Joseph Guillory (Photo by Heath Haussamen)
A Doña Ana County magistrate judge who was suspended earlier this year because of a host of problems with the way he conducted himself at the court resigned abruptly on Tuesday, the Las Cruces Sun-News is reporting.
Joseph Guillory sent a letter to Supreme Court justices and the governor announcing his immediate resignation. According to the Sun-News, Guillory said “he and his wife have suffered poor health since his suspension and that he risks bankruptcy if he chooses to defend himself in court against allegations of misconduct.”
In addition:
“…he said Tuesday he and his agent are picking a cover and a title to a nearly completed tell-nearly-all memoir, penned with the assistance of two professional authors, about his time on the bench and his 26 years in law enforcement.”
Guillory was suspended for two months without pay in January for a number of issues detailed in Judicial Standards Commission records:
- He “abused the contempt power” in two cases “by denying fair treatment to the defendants and holding the defendants in contempt without proper justification.”
- He also “failed, refused, or was unable to perform his judicial duties” – including a refusal to arraign defendants in at least four cases, a failure to properly sentence individuals in at least six cases, and a failure to complete arraignment forms correctly in at least six cases.
- Guillory “engaged in ex parte communications with litigants.” Specifically, he was visiting with litigants, officers and bail bondsmen during smoke breaks, discussing specific cases “outside and in front of the courthouse.”
- The judge also “regularly took short naps at his desk during the noon hour, within view of the court staff and the public,” and on one occasion, fell asleep “while three defendants were waiting for paperwork from his clerk.”Advertisement
- While hearing one case in 2008, Guillory assisted an officer “in presenting his case.”
- Within earshot of the public, he voiced his “discontentment” with Presiding Magistrate Judge Oscar Frietze and referred to him “in a condescending manner.”
According to the Sun-News, since then “other complaints have alleged that Guillory was unable to handle his case load – 80 to 85 cases a day, he said – and that he took too much time off – 18 days – after the sudden death of his 41-year-old daughter in April.”
“They throw so much on the wall and hope it sticks,” the newspaper quoted Guillory as stating in his letter, adding that he wrote that a defense against the “petty allegations” would cost $150,000.
“I could bring in a hundred lawyers to vindicate my bruised reputation,” the newspaper quoted Guillory’s letter as saying. “But my instincts tell me it is time to pull stakes and move on.”