{"id":30781,"date":"2011-07-29T08:07:35","date_gmt":"2011-07-29T14:07:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=30781"},"modified":"2011-10-20T10:06:31","modified_gmt":"2011-10-20T16:06:31","slug":"murphy%e2%80%99s-lawyer-says-new-charge-is-politically-motivated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2011\/07\/murphy%e2%80%99s-lawyer-says-new-charge-is-politically-motivated\/","title":{"rendered":"Murphy\u2019s lawyer says new charge is politically motivated"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Third Judicial District Judge Mike Murphy<\/p><\/div>\n

The attorney representing Third Judicial Judge Mike Murphy says the judge\u2019s Thursday arrest on a new felony charge is politically motivated.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only goal of this charge and this warrant is to seek to humiliate through images of incarceration for an apparent political purpose,\u201d Las Cruces attorney Michael Stout said. \u201cIt has nothing\u00a0to do with\u00a0pursuing justice. Not only is the charge unfounded, but the warrant is improper.\u201d<\/p>\n

Murphy was arrested Thursday<\/a> and charged with bribery. He allegedly offered to help defend District Judge Lisa Schultz against an investigation into an ethical complaint if she agreed to be the tie-breaking vote to make Douglas R. Driggers the chief judge in Las Cruces.<\/p>\n

Murphy is already on suspension without pay because of the other bribery case against him. In that case, Murphy is facing\u00a0felony bribery charges<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0a misdemeanor charge<\/a>\u00a0of violating the state\u2019s Governmental Conduct Act.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors\u00a0allege in that case that Murphy solicited a bribe<\/a> from potential judicial applicant Beverly Singleman, told District Judge Lisa Schultz to tell Singleman she needed to pay the bribe, and threatened to destroy Singleman\u2019s reputation for telling others that he solicited a bribe from her.<\/p>\n

Murphy has\u00a0pleaded not guilty<\/a>. His trial is\u00a0scheduled to start Oct. 31<\/a>, but his attorney is\u00a0seeking dismissal of the charges<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Special prosecutor Matt Chandler said Thursday he will seek to have Murphy indicted on the new charge in the next two weeks and, if he\u2019s successful, will seek to have both cases combined.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s Stout\u2019s full statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe only goal of this charge and this warrant is to seek to humiliate through images of incarceration for an apparent political purpose. \u00a0It has nothing\u00a0to do with\u00a0pursuing justice. Not only is the charge unfounded, but the warrant is improper.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is\u00a0no legitimate reason for seeking the arrest of a district judge who has consistently met all of the court\u2019s requirements for release.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe presiding judge, Judge Smith, was not even aware of the warrant and previously denied the prosecutor\u2019s request for a warrant \u2013 first for a felony and then for a misdemeanor. Before that Judge Robinson had stated that serving a warrant would be unprofessional and inappropriate. Despite being denied his requests by two district judges the prosecution continued to improperly seek a warrant, this time from a magistrate judge.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe prosecution has had the information concerning this charge for many months, yet it did not present it to the grand jury when it had the chance, and now it acts as though there is an emergency when Judge Murphy\u2019s counsel happens to be out of state.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis latest gambit is yet another abuse of prosecutorial authority.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe defense will address the propriety of this conduct by motions before the court.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A prior version of this article incorrectly stated that Murphy is charged with paying a bribe for his position.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The attorney representing Third Judicial Judge Mike Murphy says the judge\u2019s Thursday arrest on a new felony charge is politically motivated.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[112,142,115,216,161,114],"class_list":["post-30781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-bill-richardson","tag-crime","tag-dona-ana-county","tag-judge-murphy","tag-judiciary","tag-public-corruption"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30781","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=30781"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30781\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}