OPINION: Weatherman Ronchetti hopes crime is a winning issue

Oct. 17—Republicans Edwin Mechem and Susana Martinez each won election as governor of New Mexico by hailing themselves as crime fighters.

Their tactics worked politically, though Mechem's meddling in the legal system remains one of the state's greatest embarrassments.

Mechem liked to be called Big Ed. He was a lawyer and an FBI agent before entering politics. Martinez was the district attorney of Doña Ana County for 14 years until her election as governor. Stories of how they would attack crime fit smoothly in their gubernatorial campaigns.

Fellow Republican Mark Ronchetti wants to imitate their strategy — a stretch for the former weatherman.

Ronchetti didn't play a tough guy on television, but he is trying to remake his image as the gubernatorial campaign stumbles toward a finish. Unlike Mechem and Martinez, Ronchetti doesn't have the credentials to persuade voters he can fix whatever is broken in the legal system.

Still, crime and punishment are Ronchetti's favorite issues in his uphill race against Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham. His camp's run-on ramblings seldom stray from either topic.

"Crime in New Mexico is out of control and Michelle Lujan Grisham is choosing to be soft on crime and has endangered our community," Ronchetti's staff wrote in a weekend solicitation for money.

Ronchetti has tried to claim firsthand knowledge of the subject. In a broadcast advertisement, he cast himself, his wife and their two daughters as victims of a "home invasion" in Albuquerque. He also attempted to create the false impression that Lujan Grisham was governor at the time.

In fact, the break-in Ronchetti described happened 10 years ago. Martinez was governor then, and Republican Richard J. Berry was mayor of Albuquerque.

Martinez was more skillful in her reliance on crime as a campaign issue. But it also contributed to some of her worst, most wasteful decisions as governor.

For example, Martinez in 2016 poured taxpayers' money down the drain so she could posture on crime bills while state government was almost broke.

Democrats in the state Senate had urged Martinez to call a special legislative session to tighten the budget. She stalled until October, then tried to shift the focus to crime instead of finances.

Republicans at the time controlled the state House of Representatives. During the predawn hours, while most people were asleep and the state budget was in disarray, they approved a bill to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico.

Special legislative sessions cost more than $53,000 a day. Martinez and other Republicans knew the Democratic-controlled Senate would not agree to a revival of capital punishment. They forged ahead anyway, gambling that political combat over crime would help them in the general election, which was less than a month away.

Voters were not impressed with Martinez's manipulations. They went for Democrats in the election, ending Republican control of the House of Representatives.

Government gridlock under Martinez was one factor in Lujan Grisham's election as governor in 2018.

Bad though they were, Martinez's failings did not compare to those of Big Ed Mechem. He went so far as to make solving a notorious crime a plank in his platform for governor.

Someone raped and murdered 18-year-old Las Cruces waitress Ovida "Cricket" Coogler in 1949. Corruption flourished at the time, and its tentacles extended to law enforcement.

A Black veteran of World War II, Wesley Byrd, said law officers tortured him in hopes of obtaining a false confession to Coogler's murder. The state police chief, Doña Ana County Sheriff Alfonso "Happy" Apodaca and one of Apodaca's deputies spent a year in prison for violating Byrd's civil rights.

Apodaca had also moved against a more high-profile resident of Las Cruces. The sheriff jailed Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerry Nuzum, who had played college football at what is now New Mexico State University. Nuzum supposedly was seen with Coogler on the night she disappeared.

Apodaca called Nuzum's secret incarceration "a voluntary arrest." Nuzum said he was innocent, and prosecutors cleared him after 10 days.

Mechem won the 1950 gubernatorial election. He repeated his promise to break open the Coogler murder case. Four months later, New Mexico prosecutors reversed field and charged Nuzum in Coogler's slaying.

Nuzum stood trial 11 weeks after state police arrested him. He was acquitted on the trial's fourth day by state District Court Judge Charles Fowler. No evidence existed to convict Nuzum, Fowler said, prompting him to free the football star without the case going to the jury.

Coogler's murder was never solved, and life was never the same for Nuzum. His reputation was tarnished. Almost as bad, attorneys' fees left him $20,000 in debt.

Mechem fared better. Voters elected him to four two-year terms as governor. He resigned from office during his last term so his lieutenant governor could then appoint Mechem to a vacant seat in the U.S. Senate.

Ousted in his first election for the Senate, Mechem was appointed to a federal judgeship by President Richard Nixon.

An old crime fighter survived. Ronchetti is left to hope a newly packaged law-and-order candidate can as well.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.