Judge in De Lima’s drug case no stranger to high-profile cases

Judge Juanita Guerrero of Muntinlupa City Regional Trial Court Branch 204 has handled a number of high-profile cases before the drug charges against Senator Leila de Lima was raffled off to her sala.

In 2008, Guerrero issued a subpoena directing an official of the Anti-Money Laundering Council to testify in court and bring documents and papers on the accounts under the names of spouses Rosario and Saturnino Baladjay and their companies under Multinational Telecom Investors Corp. (Multitel).

The Multitel pyramiding scam in the early 2000s duped hundreds of investors to part with their money with the promise of high interest rates.

The accounts of the Baladjay couple and Multitel were all subject of freeze orders issued by AMLC.

In 2011, Guerrero issued orders denying AMLC's motion to quash the subpoena. The Court of Appeals annulled her orders and quashed the subpoena in 2013.

‘Alabang Boys’

Guerrero had presided over a case that involved de Lima in 2011, when the magistrate acquitted the so-called "Alabang Boys" of drug charges being prosecuted by the then secretary of justice.

De Lima had said Guerrero's decision acquitting high-profile drug suspects Jorge Joseph and Richard Brodett on August 26, 2011 may have shown "a gross misappreciation of procedure."

De Lima had filed a motion for reconsideration on the ruling. "Ordinarily, there's no remedy anymore after an acquittal. But in this case, we noticed aspects that can be cited as exceptions to the general rule. It's gross misappreciation," De Lima had said.

The judge denied the appeal on the grounds of double jeopardy. The Court of Appeals affirmed Guerrero's acquittal in January 2014.

In clearing Joseph and Brodett, Guerrero said the prosecution failed to establish all links in the chain of custody of the drug evidence seized from the two in September 2008.

Rolito Go

On April 28, 2014, Guerrero ordered murder convict Rolito Go released from custody for having fully served his sentence. She granted Go's petition for a writ of habeas corpus.

Go was sentenced to reclusion perpetua for the road rage killing of De La Salle University student Eldon Maguan in 1991. He began serving his sentence at the New Bilibid Prisons in 1996.

In his petition, Go said his original prison sentence, which should end in 2022, should have expired in 2013 upon deduction of lawful and proper allowances for good conduct, colonist status and preventive imprisonment.

Guerrero said Go's sentence was validly commuted from reclusion perpetua to 30 years based on the Bureau of Corrections Manual.

The Bureau of Corrections opposed Go's release, noting that his sentence neither has expired nor was commuted. It elevated the case to the Court of Appeals, which dismissed its appeal, and then to the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court affirmed her decision in November 2016. —NB/JST, GMA News