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.
The fallout from the investigation into the case of Las Cruces’s Third District Court Judge Michael Murphy has proven to have not only political ramification but practical ones as well.
So far this year, there have been five murders in the Las Cruces area, and none of them are ready for trial. Overall, more than a dozen individuals in Doña Ana County are awaiting trial on murder charges (some cases going as far back as 1998), but actually getting those defendants into court could take years.
Given that Murphy has been taken off the bench since April, while district attorney Matt Chandler continues his investigation into charges of bribery against him, and that Judge Jim Martin, as a result, has been assigned away from criminal cases because he is a witness in the Murphy case, that leaves only Judge Fernando Macias to oversee and adjudicate the Las Cruces-area criminal cases.
Still, repercussions from the Murphy investigation aren’t the only obstacles standing in between these defendants and their right to a “fair and speedy trial.” For years, Doña Ana County officials have had to contend with shrinking budgets and smaller and smaller staffs at the DA’s office and public defenders office.
Relief, however, is hardly within sight. Murphy’s trial date is not only months away (February 5), but two weeks ago District Judge Leslie Smith reinstated four other felony charges against him.
