{"id":18678,"date":"2010-06-23T00:28:13","date_gmt":"2010-06-23T06:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=18678"},"modified":"2010-06-24T07:58:15","modified_gmt":"2010-06-24T13:58:15","slug":"denish%e2%80%99s-new-ad-makes-an-unsubstantiated-leap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2010\/06\/denish%e2%80%99s-new-ad-makes-an-unsubstantiated-leap\/","title":{"rendered":"Denish\u2019s new ad makes an unsubstantiated leap"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/dt>\n
Susana Martinez (left, courtesy photo) and Diane Denish (photo by Heath Haussamen)<\/dd>\n<\/dl>\n

Diane Denish\u2019s<\/a> newest TV ad attacking Susana Martinez<\/a> for plea bargaining two cases involving crimes against children makes an unsubstantiated leap when it claims Martinez \u201callowed\u201d child predators to avoid the sex offender registry.<\/p>\n

In the ad, Denish highlights two cases \u2013 those involving a coach in the Hatch school district and a janitor in the Las Cruces district \u2013 who were charged with sex crimes against students at the schools where they worked.<\/p>\n

The ad states that Martinez \u201ccut deals\u201d and \u201callowed these child predators to avoid publically registering as sex offenders.\u201d But what if the plea bargains were necessary?<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the ad:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

I was a police reporter for years at the Las Cruces Sun-News. In fact, I wrote the initial articles when both Shawn Bohannon and Hector Montes \u2013 the defendants in the cases in question \u2013 were charged. I have seen how difficult testifying can be for many victims, especially children.<\/p>\n

What if the victims in these cases were unwilling or otherwise unable to testify, and without their testimony Martinez\u2019s office did not have the evidence to win convictions? Sure, sometimes a prosecutor can get a conviction on a sex-crime charge without a victim\u2019s testimony, but that\u2019s not true in every case.<\/p>\n

If there wasn\u2019t enough evidence to win convictions in these cases, should Martinez have taken them to trial \u2013 and lost them \u2013 just so she could say she never plea bargained with a sex offender? Or should she have done everything she could to obtain the maximum convictions possible?<\/p>\n

Bohannon faced 29 fourth-degree felony counts of rape and molestation and other charges involving three teen girls. He admitted in his plea bargain to child abuse, a third-degree felony, and 14 counts of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, a fourth-degree felony. (Read the case file here<\/a>, courtesy of Denish\u2019s campaign.)<\/p>\n

The charges to which Bohannon admitted didn\u2019t require him to register as a sex offender.<\/p>\n

Montes was charged with one count of molesting a girl at Las Cruces High School but agreed to a plea bargain in which he instead admitted to contributing to the delinquency of a minor. The conviction didn\u2019t require him to register as a sex offender. (Read the case file here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

Sex offender registry not for \u2018use as a plea bargain carrot\u2019<\/h3>\n

Denish\u2019s ad states that the plea bargains resulted \u201cbecause Susana Martinez didn\u2019t do her job.\u201d I asked Denish\u2019s campaign staff how they know the failure to win stronger convictions was due to Martinez not doing her job instead of other factors such as victims being unable or unwilling to testify.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The response, from Denish spokesman Chris Cervini:<\/p>\n

\u201cDiane isn\u2019t a lawyer, but she\u2019s a mother and a grandmother, and she knows it\u2019s wrong to cut deals with sexual predators that allow them to stay off the public sex offender registry. In these cases, these offenders worked at local schools. Every parent in the area should be able to look them up and keep their children away \u2013 that\u2019s why we have the public sex offender registry. It\u2019s not there for Martinez to use as a plea bargain carrot.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which doesn\u2019t really explain how or even if Denish knows Martinez had an option other than plea-bargaining or taking a case to trial she couldn\u2019t win.<\/p>\n

