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Monday, March 15, 2010
Short Time for Horrible Crime
By Joline Gutierrez Krueger
Journal Staff Writer
She wanted him to see her, what she says he did to her; how the two large-caliber, close range blasts from a semiautomatic SKS rifle had torn apart her face, taken out an eye, shattered her world.
"I wanted him to see I am still standing," Mary Martinez says. "I wanted him to see I am still me."
Just not the same "me."
Oh, but she is stronger. Last Wednesday in an Albuquerque courtroom, she never flinched as she trained her remaining eye on Nathan Dominguez, the former boyfriend accused of shooting her Jan. 9, 2009, in a jealous rage over a phone call.
She is also angry, and maybe you should be, too. Because the most prison time her attacker will serve, if convicted, is less than seven years.
Under the state sentencing statute, attempted first-degree murder — the charge against Dominguez — is not classified as a serious violent offense.
It's an important distinction because serious violent offenses require offenders to serve 85 percent of their sentences before they are eligible for parole.
Those crimes not designated as serious violent offenses — though it's hard to imagine a crime more serious or violent than pulverizing someone's face — require offenders to complete only 50 percent before parole is considered.
By prosecutor Edna Frances Sprague's calculations, Dominguez faces up to 14 years in prison if convicted on the attempted murder and three other charges.
Including credit for the nearly 1 1/2 years Dominguez had been in jail awaiting trial — well, you can do the math.
"I've crunched the numbers every way possible, and there is just no way around it," Sprague laments. "It's a bad law."
Bad, all the way around. Under the statute, had someone shot up Martinez's building rather than her face, the crime would have been considered a serious violent offense.
Last Wednesday, Dominguez, 27, glared and occasionally smirked at Martinez and her supporters who filled half the courtroom, expecting him accept a plea deal.
But Dominguez refused, his lawyer explaining that they had expected the deal to include the consolidation of this case with a previous domestic violence case involving the mother of his two young children.
That was in September 2008 at a party at Martinez's apartment in Albuquerque. Despite that violent first impression, she says she was drawn to Dominguez.
"Him and I started talking. I don't remember how that happened. He started telling me stories about the woman and I could see, I could understand how he was with her," she says. "He was really nice."
By November, Dominguez had moved in with her. When reports of trouble around the apartment complex surfaced, he brought over the SKS.
"It was for our protection," Martinez, 30, says. "Instead, it was used on me."
That January night, a Friday, they had gone with Dominguez's cousin to Lucky's Lounge for pitchers of beer and shots of whiskey.
According to the criminal complaint, Dominguez grabbed Martinez's cell phone and smashed it, enraged that she had made a call to her ex-boyfriend.
"My ex is my kids' dad," she says. "I remember calling to check on the kids and tell him Nathan was being a jerk."
The three made their way back to the apartment, where the argument continued. The cousin told police he fled when Dominguez pulled out the SKS.
Minutes later, the cousin heard two gunshots.
"She shouldn't have said what she did," Dominguez reportedly said later. "She shouldn't have told me to shoot her in the head."
One bullet penetrated her left eye, crushed her right inner ear and blew out a cheek, leaving a hole the size of a fist.
The second sheared off her jaw and veered out her neck.
Her brain was unharmed.
"I was lucky," she says.
She recalls waking up two months later in a rehabilitation center not knowing what had happened to her.
"I was freaking out," she says. "I looked in the mirror and thought, whoa. I cried a lot. I was in a real bad depression for a while, but I was thankful that at least God still let me have one eye to see and one ear to hear. I was glad I can still hear and see my kids."
She has undergone three surgeries — that she knows of — and is scheduled for another May 7 when a plate will be fitted in her jaw to replace bone.
Later, she will undergo surgeries to fill in the sunken area behind her prosthetic eye, implant thigh muscle to bolster the dent in her cheek.
Someday, she hopes, doctors can fix the paralysis on the right side of her face that causes her to drool and keeps her from smiling.
She used to smile all the time, she says.
With Dominguez refusing the plea agreement, the case now heads to trial April 26.
Martinez will be there, making sure that Dominguez sees her, hoping, too, that New Mexico lawmakers see that what she lost, what other victims of violent crimes lose, is worth more than seven years.
UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. You can reach Joline at 823-3603, jkrueger@abqjournal.com or follow her on Twitter @jolinegkg.
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