{"id":1117,"date":"2007-01-18T04:41:00","date_gmt":"2007-01-18T10:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/01\/federal-judge-dismisses-most-claims-of-favoritism-against-former-sheriff-juan-hernandez\/"},"modified":"2007-01-18T04:41:00","modified_gmt":"2007-01-18T10:41:00","slug":"federal-judge-dismisses-most-claims-of-favoritism-against-former-sheriff-juan-hernandez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2007\/01\/federal-judge-dismisses-most-claims-of-favoritism-against-former-sheriff-juan-hernandez\/","title":{"rendered":"Federal judge dismisses most claims of favoritism against former Sheriff Juan Hernandez"},"content":{"rendered":"

A federal judge has tossed out most of the complaints stated in a lawsuit alleging that former Do\u00f1a Ana County Sheriff Juan Hernandez and others rigged the hiring and promotion system to benefit his friends and punish his enemies.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

In tossing out all complaints made by former Undersheriff Frank Ruiz and most made by another former employee of the sheriff\u2019s department, Annette Apodaca Jones, U.S. District Judge Bruce D. Black ruled that almost all the complaints in the case didn\u2019t meet the legal standards required to proceed.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

He also dismissed a request to make the case a class-action lawsuit and allow other plaintiffs to join. All that remains is a breach-of-contract claim made by Jones.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cThe ruling speaks for itself, and now we move on to other important matters that demand the county\u2019s attention,\u201d county spokesman Jess Williams said.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

You can read Black\u2019s ruling by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The lawsuit was filed in August 2005, several months after Hernandez resigned because he was hampered by an unusual form of dementia. The lawsuit was preceded by several grievances filed by employees of the department against Hernandez alleging favoritism, harassment and retaliation.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Among other claims, Ruiz alleged in the lawsuit that Hernandez violated his First Amendment rights by lobbying the commission, after he resigned, to not appoint Ruiz sheriff. Hernandez instead supported applicant Mark Perea, a sergeant in the department. The commission appointed current Sheriff Todd Garrison.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Black ruled that Hernandez was a private citizen who had his own First Amendment right to petition the government.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

\u201cDefendant Hernandez simply lobbied the board to reject Ruiz as a candidate and appoint someone else as sheriff, and that is exactly what happened,\u201d Black wrote in his ruling. \u201cRuiz cannot base his own First Amendment claim against Hernandez on Hernandez\u2019s own exercise of his First-Amendment right.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The lawsuit listed 17 actions of favoritism as examples. What\u2019s left is Jones\u2019 claim that she was denied a promotion when a county human resources employee leaked test questions to Hernandez so he could provide them to a friend who had applied for the same job.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The test score was one determining factor in who was hired for the job.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

Following that, Jones claims, Hernandez blocked any chance she had for promotion.<\/p>\n

<\/o:p><\/p>\n

The case was originally filed in state district court, and has been delayed by the transition to federal court. Hernandez and other county officials remain defendants. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A federal judge has tossed out most of the complaints stated in a lawsuit alleging that former Do\u00f1a Ana County Sheriff Juan Hernandez and others rigged the hiring and promotion system to benefit his friends and punish his enemies. In tossing out all complaints made by former Undersheriff Frank Ruiz and most made by another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1117\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}