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Friday, October 10, 2008
Under Brandenburg, Sweet Pleas Rule
By Lisa Torraco
Candidate for District Attorney
Under Kari Brandenburg justice is upside down — the guilty go free and innocent are prosecuted.
While this may sound bizarre to anyone outside Albuquerque's criminal justice system, it's really just the same old Brandenburg pattern. The stories of innocent people jailed are heard along with stories of sweet pleas and career criminals freed to walk our streets.
The Brandenburg plea bargain that released Clifton Bloomfield from jail to murder three people was disgraceful and disrespectful to the victims and the community. Bloomfield could have gotten more than 40 years for the home invasion/robbery of Edwin and Rupe Garcia, but Brandenburg gave him a sweet plea deal, limiting his exposure to only three years.
Like so many of the victims who have called to support me in my campaign, these decent people weren't deemed worth the expense of a trial. So after he was released on this armed robbery, three homicides in which Bloomfield is a suspect were committed. Who in their right mind would give a convicted felon a sweet deal for an armed home invasion?
Now Bloomfield has been linked to other murders as well. Bloomfield should have been in jail. What is wrong with this system?
Brandenburg tells us that Bloomfield was released on a plea bargain because “it was that or nothing.” Even as the tragedy of Bloomfield's killing spree made the news, Brandenburg refused to answer questions because no “agreement” (meaning another plea bargain) has been reached in the new cases. Why must she plea bargain with a cold blooded killer? He is now linked to six killings. If public safety is important, this is the wrong way to do this important public business. A serial killer should not have been allowed to walk the streets.
Brandenburg consistently points to her plea bargaining with blind pride. When statistics show her office loses more felony trials than it wins, she murders the definition of felony trials and adds in her sweet-heart plea bargains to artificially improve her conviction rates. With her plea deals Brandenburg claims the conviction rate jumps to 95 percent. Her Web site lists the “early plea” program as one of her chief accomplishments. A program that gives super-sweet plea deals before the office fully investigates the case does not sound like a stellar policy.
Recall the child rape victim Brandenburg's office jailed just before Christmas 2007 in order to compel her statement and the mentally disabled man who languished behind bars for 2 1/2 years while DNA clearing him sat in the DA's files. And now, Brandenburg claims publicly that she made the right decision to give Clifton Bloomfield a sweet plea deal for his home invasion/armed robbery by suggesting that someone else committed the offenses. Is she just making more Brandenburg excuses for letting a serial killer out to walk our streets? Or did she truly prosecute another innocent man?
Proper plea deals may be a necessary evil. But a District Attorney's Office must not become a bargain factory, pumping out deals from the bargain basement and letting the facts “come to light” only if and when there's a public outcry.
The pattern will continue until we have a leader with the judgment and will to reject the policies of the present district attorney that are “making a difference” by making our community more dangerous. Let's negotiate from a position of strength. We can do that if judges know our cases are solid and our attorneys prepared. We can do that if defense lawyers and guilty defendants know that we fight to win. It all starts with good judgment, leadership and hard work to fix what's gone wrong when the guilty are free and the innocent are jailed.
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