Arizona seeks extradition of N.M. prisoner

LAS CRUCES — Arizona authorities are seeking the extradition of Jeremiah Dowling, who pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in a 2005 vehicular death, to face trial in an earlier homicide in that state.

Arizona in 2009 issued a warrant to arrest Dowling, 25, on a charge of murder in the fatal shooting of Victor Chavez in Mesa in September 2005.

If convicted of the Arizona murder case, Dowling would serve out his sentence after completing the remainder of his New Mexico prison time, said 3rd Judicial District Attorney Mark D’Antonio.

Dowling, then 18, had been in New Mexico for only a few weeks when he was arrested after striking two pedestrians with a pickup truck as he barrelled down Roadrunner Parkway in Las Cruces in December 2005. After striking a jogger on the median with the driver’s side rearview mirror, Dowling sped around a curve at more than 70 miles per hour and fatally struck another pedestrian, 57-year-old Sharon McNair. He eventually crashed into a boulder and fled on foot.

Dowling was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison for charges including aggravated battery causing great bodily injury and leaving the scene of an accident, and received a 30-year life sentence for the conviction on first-degree murder in McNair’s death.

The state Supreme Court, however, overturned Dowling’s first-degree murder conviction in 2011 and ordered a new trial because of the flawed or confusing instructions the jury received about the prosecution’s “deprived mind” theory of the slaying.

D’Antonio said prosecutors decided to offer Dowling the chance to plead guilty to second-degree murder, rather than go to trial with the risk a new jury would convict Dowling of a lesser offense. In addition, D’Antonio said, McNair’s relatives did not want to be subjected to the ordeal of a second murder trial.

Dowling was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison for McNair’s death, time added to the eight and a half years he is already serving, D’Antonio said.

“Part of the calculus was the guy was facing pretty strong charges in Arizona,” D’Antonio said Wednesday. “When you balance the safety of the community with the needs of the victim’s family and the legal possibility of a jury going for lesser included charges, we made the right decision and we’re very happy with it.”

Details about the fatal shooting in Mesa, Ariz., were not available Wednesday. A major break in solving the case occurred in 2006 when a Doña Ana County Detention Center investigator overheard Dowling talking about the shooting and recorded an incriminating conversation.
— This article appeared on page C2 of the Albuquerque Journal