Judge orders pretrial detention for brother of University of New Mexico shooting victim

Zion Miera was under a judge’s order not to possess firearms or commit crimes at the time his brother was fatally shot in a University of New Mexico dorm room.

Miera, 19, violated those conditions in June when he and others gathered for a drug-fueled night at UNM that ended in the shooting death of 14-year-old Michael LaMotte, a judge ruled Wednesday.

State District Judge Emeterio Rudolfo ordered Miera to remain behind bars while awaiting trial on two counts of tampering with evidence and other charges connected with his brother’s death in June.

“He has demonstrated his inability to make safe decisions,” Rudolfo said of Miera at his pretrial detention hearing in 2nd Judicial District Court. “I don’t think we need federal cases or federal judges to tell us that mixing drugs and firearms is dangerous for anyone, especially someone so young.”

The case stems from a June 25 incident when Miera, his half-brother LaMotte, and two other teenagers met at UNM for what prosecutors describe as a night of heavy drug use, including LSD and cocaine.

Prosecutors allege that shortly after midnight, John Fuentes, 18, fatally shot LaMotte in the head and fired a second shot that grazed Daniel Archuleta, a provisional UNM student, in the back of the head.

Fuentes, who was treated and released at a hospital, was arrested soon after the July 25 killing and is awaiting trial on an open count of murder and lesser felonies.

Archuleta, 19, was arrested Tuesday on a charge of tampering with evidence and is scheduled for a pretrial detention hearing Friday.

Assistant District Attorney John Kloss argued Wednesday that Miera was charged in May for allegedly confronting a former girlfriend with an assault-style rifle during a handoff of the couple’s child.

Rio Rancho police arrested Miera on May 31 on a felony charge of false imprisonment and misdemeanor battery, according to a criminal complaint filed in Sandoval County Magistrate Court. Miera allegedly searched the woman’s apartment with the rifle looking for a male co-worker, the complaint said.

On June 2, about seven weeks before the fatal incident at UNM, a Sandoval County magistrate judge released Miera on his own recognizance but prohibited him from possessing firearms or committing additional crimes.

Those conditions remained in effect until Sept. 24, when Magistrate Judge Delilah Montano-Baca dismissed the charges. Rudolfo cited those conditions as a key reason for his decision to hold Miera in custody pending trial.

“While the case was ultimately dismissed, there was still an order in place for him to comply with conditions of release — no drugs, no firearms, no dangerous weapons,” Rudolfo said.

Miera’s attorney, Deirdre Ewing, argued that Miera has no criminal convictions because the charges against him were dropped. Nor has Miera been incarcerated before in his life, she said.

“We are not here on charges that Mr. Miera killed his brother,” Ewing told the judge. “Trying to paint Mr. Miera with Mr. Fuentes’ crimes in order to detain him is beyond the pale. Mr. Miera was shot at by Mr. Fuentes just as his brother was.”

Miera is charged with two counts of tampering with evidence for allegedly deleting evidence from his personal cellphone and removing a backpack from the dorm room where LaMotte was fatally shot. Miera also is charged with one count each of possession of cocaine and contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

“So the offenses we’re actually dealing with are nonviolent — third- and fourth-degree felonies — the nature and circumstances of which do not point towards detention,” Ewing said.

Prosecutors allege that Miera had supplied LaMotte with drugs to sell to classmates with the understanding that they would “split the profits.”

Weeks before the shooting, Miera began talking about selling and trading guns with LaMotte, prosecutors allege. LaMotte’s mother told police she knew Miera kept multiple guns in his younger brother’s room.