New Mexico Supreme Court upholds dismissal of corruption charges against four officials

ALBUQUERQUE – New Mexico Attorney General Hector Balderas is calling on lawmakers to strengthen the state’s anti-corruption law.

A recent ruling by the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the dismissal of criminal charges against four defendants, and Balderas told the Albuquerque Journal that the court “took away from citizens a very necessary tool to prosecute public officials who use their public office for their own personal gain.”

The case dealt with the dismissal of ethics charges against a series of former public officials, including former Doña Ana County Treasurer David Gutierrez, an ex-Sixth Judicial District Attorney Francesca Estevez, former New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Secretary Demesia Padilla and ex-San Juan County Magistrate Judge Connie Lee Johnston.

In each of the cases, district courts dismissed the charges but the state appealed the verdicts. The cases were lumped together in from the Supreme Court as each centered on the enforcement of three provisions in the Governmental Conduct Act — subsections that direct officials to treat their positions as a public trust, conduct themselves in a way that justifies the confidence placed in them by the people and disclose conflicts of interest.

Two of the cases involved elected officials from southern New Mexico.

Gutierrez was removed from office after he was found guilty on civil charges of public corruption or gross immorality by a public official in 2016, after sexual harassment allegations were raised by a woman who worked in the office. But criminal charges against Gutierrez were dropped in 2016 by an Alamogordo District Court judge before a trial could begin.

Estevez, the DA for Hidalgo, Luna and Grant counties, faced multiple ethics charges after she allegedly intimidated police to subvert an investigation after she was pulled over in June 2016 for reckless driving in Silver City. Though Estevez would accept a plea deal in 2018 — pleading guilty to one count of reckless driving and two counts of disorderly conduct — a criminal corruption charge against her was dismissed by Third Judicial District Judge Douglas Driggers.

The state appealed the dismissal of the criminal corruption charges against Gutierrez, Estevez and others and in 2020 the New Mexico Court of Appeals reversed three of four decisions, including against the two against southern New Mexico officials.

The high court, however, unanimously ruled the sections of the GCA were never intended by legislators to be enforced as criminal statutes and the language doesn’t “spell out what act or omission is required for its violation and does not establish criminal elements that could inform clear jury instructions.”

The state Legislature is set to open a 60-day session in January when lawmakers may take up legislation revising ethics laws and other statutes, according to the Journal.

Balderas, a Democrat whose term ends this year, told the newspaper that he’s urging lawmakers to work with the ethics agency to “strengthen these laws in order to build public trust with our community which has grown skeptical and tired of corruption.”

This article originally appeared on Las Cruces Sun-News: New Mexico Supreme Court upholds dismissal of corruption charges against four officials