20 results for 'court:"Guam Supreme Court"'.
J. Torres finds the lower court did not properly convicted defendant in the murder of a friend who was attacked by her boyfriend. The court properly convicted defendant of reckless indifference murder, as there was evidence she had been involved in an altercation and witness testified to her erratic and fearful behavior afterwards. After being convicted of murder, she should not have also been convicted of aggravated assault, which overlaps the murder charge. There was not evidence, however, to find her guilty of use of a deadly weapon, the scissors used in the murder. Affirmed and vacated in part.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Torres, Filed On: December 29, 2023, Case #: CRA22-12, Categories: Evidence, Murder, Assault
J. Maraman finds the trial court properly granted defendant’s motion to suppress evidence in a traffic stop that resulted in his arrest for possession. The officers did not present consistent testimony about the traffic stop and search of defendant’s vehicle, and the court could not find that the officer’s obtained defendant’s consent at any point. The search was therefore unwarranted and unreasonable and subject to dismissal. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: December 29, 2023, Case #: CRA22-13, Categories: Drug Offender, Evidence, Search
Per curiam, the Guam Supreme Court finds the lower court properly dismissed class action claims brought by government employees suing Guam for denied pandemic double pay. The employees did not exhaust their administrative remedies before brining their claims and sovereign immunity bars many of their claims. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: December 29, 2023, Case #: CVA23-2, Categories: Employment, Government, Immunity
J. Maraman finds the lower court properly convicted defendant of the sexual abuse of his partner’s preteen daughter. The victim testified that she was “raped,” which suffices to implicate intercourse rather than other sex acts. Determining the paternity of the victim’s child is therefore irrelevant even though the victim testified that she had also been assaulted by defendant’s brother, as she had also already testified to defendant’s assaults. Enhanced punishment for assaults that occurred at different times does not constitute double jeopardy, as “the Legislature intended for the special allegation to apply, even where the underlying felony included the victim’s age as an element.” Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: December 28, 2023, Case #: CRA22-9, Categories: Sex Offender, Child Victims
J. Maraman partially finds the lower court properly convicted defendant of the sexual assault of a 16-year-old. The prosecution did not vouch for the victim in a statement about her memory of the incident, as he was referencing evidence and there is sufficient evidence that the victim was physically helpless and unable to communicate properly due to severe intoxication. The jury’s consent instruction was also therefore proper, though the instruction regarding aiding and abetting was not. The instruction did not include that aiding abetting includes demonstrating specific intent of defendant and the two friends he committed the assault with, and the omission may have caused the jury to convict defendant of a separate assault charge. Affirmed in part.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: December 27, 2023, Case #: CRA21-14, Categories: Sex Offender, Assault, Jury Instructions
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J. Carbullido finds the trial court did not properly convict defendant of murder, as it did not hold a evidentiary hearing after reports of possible juror misconduct. One juror had mentioned knowing defendant had previously been incarcerated and the trial judge did not begin an investigation or give curative instructions. Vacated.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Carbullido, Filed On: December 27, 2023, Case #: CRA22-10, Categories: Evidence, Jury, Murder
J. Maraman finds the lower court properly enhanced defendant’s sentence after he breached his plea agreement by committing new criminal offenses before the sentencing. The plea agreement included a provision that requires increasing defendant’s sentence if new offenses were committed, even if he complied with all other aspects of the agreement. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: December 26, 2023, Case #: CRA22-11, Categories: Robbery, Sentencing
J. Maraman finds the lower court properly resentenced defendant to 12 years of imprisonment following a successful appeal of his original convictions on two robbery charges. Defendant was properly sentenced as ordered for each charge at for each of the locations he robbed. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: December 18, 2023, Case #: CRA23-1, Categories: Robbery, Sentencing
J. Carbullido finds the lower court improperly denied defendant full access to a DNA expert in his sexual assault case, leaving him unable to present a complete defense and was eventually convicted. The trial court did not approve an expert for defendant until only days before the beginning of the trial, preventing him from fully investigating the DNA recovered from the victim and a towel at the scene. Vacated.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Carbullido, Filed On: December 14, 2023, Case #: CRA21-15, Categories: Dna, Experts, Child Victims
J. Maraman finds the lower court improperly ordered a father to retroactively pay child support from the time of the child’s birth and while he was deployed in the military, finding that he is responsible for only the original amount agreed on. Reversed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: December 14, 2023, Case #: CVA19-10, Categories: Family Law
J. Torres finds the lower court properly convicted defendant, accused of submitting false documents to obtain pandemic employment assistance, of tampering with public records, but not of a unsworn falsification charge. By knowingly presenting a fake business license to the Department of Labor, defendant intended for it to be taken as true, and documents purporting to be public record make them so. An unsworn falsification conviction is reversed, as his intent in the submission of the fake document was not to mislead Labor Department employees about his unemployment benefit eligibility, since he was actually eligible and the government did not show any proof that he was ineligible. Affirmed in part.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Torres, Filed On: December 1, 2023, Case #: CRA21-11, Categories: Evidence, Fraud, Intent
