{"id":18239,"date":"2010-06-04T00:28:19","date_gmt":"2010-06-04T06:28:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=18239"},"modified":"2010-06-06T22:38:36","modified_gmt":"2010-06-07T04:38:36","slug":"candidates-spar-over-martinez%e2%80%99s-record","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/06\/candidates-spar-over-martinez%e2%80%99s-record\/","title":{"rendered":"Candidates spar over Martinez\u2019s record"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Susana Martinez (left, courtesy photo) and Diane Denish (Photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/p><\/div>\n

An analysis of the claims Diane Denish<\/a> makes against Susana Martinez<\/a> in a new TV ad reveals a complicated situation that has sparked discussion about the accuracy of statistics kept by the state\u2019s Administrative Office of the Courts<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The ad from the Democratic candidate for governor accuses Martinez, Denish\u2019s GOP opponent, of breaking a promise to not plea bargain DWI cases and of having the worst homicide conviction rate in the state as Do\u00f1a Ana County\u2019s district attorney.<\/p>\n

\u201cSusana Martinez won the Republican nomination with sound bites and empty promises, but in reality, she\u2019s been a failed district attorney who doesn\u2019t deserve a promotion,\u201d Denish spokesman Chris Cervini said in a news release.<\/p>\n

The claims in the ad, which you can view here<\/a>, are based on statistics compiled by the Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC) \u2013 statistics that, in the case of the homicide conviction rate, Martinez says are wrong.<\/p>\n

And AOC Director Arthur Pepin, while being careful to stay away from the political fight between Martinez and Denish, said the statistics can be interpreted in different ways and weren\u2019t intended to be used for political purposes. His office doesn\u2019t use the data it collects to determine conviction rates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re certainly not going to get in the business of saying this is the lowest conviction rate, because there are different ways of looking at the statistics,\u201d Pepin said.<\/p>\n

While Martinez\u2019s campaign is now complaining about the accuracy of the AOC statistics, she has cited the agency\u2019s numbers in the past to defend herself against election-year attacks \u2013 most recently to rebut allegations made by the state Democratic Party about her plea bargaining DWI cases.<\/p>\n

You can view the statistics compiled by the AOC from July 1998 to June 2009 for all district attorneys here<\/a>. You can also view the fact sheet the Denish campaign released in support of its new ad here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The DWI claim<\/h3>\n

Denish\u2019s ad starts by bringing up allegations already made by the state Democratic Party<\/a> that Martinez broke a promise to not plea bargain DWI cases. The ad says Martinez has plea bargained more than 800 as district attorney.<\/p>\n

The Democratic Party, when it unveiled this allegation last month, trotted out three Democratic county sheriffs to say the stats prove that Martinez has been soft on DWI offenders. Denish\u2019s ad doesn\u2019t accuse Martinez of being soft on crime \u2013 only of breaking a promise to not plea bargain cases.<\/p>\n

The claim is based on Martinez being quoted by the Las Cruces Sun-News in 2004 as saying her office \u201cwill not plea bargain a DWI case. We don\u2019t pretend it is a first or second offense just to move the court docket along.\u201d<\/p>\n

The context of Martinez\u2019s statement appears to be that her office won\u2019t plea bargain a felony DWI \u2013 a fourth offense or higher \u2013 down to a misdemeanor DWI. When the Democrats launched their attack in May, Martinez admitted that she has entered into such plea bargains, but said she did only in \u201climited cases when a prior DWI cannot be proven, such as when another agency is unable to produce a record of a past conviction or when the evidence does not support the felony DWI.\u201d<\/p>\n

So Martinez was quoted as making an absolute statement in 2004 \u2013 that she would not plea bargain a felony DWI case down to a misdemeanor \u2013 even though in at least \u201climited\u201d cases she did just that.<\/p>\n

The Denish campaign pointed to one 2008 case<\/a> in which defendant Jamie Cardenas was initially charged with a sixth DWI offense \u2013 a felony \u2013 but later entered into a deal in which he admitted to a misdemeanor third offense. That happened even though, in the plea and disposition agreement, Cardenas acknowledged that he had five prior DWI convictions.<\/p>\n

Denish Campaign Manager Oren Shur said that\u2019s \u201cone example we quickly found.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Susana Martinez was willing to break a campaign pledge on something as serious as being tough on felony DWI offenders, why would New Mexicans believe anything she has to say in this campaign?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

How many cases were pleaded down to misdemeanors?<\/h3>\n

The AOC statistics show that Martinez\u2019s office has entered into hundreds of plea bargains in cases involving DWIs over the years. But it\u2019s not clear from the AOC statistics how many of those 800-plus cases were plea bargained down from a felony to a misdemeanor. Though Martinez has said the number is \u201climited,\u201d neither campaign has provided a figure.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Pepin said any case that includes a DWI charge is listed in the AOC statistics as a DWI case. Those listed as resulting in plea bargains could include two different types of cases:<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cases in which DWIs are pleaded down from a felony to a misdemeanor offense.<\/p>\n

\u2022 Cases in which a defendant agrees to plead guilty or no contest to a felony DWI charge in exchange for other charges \u2013 such as speeding or not wearing a seatbelt \u2013 being dropped.<\/p>\n

