We certainly could have continued this fight here, but at this point, given Judge [Steven] Van Sicklen’s opinion, it’s time to take the fight to California,” Berline said during a press conference shortly after U.S. District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands Chief Judge Alex Munson granted his motion to withdraw Miura’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
Miura appeared at the hearing wearing the detainee’s maroon uniform issued by the U.S. Marshal Service.
Still in handcuffs, he shook the hands of Berline and his co-counsel Mark Hanson and said in English, “Thank you very much” after the hearing.
Chief Prosecutor Jeffery Warfield Sr. said he will notify LAPD and the LA District Attorney’s Office about Miura’s decision and will let them make the necessary arrangements for his extradition.
“There’s no more impediment to his extradition. The governor’s warrant has been upheld…. So as soon as California authorities can work it out he will be extradited,” he told the media.
Judge Van Sicklen ordered last Friday to drop the murder charge against Miura.
But he allowed prosecutors to pursue the conspiracy to commit murder charge against the Japanese national who has been detained here since his arrest at the Saipan International Airport on Feb. 22 as he was about to board a plane to Tokyo.
It’s over
Berline said the judge’s decision was the turning point.
“He didn’t waive his right to extradition. He just decided that it was time for him to go to California. I think he just understands that his time is best spent in California now, fighting the legal matters there,” he told the media.
“Our business is officially over on Saipan, and it’s up to the California courts to handle the case now. Any continued fighting here would not benefit Miura,” Berline said. He added that their attorney-client relationship with Miura has not ended though. They can still see him as a client anytime.
Berline added that murder for hire in California is punishable by death — lethal injection — while conspiracy carries a sentence of 25 years to life imprisonment.
Berline said Miura “will go back to the Department of Corrections until somebody takes him to Los Angeles.”
“LAPD could arrange something with the U.S. Marshals to take him back,” Hanson said.
Berline said Miura remains in good spirits and in good health despite his more than half a year of detention.
Tough case
The defense described Miura’s case as “pretty interesting” and involved a lot of research and work.
“It went on much further than we’ve anticipated,” said Berline.
Hanson added, “It was a lot of work.”
This was their first extradition case — high-profile at that.
“It just doesn’t happen a lot here,” said Hanson.
Miura’s lead counsel in California, Mark Geragos, dubbed as Hollywood ’s celebrity lawyer, apparently was not even aware that the CNMI is part of the U.S.
Superior Court Associate Judge Ramona Manglona told the defense before she ordered Miura’s extradition on Sept. 12 to inform Geragos that Saipan is part of the U.S. and not Japan.
The Japanese media have relentlessly pursued the Miura case from the beginning.
Most of them have gone to Saipan more than a dozen times over the seven-month period of Miura’s stay here.
With the case now coming to its conclusion, many of them expressed a sigh of relief.
“Now, we can all go back to our own peaceful world,” one of them said.
