The judge who sentenced him to a prison term without parole yesterday said commuting sentences should not be abused.
Juan T. Lizama, who retired from the bench in 2008, said there should be more public education and information regarding the process of commuting a sentence.
“Commuting sentences of inmates is not uncommon,” he said. “It has been done in the past. But it cannot be abused, of course. Thus, the need for public articulation and dissemination of the process and how such an important decision is reached is vitally important.”
Lizama sentenced Diaz in 2004.
Board of Parole Chairman Ramon B. Camacho and Chief Parole Officer Joseph T. Guerrero yesterday denied that Diaz’s parole was a “birthday gift.”
Camacho and Guerrero said they did not know Diaz’s birth date.
They said the parole hearing for Diaz and several others were published in the Saipan Tribune.
Variety learned that the Board of Parole received a letter from Fitial on Feb. 10, 2010 about the commutation of Diaz’s sentence on Feb. 4, 2010.
Fitial commuted the original sentence of 25 years imprisonment without parole sentence to “all suspended, except for 15 years,” which reduced the sentence by 10 years.
Federal court records showed that Diaz pleaded guilty to distribution of a controlled substance in Oct. 1991.
The court then recommended that Diaz be allowed to serve his 21-month imprisonment at the CNMI Department of Corrections facility in order to concurrently serve his local sentence.
He was also placed under six years of supervised release.
In another case several years later, Diaz pleaded guilty to possession of explosives in Feb. 1995.
He was sentenced to serve 36 months at the Bureau of Prisons, and placed under supervised release for three years after his jail term ended.
Close to 290 grams of “ice” and marijuana were seized from Diaz by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration and the CNMI Drug Task Force in Aug. 2001.
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