In a follow-up statement, Cervini said this:<\/p>\n

\u201c(Bohannon) was charged with 41 counts of criminal sexual penetration and sexual contact with a minor, and to get him on the sex-offender list, all Martinez would have had to do is get a conviction on one count of sexual contact. But instead of getting the job done, she cut a deal that gave this sex offender exactly what he wanted \u2013 a pass to stay off the sex offender registry. That\u2019s plain wrong and a major failure on her part.\u00a0These are exactly the types of offenders you count on your DA to get \u2013 particularly if that DA has made her entire candidacy\u00a0for governor\u00a0about her record of\u00a0locking up bad guys.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2018The toll\u2026 testifying can take on a sexual abuse victim\u2019<\/h3>\n

So I asked the Martinez campaign why the cases were plea-bargained. Here\u2019s what Campaign Manager Adam Deguire said:<\/p>\n

\u201cThere weren\u2019t one or two school sexual abuse cases, but a series of them that shook the Las Cruces community. Susana Martinez fought for the maximum penalty in each case that the facts and circumstances would allow, and the claim that she didn\u2019t do her job is utterly false. Sadly, it doesn\u2019t seem Denish understands all of the circumstances that surround these cases, such as the toll a criminal trial and testifying can take on a sexual abuse victim. All of these factors must be considered by prosecutors in working to achieve justice for victims and protecting our community. Had Denish simply checked court transcripts in the case she cites in her advertisement attacking Susana Martinez, she would have seen that the victims themselves supported the agreement.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That\u2019s true in the Bohannon case, according to a partial transcript the Martinez campaign provided. At the hearing on the plea bargain, Chief Deputy District Attorney Susan Reidel said Bohannon\u2019s victims \u201care in agreement with entering the plea in this case and they understand the point behind that.\u201d The attorney for the victims affirmed that.<\/p>\n

Reidel said this about the reason for the plea bargain:<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026as we prepared for trial, all parties came to a realization that for the victims as well as the community of Hatch that this would be the best thing to get in this case, to resolve this before trial and not drag everyone through this.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can listen to audio of the mother of one of the victims explaining why she wanted a plea bargain here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very thankful for this plea agreement because I did not want to see her have to go through all, relive all of this stuff again,\u201d that mother said. \u201cShe\u2019s kind of gotten past it. She just graduated. Life\u2019s good again, you know, we\u2019re moving on and so we want to move on. We don\u2019t want to have to sit here and live in that past that we have had to live through for the last three years.\u201d<\/p>\n

In response to Denish\u2019s ad, Martinez unveiled her own spot that also refers to the toll testifying takes on victims. Here\u2019s the ad, which features Jessica, a victim in another of the cases that occurred around the same time as those featured in Denish\u2019s ad:<\/p>\n

<\/embed><\/object><\/p>\n

\u201cDiane Denish does not understand, to attack not only Susana on this, but in a way it\u2019s attacking the victims,\u201d Jessica says in the ad.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t campaigns have to substantiate claims?<\/h3>\n

The bottom line: Denish\u2019s new ad makes a leap it doesn\u2019t substantiate. The claim is also not proven in the fact sheet<\/a> Denish\u2019s campaign provided to accompany the ad, or in statements provided to me.<\/p>\n

The Denish campaign seems to believe it\u2019s appropriate to make an unsubstantiated allegation and place the burden on Martinez to prove it wrong. This is the sort of negative, spin-based campaigning I complained about last week when I blasted both campaigns<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Shouldn\u2019t the burden be on campaigns to back up their attacks with facts?<\/p>\n

Haussamen bio<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Commentary archives<\/a> \u2502\u00a0Feed<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Diane Denish\u2019s newest TV ad attacking Susana Martinez for plea bargaining two cases involving crimes against children makes an unsubstantiated leap when it claims Martinez \u201callowed\u201d child predators to avoid the sex offender registry.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[108,142,107],"class_list":["post-18678","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-2010-election","tag-crime","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18678","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=18678"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18678\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18678"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18678"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18678"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}