{"id":16412,"date":"2017-02-02T21:26:03","date_gmt":"2017-02-02T21:26:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/?p=16412"},"modified":"2023-09-20T21:36:06","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T21:36:06","slug":"supreme-court-to-hold-hearing-for-lawrence-morgan-feb-10","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/2017\/02\/02\/supreme-court-to-hold-hearing-for-lawrence-morgan-feb-10\/","title":{"rendered":"Supreme Court to hold hearing for Lawrence Morgan Feb. 10"},"content":{"rendered":"

BY BILL DONOVAN<\/strong>
\nSPECIAL TO THE TIMES<\/p>\n

WINDOW ROCK<\/strong> \u2014 The only case still remaining in the five-year prosecution of former members of the Navajo Nation Council for misuse of the tribal discretionary fund centers around Lawrence Morgan, a former speaker of the council during the time the council delegates were involved in a conspiracy using part of the fund to give grants to family members.<\/p>\n

The Navajo Supreme Court is holding a hearing on Feb. 10 on Morgan\u2019s fight with the special prosecutors to get his original plea agreement put back in force. The site of the hearing was still undetermined on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Morgan agreed to a plea agreement with the special prosecutors in September 2014 in which he admitted guilt in exchange for concessions. A day later, the Window Rock court accepted the plea, accepting his guilty plea.<\/p>\n

As part of the plea, Morgan said he waived his right of self-incrimination and gave a full interview with the special prosecutors about not only his involvement in the conspiracy, but others as well. He also agreed to testify if he was needed at any trial for other defendants who refused a plea agreement.<\/p>\n

On Oct. 27, the district court revoked the plea agreement and set a sentencing hearing for Dec. 19, 2016. But before that hearing was held, Morgan\u2019s attorney filed for a writ of prohibition from the Navajo Supreme Court and the court ordered Judge Carol Perry to stay any sentencing hearing until the supreme court could hold a hearing on the matter.<\/p>\n

In his request for the original plea agreement to be honored, Morgan claimed that revoking it was a \u201csignificant violation of his civil rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

He pointed out that in making the plea agreement, he waived several of his constitutional rights, including the right against self-incrimination.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is unthinkable that the district court would expect all other parties to the plea agreement to obey its terms, but not consider itself bound to it,\u201d Morgan said in his petition.<\/p>\n

He pointed out that under the agreement, he would receive no jail time in exchange for cooperating fully with the special prosecutor. He did this, he said and went further than required by directing his attorney to issue a press release encouraging other criminal defendants in the case \u201cto come forward and enter their own deals with the special prosecutor.\u201d<\/p>\n

Since the district court has revoked the agreement, Morgan would have the right to withdraw from it as well but he cannot.<\/p>\n

\u201cSimply put, the damage has been done,\u201d the petition states. \u201cMorgan has given a full statement to the prosecution. They know all of his thoughts on the matter, They have a recorded statement of all of his recollections regarding his actions, and, in full, they have been given by Morgan himself, a full roadmap as to how to prosecute him.\u201d<\/p>\n

The petition states that the district court erred in trying to revoke the plea agreement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Supreme Court should enter a permanent writ of prohibition against such an effort and should direct the district court to sentence within the confines of the plea agreement,\u201d the petition states.<\/p>\n

In its response to Morgan\u2019s attempt to cancel the Dec. 19 sentencing, Robyn Neswood-Etsitty, a staff attorney, said it was impossible to file a response to Morgan\u2019s write because they were never served with a copy of it and is therefore \u201cunaware of any arguments made against the Window Rock District Court by Mr. Morgan.\u201d<\/p>\n

She pointed out that often times if the court is given proper notice, it can remedy alleged defects, but in this case, the district court is \u201ccompletely unaware of any complaints or possible remedies because proper service of the petition was not effectuated.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY BILL DONOVAN SPECIAL TO THE TIMES WINDOW ROCK \u2014 The only case still remaining in the five-year prosecution of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16414,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-16412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16416,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16412\/revisions\/16416"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/testv45.demowebsitelinks.com\/ColleenKeane\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}