J. Maraman finds the lower court properly granted summary judgment in the case of an employee’s death at work to a plumbing company. Though the employee’s family argued that there was ambiguity on whether the deceased was actually considered an employee or not, it was proper to consider summary judgment before conducting discovery. The family did not present any evidence of genuine issue of material fact, even in the many months between the filing and the hearing and only presented an opposition that wrongly placed the burden of proof on the plumbing company. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: November 30, 2023, Case #: CVA22-11, Categories: Employment, Wrongful Death, Workers' Compensation
J. Torres finds the lower court properly convicted defendant of a manslaughter shooting. The jury was not tainted by introduction of evidence indicating the victim’s use of the castle doctrine; their instruction deliberately avoided mention and evidence of the victim threatening defendant with a knife could have led the jury to infer a conclusion other than self-defense. Further, despite alterations to normal courtroom procedures due to Covid-19 safety measures that meant the trial was livestreamed and voir dire was conducted privately, a new trial is not warranted since the court considered all alternatives and had even paused the trial to address technical issues. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Torres, Filed On: November 28, 2023, Case #: CRA22-2, Categories: Jury, Manslaughter, Due Process
J. Torres declares a 1990 law banning abortion in Guam invalid because it has been implicitly repealed by the Guam Legislature since its passing; it no longer has any force or effect. More recent statutes conflict with such a ban and have since allowed and regulated abortion procedures in the territory.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Torres, Filed On: October 31, 2023, Case #: CRQ23-1, Categories: Civil Rights, Constitution, Health Care
J. Maraman finds the probate court improperly decided that a woman was not the legal spouse of the deceased, and therefore did not have authority to appoint a administrator for his estate. The marriage between the deceased and his wife in the Philippines was valid as he had been granted a interlocutory divorce to his previous wife in Guam. Guam statutes on divorce and remarriage apply here rather than those of the Philippines, as “the Supreme Court of the Philippines has held that where a party presents a foreign interlocutory divorce decree as evidence that the capacity to remarry has been restored, the legal effects of the interlocutory decree under the foreign law must be shown.” Reversed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Maraman, Filed On: October 11, 2023, Case #: CVA22-12, Categories: Family Law, International Law, Wills / Probate
J. Carbullido finds that the trial court properly suppressed evidence from the arrest of defendant for firearm possession, as Guam did not present evidence that its police officers had obtained voluntary consent of defendant to search his vehicle during a traffic stop. The trial court's consideration of certain facts, including defendant's initial refusal to consent to the search, was not improper. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Carbullido, Filed On: September 22, 2023, Case #: CRA22-7, Categories: Evidence, Firearms, Search
J. Torres finds the lower court properly refused to dismiss a doctor from a suit stemming from previous litigation between him and a North Carolina hospital that was removed by the medical practice to Guam following an auction of the doctor’s shares of the practice. The doctor’s constant appeals to different courts are noncompliant with court rules and the court had proper jurisdiction to deny the motion even while those other appeals remained pending. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Torres, Filed On: August 23, 2023, Case #: CVA22-3, Categories: Fiduciary Duty, Jurisdiction
Per curiam, the Guam Supreme Court finds an arbitration panel properly confirmed an arbitration award to the duty free shops in a dispute on lease contracts and various bonds and lines of credit. The shops’ alleged breach of one of their agreements in the use of the funds implicates their main agreement, and “it is consistent with one instrument being used to cover multiple obligations.” Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Per curiam, Filed On: August 11, 2023, Case #: CVA19-3, Categories: Arbitration, Landlord Tenant, Contract
J. Carbullido finds the Superior Court properly granted ownership of a tract of land to developers. An appeal by an individual to reinstate ownership to himself does not conform to petition statutes and is not proper. Furthermore, the issue of ownership has already been litigated. Although the previous litigation over ownership of the land had been by the appellant's father, the two share privity as the current suit has identical causes of action to past suits by the father. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Carbullido, Filed On: July 27, 2023, Case #: CVA22-4, Categories: Property, Real Estate
J. Carbullido finds that a trial court properly convicted defendant of murder and use of a deadly weapon in the shooting death of a man involved in a fight with defendant. The decision to exclude videos showing that people other than defendant would have reason to want the victim dead was proper, as the videos ran the risk of confusing the jury and would not have provided an alternative reason for why defendant was found with the murder weapon. The court did err by allowing several witnesses to invoke the Fifth Amendment, but any testimony they could have given was unlikely to weaken other evidence against defendant. Excluding potential jurors over 65 years old did not affect the trial outcome as community members over 65 are allowed to claim exemption, especially under Covid-19 safety protocols in effect during the trial. Affirmed.
Court: Guam Supreme Court, Judge: Carbullido, Filed On: June 22, 2023, Case #: CRA21-3, Categories: Jury, Murder, Weapons