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Monday, November 21, 2022

Seeking A New BernCo DA; Will The Pick Come From The Inside? DA's Staff Weighs In As Guv Starts Taking Applications

Diana Garcia
Now it's time to find a new DA.  

With the new normal in the ABQ metro an ongoing crime wave still capable of delivering shocks, there are major challenges for the next BernCo district attorney. An appointee will finish out the term of current Dem DA and soon to be Attorney General Raul Torrez whose term runs through 2024. The Governor will make the appointment and her office is now taking applications. Torrez takes office as AG January 1.

Perhaps the post will go to someone already in the office and already up to their neck in the caseload. Deputy District Attorney Diana Garcia says she's applying. Garcia has been with the office over 16 years and has 25 years experience in the criminal justice system. If appointed, she would be the first female Hispanic woman to be BernCo DA. Meanwhile, a letter signed by 49 of the 55 non-supervising attorneys within the DA's office has been sent to the Governor asking her to appoint either Garcia or two other DA employees--Deputy DA Joshua Boone and John Duran.

Josh Boone
In regards to Boone, in a 2018 blog we questioned why a DWI charge against former Republican Gov. Martinez cabinet secretary Ryan Flynn was being pleaded out by the DA's office instead of prosecuted. That led other news media to investigate and they found:

. . . Additionally, because Boone’s direct supervisor, Metro Division Chief Jason Greenlee, was “really good friends” with lawyers on Flynn’s defense team, Boone told Torrez prosecutors had removed Greenlee from making any decisions about the case. But the Santa Fe Reporter and New Mexico In Depth have found that Greenlee was intimately involved with assessing evidence and negotiating Flynn’s plea throughout the case. Further, Boone, Greenlee and others misled SFR and NMID about the strength of Flynn’s case.

Outgoing District Attorney Torrez worked closely with the Martinez administration to successfully pressure the state Senate Finance Committee to secure more funding for his office.

John Duran
Duran is a former BernCo Metro Court Judge who has been associated with Martinez. She appointed him to the bench in 2013. In 2014 he ran for the seat as a Republican and was defeated. Martinez reappointed him soon after. In 2016 he ran as a Democrat in that year's primary but was defeated. 

Whoever gets the appointment can be expected to seek a full four year term beginning with the Democratic primary in 2024, assuming the Democratic Governor will appoint a Democratic DA--and one with little political baggage. 

Here are excepts from the letter to the Guv from attorneys in the DA's office: 

Those of us signing this letter are line attorneys from various divisions within the Second Judicial District Attorney’s Office. We all want to do everything in our power to keep Bernalillo County safe, and we need a leader who will enable us to do exactly that. In light of Raul Torrez’s recent election as the Attorney General, we are respectfully writing you to request that Joshua Boone, John Duran or Diana Garcia be appointed as the next District Attorney of the Second Judicial District. . . 

Under (Torrez')leadership, our office cleared out an extensive back log of cases that. . .Now, we are facing a backlog of cases that accumulated under the delays caused by the pandemic. In the first half of 2023 alone, the next District Attorney will have to deal with over a thousand cases that have been set for trial in the District Court. It will be imperative to the success of this office, and therefore the safety and welfare of our community, to have a District Attorney that can hit the ground running, that already understands how this office has been run and the systems that are already in place. . . 

The herculean job of the next District Attorney will require someone who already has considerable, and recent experience managing the people of this office specifically. As our caseloads continue to skyrocket and we struggle to fight the crime of the past and present simultaneously, we are asking for a leader who knows what we are up against, because they have been in the same position themselves. We are asking for someone who already knows the strengths and weaknesses of the individual employees, and already has a team in place that can immediately continue where DA Torrez left off. We believe that leader is already in our office. 

THE BOTTOM LINES

The state GOP House caucus has dumped two of its leaders following disappointing election results. 40 year old Rep. Ryan Lane of Aztec, just elected to his second term, is the new minority leader after Rep. James Townsend decided not to run again. GOP Whip Rod Montoya is also a goner. The new whip is Rep. Jason Harper of Rio Rancho and the caucus chair will be Rep. Gail Armstrong of Magdalena. The Dems are expected to have a 45 to 25 majority going into the 2023 session, so the GOP leadership change commanded little attention. . . 

In a first draft Thursday we blogged that the southern Second Congressional District originated in 1970. It actually was 1968. That's when that November Republican Ed Foreman was elected the first congressman from the district. 

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2022

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