City judges won’t be forced off criminal cases because of lawsuit, Robles rules

A district judge has denied a request by the City of Las Cruces to force the two municipal judges to recuse themselves from cases the city is prosecuting.

The request from the city attorney’s office came in response to a lawsuit the judges have filed against the city, and is part of a larger dispute that has put on hold dozens of drunken driving and domestic violence cases. In denying the request Tuesday, Robles said there was no evidence that the lawsuit would affect the judges’ ability to preside over cases involving the city attorney’s office.

City Manager Terrence Moore said the cases will proceed before the two judges, now that the recusal issue has been resolved.

The dispute began when the judges, Melissa Miller-Byrnes and James T. Locatelli, complained to city management about the handling of cases by prosecutors and police in 2004. When mediation failed, they wrote a letter to the Las Cruces Sun-News alleging incompetence by police and city prosecutors.

After the letter was published, the city attorney’s office filed a complaint with the Judicial Standards Commission, which asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to discipline the judges. The high court dismissed the complaint related to the letter, but chastised Miller-Byrnes for calling one city prosecutor a “smart ass.”

The judges filed a lawsuit in May seeking reimbursement from the city of more than $100,000 they spent defending themselves against the complaint. A motion by the city to dismiss that case is currently being considered by District Judge Jerald A. Valentine.

That led the city attorney’s office to request recusals on all cases its attorneys prosecuted. But Robles indicated in his ruling that there was not reason for him to order that.

“It is not reasonable to infer that the respondent municipal judges are biased against the city attorney personally merely because they have sued him in his official capacity. Nothing that the respondent judges could do in connection with the cases they hear in municipal court could affect the outcome of their suit against the city,” Robles wrote. “Any possible bias or interest that the respondent judges could have in any case coming before them would be too indirect, remote, speculative or theoretical to compel a blanket recusal.”

Moore said the city attorney’s office began refilling last week the drunken driving and domestic violence cases it had previously dismissed while it awaited the results of its request for recusal. Though the city attorney’s office requested that Robles order the judges to recuse themselves, Moore said the intent to was to receive clarification on whether the judges should recuse themselves.