| United States Attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands | |
|---|---|
| First holder | James G. Mackey |
| Website | www |
The United States attorney for the Districts of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands is responsible for representing the federal government in civil and criminal litigation before the United States territorial courts of the District Court of Guam, whose jurisdiction is the Territory of Guam, [1] and the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, whose jurisdiction is the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), [2] encompassing the main islands of Saipan, Tinian and Rota as well as the mostly uninhabited "Northern Islands" of the Commonwealth.
Although the Territory of Guam and the CNMI are separate political entities and federal judicial districts, since 1978 the law has authorized the appointment of one United States Attorney to serve both. [3] This situation is unique within the entire United States.
The U.S. attorney maintains offices in Hagåtña, Guam and in Gualo Rai, Saipan.
*Prior to 1978, incumbents did not hold both offices, as the latter had not been created.
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Saipan is the largest island of the Northern Mariana Islands, a commonwealth of the United States in the western Pacific Ocean. According to 2020 estimates by the United States Census Bureau, the population of Saipan was 43,385, a decline of 10% from its 2010 count of 48,220.
Territories of the United States are sub-national administrative divisions overseen by the federal government of the United States. The various American territories differ from the U.S. states and Indian reservations as they are not sovereign entities. In contrast, each state has a sovereignty separate from that of the federal government and each federally recognized Native American tribe possesses limited tribal sovereignty as a "dependent sovereign nation". Territories are classified by incorporation and whether they have an "organized" government through an organic act passed by the Congress. American territories are under American sovereignty and, consequently, may be treated as part of the United States proper in some ways and not others. Unincorporated territories in particular are not considered to be integral parts of the United States, and the Constitution of the United States applies only partially in those territories.
Commonwealth is a term used by two unincorporated territories of the United States in their full official names, which are the Northern Mariana Islands, whose full name is Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Puerto Rico, which is named Commonwealth of Puerto Rico in English and Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico in Spanish, translating to "Free Associated State of Puerto Rico." The term was also used by the Philippines during most of its period under U.S. sovereignty, when it was officially called the Commonwealth of the Philippines.
In the United States, each state has its own written constitution.
The District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands is a federal territorial court whose jurisdiction comprises the United States-affiliated Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). It was established by Act of Congress in 1977, pursuant to an international agreement between the United States and the CNMI that brought the CNMI under United States sovereignty. The court began hearing cases in January 1978. The court regularly sits in Saipan but may sit elsewhere in the CNMI. The court has the same jurisdiction as United States district courts, including diversity jurisdiction and bankruptcy jurisdiction. However, the District Court is not an Article III U.S. District Court, and because of that its judge is appointed for a 10-year term instead of for life. Appeals are taken to the Ninth Circuit.
Rota International Airport, also known as Benjamin Taisacan Manglona International Airport, is a public airport located on Rota Island in the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), near the village of Sinapalo. The airport is owned by the Commonwealth Ports Authority. During WWII the Japanese constructed a single runway which the U.S. bombed out of commission. After the Marines took control of the island 300 men from the 48th U.S.Naval Construction Battalion made the airfield operational during Sept-Oct 1945 and extended to 5,000 feet (1,500 m). The runway was then used as an emergency landing strip for Tinian and Saipan airfields.
The Supreme Court of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, 1 CMC § 3101, is the highest court of the United States Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI), exercising civil and criminal appellate jurisdiction over commonwealth law matters. It should not be confused with the District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands, which exercises jurisdiction over federal law. The Supreme Court sits in the capital, Saipan, and consists of a Chief Justice and two Associate Justices. The CNMI has no intermediate appellate commonwealth law court, which means that the CNMI Supreme Court hears appeals directly from the trial-level Superior Court.
The Northern Mariana Islands' first election of a delegate to the United States House of Representatives took place on November 4, 2008. Since the CNMI traditionally had general elections in odd-numbered years, the November 2008 ballot contained only this office.
Gregorio Kilili Camacho Sablan is a Northern Mariana Islander politician and former election commissioner. Elected in 2008, Sablan became the first delegate to the United States House of Representatives from the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Sablan is the only Chamorro member of Congress.
Juan "Pan" Tenorio Guerrero is a Northern Mariana Islands politician and businessman. He has been a member of the Democratic Party of the Northern Mariana Islands in the past, and ran for Governor of the Northern Mariana Islands in 2009 as an independent, with Representative Joe Camacho as his running mate.
Same-sex marriage in the Northern Mariana Islands was legalized by the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges on June 26, 2015, which struck down same-sex marriage bans nationwide. On June 29, Governor Eloy Inos issued a statement hailing the decision as "historic", and said he would work with the Attorney General and local officials in the Northern Mariana Islands to bring the U.S. territory into compliance. Attorney General Edward Manibusan issued a memorandum on June 30 confirming that the territory was bound by the court decision and said that marriage license forms would be changed to include same-sex couples.
The recreational and medicinal use of cannabis in the Northern Mariana Islands has been legal since September 2018. House Bill 20-178 was signed into law by Gov. Ralph Torres, becoming Public Law 20-66. The cannabis legalization bill was introduced as the "Taulamwaar Sensible CNMI Cannabis Act of 2018," named in honor of David Kapileo Peter or Taulamwaar, who advocated cannabis legalization over four years ago. The first dispensary opened to the public on July 16, 2021.
Abortion in the Northern Mariana Islands is illegal by legislation, but legal by judicial ruling and legal review. A law passed in 1985 made abortion illegal, but a review by the Attorney General said it was legal in 1995. Women in the 1990s went to the Philippines to get abortions, but went to Japan or Hawaii by 2018 because of changing legality in the region.
Ralph Deleon Guerrero Torres is a Northern Marianan politician, who served as the ninth governor of the Northern Mariana Islands, from December 29, 2015 to January 9, 2023. He is a Republican from Saipan, Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). The third longest-serving governor in CNMI history, Torres took office upon the death of Governor Eloy Inos on December 29, 2015 before being reelected as governor in his own right in 2018. He previously served as the tenth lieutenant governor, having been elected to that post in 2014.
The 2018 United States House of Representatives election in the Northern Mariana Islands was held on Tuesday, November 13, 2018, to elect the territory's Delegate to the United States House of Representatives in the 116th United States Congress. Delegate Gregorio Sablan was re-elected to his sixth term as Delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives from the Northern Mariana Islands' at-large district.
The 2022 Northern Mariana gubernatorial election took place on November 8, 2022 to elect the governor of the Northern Mariana Islands and the lieutenant governor of the Northern Mariana Islands to a four-year term in office. Because no candidate received 50% of the vote in the general election, the two highest-placing candidates advanced to a runoff election on November 25, 2022.
The Marianas archipelago of the Northern Pacific contains fourteen islands located between Japan and New Guinea on a north–south axis and Hawaii and the Philippines on an east–west axis. Inhabitants were Spanish nationals from the 16th century until the Spanish–American War of 1898. As Guam became a territory of the United States the Northern Marianas were sold to Germany in 1899. The Northern Mariana Islands were a German protectorate until 1919, when they became part of the South Seas Mandate, administrated by Japan. At the close of World War II, the Marianas became part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands. In 1975, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands became a self-governing territory. In 1986, the Marianas came under the sovereignty of the United States when the trusteeship ended and US nationality and citizenship was conferred on the inhabitants of the territory.
The law of the Northern Mariana Islands includes: