I am writing today to announce the closure of the New Mexico Independent. After three and a half years of operation in New Mexico, the board of the American Independent News Network, has decided to shift publication of its news…
While environmental activists played their part yesterday during demonstrations at the capitol building, going so far as to dress up as solar panels and to sing the tune of “You Are My Sunshine,” their counterparts, the anti-cap-and-trade contingency who has…
Roughly one quarter of University of New Mexico students are unimpressed with the state’s flagship public school, according to a survey that questioned college students about their higher education experiences.
Gary C. Mitchell is president of ACLU-NM
Marino Leyba, Jr., who Santa Fe police say shot and killed his pregnant girlfriend and her father in May, is being represented by Gary C. Mitchell of Ruidoso, who has defended 70 death penalty cases and who happens to be the president of the board of directors of the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico.Leyba has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, the Santa Fe New Mexican reported this week, and Mitchell told the paper that there was a history of mental illness in Leyba’s family.
In March, Gov. Richardson signed a bill abolishing capital punishment in New Mexico, but the law only applies to crimes committed after July 1, 2009.
Leyba carried a 9 mm handgun for his job as a security guard; police say he was wearing the uniform and carrying the gun the night he shot Sarah Lovato and her father, Bennie Lovato, Sr.
Lovato was just weeks away from giving birth when she was shot, first in the belly, and then in the torso. Prosecutors say he intentionally tried to kill the baby, whom the couple had planned to name Isaac.
After the murder, state Rep. Larry Larrañaga, an Albuquerque Republican, told NMI he planned to ask Gov. Bill Richardson to add a controversial proposal — the Unborn Victims of Violence Act— to the agenda for the next legislative session.
The bill, which Larrañaga also introduced in 2005, would allow for a defendant to be charged with murder in the death of a fetus, even if neither the murderer nor the woman knew she was pregnant.
As NMI has reported, some domestic violence activists and other advocates for women’s rights are opposed to laws such as the Unborn Victims of Violence Act, saying they are too often used against pregnant women themselves.
Such laws are strongly supported by anti-abortion groups and opposed by many in the pro-choice camp, who say they are part of a long-term plan to establish rights for fetuses—at the expense of rights for women—and overturn the right to an abortion guaranteed by Roe v. Wade.
Update: Mitchell is representing Leyba through his private practice and not on behalf of ACLU.
