Two legislators criticized the Judicial Standards Commission at Thursday’s committee meeting in
State reps. Ken Martinez, D-Grants, and Joseph Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, both made comments referencing the case of former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Susana Chaparro, who resigned earlier this year as part of an agreement with the Judicial Standards Commission. Chaparro was disciplined in 2005 by the state Supreme Court for improperly involving herself in her adult son’s traffic case.
“For heaven’s sake, a judge doesn’t stop being a parent, but now they’re afraid to go sit in court if their kid gets a speeding ticket,”
“I cannot fathom asking a judge to not be able to sit in a courtroom when their child has a speeding ticket,” Cervantes said.
Both made their comments as they criticized several recent actions of the commission.
Though the two did not name Chaparro’s as the case about which they were speaking, there have been no similar case in recent years. Commission Director Jim Noel said the comments made by the representatives do not reflect the facts of the Chaparro case.
“I agree wholeheartedly with Representative Cervantes and Representative Martinez. They’re exactly right. It would be absurd to think that a judge couldn’t sit in the back of the courtroom while his or her son or daughter was being arraigned on a traffic ticket,” Noel said. “There has never been a case before the commission reflective of what they’re suggesting. … The facts of (the Chaparro) case are vastly different than simply sitting in the back of a courtroom during an arraignment.”
In its formal reprimand of Chaparro, dated June 22, 2005, the high court found that she “directly involved herself in the criminal proceedings involving her son by contacting the sheriff to complain about how her son was allegedly mistreated, accessing her son’s file through private requests to the clerk’s office, calling the presiding judge’s clerk to reschedule a hearing due to her son experiencing car trouble, and attending hearings with her son, where members of the public were present, including the scheduled trial where the citation was ultimately dismissed.”
All this, the ruling states, means Chaparro “improperly involved herself in, and interfered with, the adjudication” of the case.
The court found that Chaparro’s actions were egregious enough, coupled with prior misconduct, that its justices rejected the commission’s recommendation for discipline and imposed tougher sanctions.
The commission asked for a 60-day suspension, to be deferred on the condition that Chaparro complete one year of supervised probation, but the court instead suspended Chaparro for two weeks without pay, with an additional six-week suspension that would be deferred if she completed a year of supervised probation.
Update, 2:15 p.m.
In an interview, Chaparro reiterated what she has maintained all along: She does not believe she did anything wrong or attempted to influence the decisions of the judges in the case.
Chaparro also said when her case was before the high court, Justice Edward Chavez asked Noel, “Do you mean if my son got a ticket I couldn’t accompany him?” Chaparro says Noel told Chavez he could not.
A copy of the transcript, provided by Noel, states that Chavez did ask such a question. Noel answered this way:
“Justice Chavez, that matter is not before this court and that’s a matter that I think is for another day,” Noel said.
He then went on to tell Chavez that if such a complaint came to the commission it would investigate, but that the findings of the commission in the Chaparro case are much different.
“What the commission found is she did more than just sit in the gallery,” Noel said, according to the transcript. “She involved herself. She tried to steer the direction of the adjudication of that case.”
Chaparro said she stands by her memory of the hearing.
“I can tell you that’s what I recall that happened,” she said.