Doing her own citing of the AOC statistics, Martinez claimed in May that her office has a 90 percent conviction rate on felony DWIs. She said her office has \u201cthe lowest\u00a0plea bargain rate\u00a0in the state for felony DWIs\u201d among the \u201cmajor judicial districts.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Soft on crime she is not\u2019<\/h3>\n

C.J. McElhinney, a Las Cruces defense attorney who has gone up against Martinez\u2019s office in DWI cases, said the Democratic Party\u2019s assertion that Martinez is soft on crime is false. He pointed to the fact that the AOC statistics include cases in which other charges were dropped in exchange for a conviction on a DWI charge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have\u00a0defended dozens of DUI cases here in Do\u00f1a Ana County and can tell you that the plea offers extended by Susana\u2019s office are usually horrible for the defense. I don\u2019t think I have ever seen a felony DWI dropped to a misdemeanor here in Do\u00f1a Ana County,\u201d McElhinney, who describes himself as \u201cno supporter of Susana,\u201d recently wrote in a discussion on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you want to attack Susana, I\u2019d suggest that you not insinuate she\u2019s soft on crime, because her prosecutorial policies are somewhere between Soviet Russia and the Spanish Inquisition,\u201d he said. \u201cSoft on crime she is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The homicide conviction claim<\/h3>\n

Denish\u2019s ad also claims that Martinez\u2019s homicide conviction rate is \u201cthe worst in New Mexico,\u201d again citing the AOC statistics from July 1998 to June 2009.<\/p>\n

For example, the AOC statistics from 2008 show that Martinez\u2019s office won one conviction and entered into two plea bargains in homicide cases. In another case the defendant was acquitted, and one case was dismissed by Martinez\u2019s office.<\/p>\n

The Denish campaign interpreted that as Martinez winning convictions in three of five cases, or 60 percent of the time. Using that interpretation, Denish\u2019s campaign said Martinez won convictions in 33 of 55 cases from July 1998 to June 2009 \u2013 a rate of 60 percent.<\/p>\n

Martinez says the AOC statistics are simply wrong, and to make matters worse they are being misinterpreted by Denish\u2019s campaign. At least one of the cases the AOC lists as \u201cDismissed by prosecutor\u201d \u2013 and that Denish counted against Martinez\u2019s conviction rate \u2013 involved a defendant who died before trial.<\/p>\n

That case shouldn\u2019t have been counted against Martinez\u2019s conviction rate, her campaign said.<\/p>\n

Martinez\u2019s campaign provided a list of what she said were all murder cases in Do\u00f1a Ana County from 2000-2010 (click here<\/a> to view it). Of those 79 cases, 40 are still pending. Thirty-five of the other 39 \u2013 or 89.7 percent \u2013 resulted in convictions, the Martinez campaign said. The other four included two acquittals, one case that was dropped by the DA and one conviction that was reversed on appeal.<\/p>\n

\u201cLess than 24 hours into the general election, Lt. Gov. Diane Denish has already launched her first negative and patently false attack against my record,\u201d Martinez said in a news release. \u201cI am not surprised Bill Richardson\u2019s \u2018good, loyal soldier\u2019 is not anxious to discuss how she has been at the center of an administration that has produced a massive budget deficit, grown government and perpetuated a culture of corruption.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Different ways to play with the statistics\u2019<\/h3>\n

The statistics Denish\u2019s campaign is using come from the \u201cFelony Homicide\u201d category AOC uses, which don\u2019t include vehicular homicide. Pepin said he believes the category includes all other types of homicide.<\/p>\n

Pepin cautioned that the data \u201ccan be moved in different ways,\u201d saying there are \u201cdifferent ways to play with the statistics.\u201d He said his office doesn\u2019t compile statistics for political reasons and is always cautious about responding when they are used for political purposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not running for office,\u201d Pepin said. \u201cWe don\u2019t publish the data so that we can make some kind of a political point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pepin initially said he was confident in the accuracy of the AOC statistics, even while he added that they could be interpreted in different ways. After becoming aware of Martinez\u2019s claim that the statistics aren\u2019t accurate, Pepin said there could be mistakes.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe\u2019s got the files, so she should know what she\u2019s talking about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u2018The only non-partisan data available\u2019<\/h3>\n

Responding to Martinez\u2019s claim that the AOC statistics aren\u2019t accurate, Shur, Denish\u2019s campaign manager, was quick to point out that Martinez has cited AOC statistics in the past to defend her record. In addition to referring to them last month in response to the DWI plea bargain situation, Martinez cited the AOC statistics in 2004 to claim that she had a 96 percent conviction rate.<\/p>\n

She also defended the statistics when her opponent in that year\u2019s district attorney race claimed her conviction rate wasn\u2019t that high. According to the Las Cruces Sun-News, Martinez said at the time that the Legislature used the AOC statistics in deciding to fund another judgeship in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the only non-partisan data available to the public, Susana Martinez has the worst murder conviction rate in the state.\u00a0 That\u2019s without question,\u201d Shur said. \u201cIt\u2019s not surprising that she\u2019d want to create a new set of data behind closed doors, but given her pattern of stretching the truth, it\u2019s really hard to trust anything she says about her record.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An analysis of the claims Diane Denish makes against Susana Martinez in a new TV ad reveals a complicated situation that has sparked discussion about the accuracy of statistics kept by the state\u2019s Administrative Office of the Courts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1],"tags":[108,107],"class_list":["post-18239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","category-uncategorized","tag-2010-election","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18239","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=18239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}