Mom Gets 6 Years in Deadly Crash

SANTA FE – Deven Martinez began crying as Deputy District Attorney Tim Williams said that if the death of her 3-year-old son wasn’t enough, he didn’t know what would get Martinez off drugs.

The prosecutor argued Tuesday that sentencing the 29-year-old Hernandez woman to the full six years under her plea bargain was the appropriate response for Martinez, who had cocaine, methadone and a type of sleeping pill in her system when she killed her son and injured her baby daughter in a 2011 crash in Española.

State District Court Judge Michael Vigil agreed, sentencing Martinez to six years, for vehicular homicide, and 18 months, to run concurrent with the first charge, for great bodily injury by vehicle. Martinez gets credit for about 13 months of pre-sentence confinement, broken for only about a week in which Martinez was released from custody. Williams said she violated the terms of her release by testing positive for suboxone and was returned to custody.

Vigil said Martinez “completely failed” the test to see whether she could stay clean out of jail, adding that she needed treatment within the therapeutic community of the Department of Corrections.

“We forget that the person who suffered the most was your son,” Vigil told Martinez. “He lost his life. He didn’t have a chance.”

Martinez asked Vigil for mercy prior to the ruling. Her attorney, Paul Branch, sought his client’s admission to an in-patient treatment program. He said Martinez had been fighting addiction and suffered a relapse, which led to the crash.

Martinez said she wanted to reconnect with her daughter, who visits her periodically in jail. A Children, Youth and Families Department worker said the now-2 1/2-year-old daughter is in foster care and is developing well, although she appears to have emotional problems and pulls at her hair when she visits her mother. Martinez told the judge she wants to get her daughter back.

“Your honor, I’ve been suffering since the day of my car accident,” Martinez said. “… I would never harm (my children). Yeah, I was on methadone, but that didn’t stop me from being a good mother.”

On June 9, 2011, Martinez was driving a Jeep Cherokee on N.M. 584 in Española when she ran into the back of a tractor trailer that had stopped for other traffic.

Her son, Luie Martinez, was riding in the front seat and may have been unrestrained during the crash. He struck an air bag before hitting the passenger side window, according to Española Police. He died at the scene.
— This article appeared on page D2 of the Albuquerque Journal