United States District Court for the NMI Chief Judge Alex R. Munson also ordered the re-scheduling of the plaintiff’s motion to compel disclosure and to request the court to call witnesses on June 11 from its original schedule of June 4.
Munson said that off-island counsel may appear by telephone with prior notice to the court if this change affects their schedules.
Yesterday, the federal government requested the court to grant the defendants’ motion to compel disclosure and request for court to call witnesses
On May 1, the defendants filed a motion seeking judgments of acquittal or a new trial citing a post-verdict discovery of relationships between certain jurors and witnesses, imputing bias.
On May 21, the federal government responded that the defendants’ allegations are insufficient and that it should have been raised before the verdict but was not.
The federal government requested that its motion be granted and an order be issued requiring the defense to provide the identities of any person who provided information regarding the juror-witness relationships to the defense, and any person who received such information and relayed it to the defense counsel.
The federal government asked that the identity of such persons be provided ahead of the June 22 hearing, and such persons should be made available for questioning under oath.
In his argument, Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric S. O’Malley said the defendants’ argument should survive only by demonstration to the court that no member of the defense team including family members who received and relayed information post-trial, knew or had reason to know of the relationship prior to the verdict, and the relationships could not have been discovered through the exercise of reasonable diligence prior to the verdict.
O’Malley said the federal government believes the defendants were either aware of the juror-witness relationships prior to the verdict, or they had suspicions but delayed further investigation, choosing instead to preserve the issue as a contingency plan in the event of an adverse verdict.
O’Malley said the federal government had no knowledge of the juror-witnesses relationships contrary to the allegations of the defense.
