Federal judge’s ruling reversed

The failure to deliver certain evidence to the defense in a Carlsbad homicide trial was among issues that led a federal judge in 2011 to order an immediate retrial or release of inmate Carl Case.

At that point, Case had spent almost 30 years in prison for his conviction in the rape and murder of 16-year-old runaway cheerleader Nancy Mitchell in 1982. Case, a model prisoner at the state prison in Clayton, was happy but circumspect at the good news then.

His reserve proved well-placed.

This week, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Martha Vázquez more than a year after attorneys trekked up to Denver for oral argument. The appeals court said Vázquez lacked jurisdiction for her actions.

The trio of judges deciding the issue, Timothy Tymkovich, David Ebel and Jerome A. Holmes, set aside the district court order on his habeas corpus petition — Case’s second in federal court — and sent it back to Vázquez with orders to dismiss the petition.

New Mexico Attorney General Gary King, in a statement, called it a “victory for the state.”

Case’s attorneys could not be reached for comment.

Although Case was required to get permission from the 10th Circuit before his petition could even be filed, the appeals court said he had not met the requirements under a second hurdle set up by the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act. The act sets rigorous requirements intended to insulate state court decisions from being overturned by federal court.

“In this appeal we consider our gate-keeping role,” the court said, concluding Case “has not met the legal requirements for challenging his conviction.”

Students in the Innocence and Justice Project at the University of New Mexico School of Law, working with Case’s lawyers, found eyewitnesses who recanted earlier trial testimony. Also, post-trial tests using DNA evidence not available at the time found no sperm cells, suggesting Mitchell hadn’t been raped.

The defense investigation also discovered that one of four taped interviews of a witness who had tried to have sex with the victim and had been rebuffed was never turned over to the defense.

While Vázquez found the trial had been “plagued with constitutional error,” the appeals court said the failure to disclose the tape was insufficient to violate Case’s due process rights.

“We are satisfied. … that he received a fundamentally fair trial,” the 60-page opinion said. “We are also satisfied that the newly discovered evidence he points to does not require a new trial, a point of agreement we have with the New Mexico Supreme Court.”

Ebel agreed with the outcome, but wrote a brief concurring opinion “to express my frustration at the process.” He said the court had required Case to “pass through a three-part jurisdictional gauntlet,” noting Vázquez had expended significant effort and resources addressing the merits of Case’s claim after getting a green light from the 10th Circuit.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal