Attorneys for cops who shot Boyd want Brandenburg off case
ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) Attorneys for the two Albuquerque police officers accused of murder for shooting homeless camper James Boyd in the Sandia Foothills last March wasted no time in formally pushing back against the first of its kind prosecution, filing a court motion late Thursday to disqualify District Attorney Kari Brandenburg and her entire staff from the case.
Luis Robles and Sam Bregman, attorneys for APD officer Dominique Perez and now retired detective Keith Sandy, respectively, claim in the motion filed in state District Court that Brandenburg has a conflict of interest Blue Suede Lavalliere 100mm with the Albuquerque Police Department. evidence, Robles and Bregman rely on two facts. First, Sandy and Perez have a professional relationship with the DA Office and have served as witnesses in numerous cases its attorneys have prosecuted. The defense attorneys concede in the motion that the relationship between police and prosecutors is an unavoidable cornerstone of the American criminal justice system.
They also point to a second, thornier area of contention: Brandenburg herself was the focus of a recent APD investigation. That probe concluded last year that probable cause exists to charge the
Dominique Perez and Keith Sandy
four term DA with bribery or intimidation of a witness for allegedly attempting to pay off the victims of her son burglaries in exchange for not pursuing charges against him.
APD sent the case in November to the state Attorney General Office for possible prosecution. New Attorney General Hector Balderas, who is just beginning his third week on the job, has said he is reviewing it.
Brandenburg has not been charged with a crime, and she has denied any wrongdoing.
Still, Robles and Bregman wrote in their motion, is little doubt that a conflict of interest exists in District Attorney Brandenburg prosecuting two of the Albuquerque Police Department officers while the department requested that she herself be investigated. had not reviewed the motion as of Thursday afternoon and declined to comment for this story. She said several times in an interview for a different story on Wednesday that she does not believe her office has a conflict of interest in prosecuting police shooting cases.
On the contrary, she stressed that a Nude Leather Lady Super 160mm written agreement she signed last fall with city of Albuquerque officials and several law enforcement leaders mandates her to prosecute shooting officers if it is warranted.
That is something neither Brandenburg nor any of her predecessors has ever done. About 100 police shooting cases have landed on Brandenburg desk since she took office in 2001. At a news conference on Monday, she said none of them before the Boyd case met the probable cause standard necessary to pursue charges.
Thursday motion puts the attorneys for the officers who shot Boyd in the same camp as the top administrator in Mayor Richard Berry administration. They all have now called for Silver Glitter Latticework 160mm an outside prosecutor.
To support their motion, Robles and Bregman suggested a growing chorus in the city is calling for a different set of eyes. They attached two Internet comments posted to an Albuquerque Journal story published earlier this week, two editorials the newspaper published calling for Brandenburg to recuse herself from the case and a letter sent Wednesday to the DA by city Chief Administrative Officer Rob Perry calling for the same.
The defense attorneys also attempted to paint a picture of mounting tensions between Brandenburg and APD and cited the charged nature of the case as evidence that is simply no way for this matter to proceed under the control of (Brandenburg office without sacrificing public confidence. chose to charge Sandy and Perez with open counts of murder by filing informations against them, a process that allows prosecutors to avoid a secret grand jury proceeding that was described in a News 13 story Sunday night. The next step for the case will likely be a preliminary hearing, where after hearing evidence from prosecutors and the defense attorneys, a judge will decide whether one or both officers should be bound over for trial on charges ranging from voluntary manslaughter to first degree murder.
The case has been assigned to state District Judge Alisa Hadfield. It is unlikely that she will remain as the presiding judge. That because, by rule, both sides will have a chance to recuse one judge without explanation.
The more intriguing question is whether Brandenburg will remain as prosecutor on the case.
The Argument
New Mexico does not have a statute that deals with recusing district attorneys, as Bregman and Robles write in their motion. So they had to rely on case law to make their legal argument for disqualifying Brandenburg and her entire office from the Boyd case.
Primarily, the attorneys relied on a 2005 New Mexico Supreme Court ruling in a case known as v. Gonzales. case bears some similarities to Brandenburg case against Sandy and Perez. It also is markedly different.
Mesilla Marshall Miguel Gonzales and his son, Michael Gonzales Jr., had worked as investigators for then Dona Ana County District Attorney Susana Martinez. (Martinez is, of course, now beginning her second term as governor.) The two were arrested on allegations of illegal operations at a bar owned by Miguel Gonzales, and Martinez was set to prosecute the case.
The Gonzaleses challenged Martinez role as prosecutor in the case all the way to the state Supreme Court. The justices sided with the father and son, barring Martinez and her entire staff from prosecuting them. The high court noted that disqualifying a prosecutor should be a event and that barring an entire office should be more so. and Bregman did not highlight those portions of the Gonzales decision. Instead, they included a passage that says a judge has the burden to determine a reasonable person standing in the shoes of the defendant should be satisfied that his or her interests will not be compromised. and Bregman wrote: state has the burden of proof when an appearance of unfairness or impropriety arises because a member of a district attorney office is disqualified to show that the conflict should not be imputed to the entire office. investigation of Brandenburg for bribery or witness intimidation forms the bedrock for Robles and Bregman argument that an appearance of unfairness or impropriety has arisen in her case against the officers who shot Boyd.
case at issue is exactly the type of high profile and politically charged case where it is proper to disqualify the entire District Attorney Office, they wrote. Sandy and Perez not necessarily questioning the District Attorney motivation in filing charges against (APD) officers for the first time in her tenure shortly after an APD official stated he thought there was probable cause to charge her with several crimes. attorneys let a pair of Internet commenters who posted on an Albuquerque Journal story do that for them. Moreover, there are serious questions about the bribery case.
APD Detective David Nix was working with others at the department on the investigation of an alleged serial burglar in 2013. That October, one of the serial burglar alleged victims told Nix it had been Justin Koch, Brandenburg 26 year old son, who stole thousands of dollars worth of electronics from her and her boyfriend not the serial burglar.
The woman, Shane Anaya, also told Nix that Brandenburg had offered to reimburse her boyfriend, Ryan Sena, for the stolen items if the couple did not press charges against Koch.
Nix subsequently interviewed another alleged victim of Koch Andrew Baros, who said Brandenburg had reimbursed him for a stolen handgun. Baros told Nix that Brandenburg had not offered the payment in exchange for keeping quiet about the case.
From there, Nix executed a handful of search warrants for the email accounts, Facebook accounts and Craigslist postings from several of the people including Koch, Brandenburg, Baros, Anaya and Sena. The detective spent months sifting through thousands of pages. There was no clear evidence of bribery or intimidation of a witness anywhere, according to a News 13 review of the case file.
Nix appears to have finished his investigation last July. There was no activity in the case until Nov. 25, when APD dropped off more than 700 pages and 22 DVDs at the state Attorney General Office without so much as a heads up that it was coming. The case file Black Suede Lavalliere 100mm included a letter signed by Nix saying he believed there is probable cause that Brandenburg committed crimes.