High court again hears wrong brother may be in prison.

 

Attorneys for Joseph Montoya, who is serving a 20-year sentence for the 1999 death of Robert Williams in Las Cruces, were back before the New Mexico Supreme Court on Monday arguing that a confession by Montoya's identical twin brother requires, at the very least, a new trial.

The Supreme Court heard oral arguments on Monday, but didn't make a ruling, which could result in a new trial, an acquittal or allowing the original conviction to stand, the Las Cruces Sun-News reported today on its Web site.

"Joseph Montoya is now serving a 20-year sentence for a crime that he, demonstrably, did not commit," his attorney Eric Hannum told the court, according to the Sun-News. "The gorilla in the room is Jeremy Montoya's confession, and a jury has never heard that."

But Assistant Attorney General Arthur Pepin told the justices that two eyewitnesses helped lead to Joseph Montoya's conviction for second-degree murder and that no evidence has been produced since then to overturn that conviction, the Sun-News reported.

Jeremy Montoya, who confessed under oath to the killing at a hearing in Las Cruces last April, was present at the Supreme Court hearing Monday.

Pepin told the justices that state District Court Judge Stephen Bridgforth heard that confession, weighed it against all other evidence in the case and concluded that it wasn't credible, the Sun-News said.

Pepin also said that the brothers intentionally dressed the same way at Joseph Montoya's trial to try to confuse the jury, according to the Sun-News.

Hannum, however, argued that most of the witnesses who testified agreed that one of the twins did the shooting but couldn't say which one and that the two eyewitnesses who fingered Joseph Montoya were inconsistent, the paper reported.

Williams was killed on Sept. 2, 1999, at a party in Las Cruces after a New Mexico State University football game. Joseph Montoya was convicted  in June 2002, and several appeals filed since then have been unsuccessful, the Sun-News reported.

Joseph Montoya's attorneys made nearly identical arguments last July before the Supreme Court, but the high court declined to rule on the case, according to this account by The Associated Press. And here is the Albuquerque Journal account of the trial judge's dismissal of Jeremy Montoya's confession.

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