The first Marilyn V. and Lolaine M. Castro v. Ricardo C. Castro, 2009 MP 8, involved a disagreement between a landlord and his tenants.
The plaintiff — the grieving party — had been residing rent-free in an apartment owned by her ex-father-in-law, later the defendant in the case.
The ex-father-in-law wrote to the tenant requesting that she move out of his apartment within seven days.
He was only required by law to provide three days notice.
Before the seven-day period had expired, the ex-daughter-in-law requested and received a temporary restraining order from the trial court prohibiting her ex-father in law, now the defendant, from evicting her.
The trial judge granted the order under the authority of statute designed to protect individuals from domestic abuse.
After a review hearing two days later, the trial court found that no abuse had occurred.
However, the court allowed the plaintiff to remain in the defendant’s apartment so that she could secure other housing.
The ex-father-in-law, the defendant, claimed that the court had wrongly taken his property by allowing the ex-daughter-in-law, the plaintiff, to stay in the apartment after he had asked her to leave.
He claimed that his due process rights had been violated, and in the alternative, that the trial court had illegally taken his property under the eminent domain clause of the Commonwealth Constitution.
After review, the Supreme Court found that the trial court did not have the authority to allow the plaintiff, the ex-daughter-law, to stay beyond the above-mentioned three-day grace period.
Consequently, the high court reversed the trial court’s decision and vacated the restraining order, as it unconstitutionally limited the defendant’s property rights.
In re Estate of Santiago C. Tudela, 2009 MP 9, a probate case called into question whether a surviving spouse who is not of Northern Marianas decent may inherit property left to her by her husband, who was Chamorro.
Article XII, Section 1 of the Commonwealth Constitution states that only persons of Northern Marianas decent may own land.
However, Section 2 of the same article allows surviving spouses who would not otherwise be eligible to own land to inherit it if the marriage produced no children who would be legally eligible to own the land.
Since the deceased and his wife never had children, the Supreme Court held that she was able to inherit the land in accordance with the Section 2 exemption.
The decedent’s niece also challenged the surviving spouse’s ownership under several other provisions of the Commonwealth Probate Code, but did not succeed on any of the claims.
In Commonwealth v. Harris I. Taivero, 2009 MP 10, a citizen of New Zealand residing in the commonwealth had been charged with rape in a previous case.
Before the case went to trial, Taivero’s attorney advised him to plead guilty in order to receive a lesser sentence.
The attorney did not, however, inform the client that his admission to rape, a felony, would eventually result in his deportation.
After serving a three-year sentence the defendant later unsuccessfully attempted to withdraw his guilty plea in order to avoid deportation proceedings.
He also sued his attorney for ineffective assistance of counsel for failing to inform him of all the consequences of his guilty plea.
Upon review, the Supreme Court held that Taivero’s attorney was only required to inform him of the direct consequences of his plea, and that a change in Taivero’s immigration status was a collateral, rather than a direct consequence.
A collateral consequence is a penalty imposed on the defendant by a government agency other than the court — immigration officials in this case.
A direct consequence, on the other hand, is one that court itself imposes as a result of a criminal conviction.
The Supreme Court also held that a criminal defendant could only withdraw his guilty plea if allowing it to remain effective would result in manifest — or extreme — injustice.
This particular defendant’s circumstances were not so unfair as to rise to that standard.
