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Journal North: Home | Sports | Opinion | Obits | Entertainment
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Defendants in Hazing Case Want Own Trials
By Vic Vela
Journal Staff Writer
The four remaining defendants in the Robertson High School football team rape and hazing case want to be tried separately.
And the attorney for one of the teens — referred to at a preliminary hearing as the ringleader in last year's attacks — wants a change of trial location for his client because of “excessive” media coverage that makes finding an impartial jury “extremely difficult, if not impossible.”
The defendants — Michael Gallegos, Lucas Martinez, Steven Garcia, all 18, and Marcus Gutierrez, 17 — each face felony charges for their alleged roles in assaults where teammates were held down against their will and sodomized with broomsticks at the Cardinals football training camp in August 2008.
Two other teens involved in the assaults — Santiago Armijo and Jerek Padilla — took plea deals early in the process and have already been sentenced. Armijo is serving time at a juvenile facility, while Padilla has already been released from custody.
This week, attorneys for each of the remaining defendants filed motions to sever their trials from one another. Essentially, the lawyers argue that jurors will be prejudiced in hearing testimony about crimes committed by some, but not all of the defendants.
The teens face multiple counts, but they vary in reference to whom the victims were. The lawyers are concerned that after hearing testimony on all four teens, jurors will hold their clients liable for actions against victims that did not involve them.
“Such testimony will likely confuse the jury and possibly prejudice the jury into believing that Garcia may be guilty on other charges due to the sheer number of times his name is raised in connection to alleged victims,” wrote Garcia's attorney, Kim Middlebrooks, in her motion.
Finger-pointing is also a concern the lawyers share, but more so for Billy Blackburn, the attorney for Gallegos. In his motion to sever, Blackburn cited a preliminary hearing from January, in which attorneys for the defendants “through cross-examination, sought to emphasize the exclusive guilt of others, particularly Gallegos.”
Gallegos faces more charges than any of the four teens, but they each face multiple felony charges, including second-degree criminal sexual penetration and kidnapping.
Witnesses during the three-day preliminary hearing testified that Gallegos was the main aggressor in the attacks. One 15-year-old boy said Gallegos asked, “ 'Who's your daddy?' ” as the defendant attacked him with the broomstick.
Blackburn argues that the other attorneys' strategy at trial “will include a harsh rebuke of Gallegos and an attempt to emphasize his guilt and his guilt alone.”
“Thus,” Blackburn argues, “it is now clear that Gallegos faces the possibility of effectually being prosecuted by at least four different parties at trial: the state and his three co-respondents.”
Special Prosecutor Henry Valdez said he will oppose the motion to separate the trials.
“To have four different trials, it would make the victims testify four different times,” Valdez told the Journal. “I don't think it's a wise use of our state's resources.”
Blackburn also wants the trial moved from Santa Fe County. In that motion, the defense attorney points to “media scrutiny” that has been prevalent since charges first surfaced.
“In this controversial case, publicity has come in the form of countless articles, television stories and radio reports which have tainted the jury pool and impaired any potential jurors' ability to impartially assess the evidence,” Blackburn argues.
If Blackburn succeeds in his motion, it would mark the second time the location of the trial will have moved. The attorneys agreed to move the case from Las Vegas to Santa Fe when Judge James Hall agreed to take on the case.
Hall withdrew from the case in May after Blackburn questioned the judge's impartiality after Hall called the crimes committed “horrific” and “done in the most demeaning way possible” at Padilla's sentencing hearing.
Blackburn argues in his motion that those comments made by Hall “were reported throughout the area in which any potential jury would be drawn.”
Valdez said he will also oppose the change of venue motion, saying, “After all, they (the defense attorneys) did agree to having it in Santa Fe County.”
“These things always sort themselves out at the jury selection process,” he said. “In my experience, we've been able to select juries in cases that have had a tremendous amount of publicity.”
The judge currently involved in the case, Mark Macaron, is expected to hear arguments regarding the motions at a hearing next month.
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