{"id":596,"date":"2006-09-20T12:58:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-20T18:58:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/09\/garza-says-he-may-not-comply-with-high-court-order-to-submit-to-drug-test-today-may-resign\/"},"modified":"2006-09-20T12:58:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-20T18:58:00","slug":"garza-says-he-may-not-comply-with-high-court-order-to-submit-to-drug-test-today-may-resign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2006\/09\/garza-says-he-may-not-comply-with-high-court-order-to-submit-to-drug-test-today-may-resign\/","title":{"rendered":"Garza says he may not comply with high court order to submit to drug test today, may resign"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Do\u00f1a Ana County Magistrate Judge Carlos Garza is considering whether to comply with an order from the New Mexico Supreme Court that he submit to a drug test by the end of the day.<\/p>\n

Following a hearing Wednesday morning in Santa Fe, the high court suspended Garza for 30 days without pay and ordered him to undergo a hair test for illegal drugs before the end of the business day. Garza said after the hearing that he does not know whether he will do that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI might,\u201d he said. \u201c\u2026 I don\u2019t know whether I want to satisfy their curiosity at this point.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza said there is also a possibility he will resign.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know whether I want to remain a part of this organization any longer. I\u2019m disgusted. It\u2019s unfair,\u201d Garza said.<\/p>\n

Garza had already been placed on suspension with pay by the high court through Nov. 3, while the Judicial Standards Commission investigates serious allegations against him stemming from five separate inquiries. Wednesday\u2019s hearing was on a separate petition to suspend Garza without pay, force him to undergo urine and hair tests for illegal drugs, and explain why he should not be held in contempt for refusing the commission\u2019s previous demand for the tests, which were sought because of allegations that Garza is using drugs.<\/p>\n

The high court\u2019s justices told the commission it could decide whether to hold Garza in contempt, and did not order Garza to undergo a urine test. Before justices decided against ordering a urine test, Garza\u2019s attorney, Regina Ryanczak of Alamogordo, submitted to justices the results of a urine test she said Garza took four days after the commission ordered the tests last month. That test did not reveal drugs in his system.<\/p>\n

Justices will review Garza\u2019s unpaid suspension at a later date to determine whether it should be extended.<\/p>\n

The commission accuses Garza of intentionally evading service of the order to submit to drug testing within 24 hours of receiving it.<\/p>\n

At the hearing before the high court, new details emerged about the other investigations into alleged misconduct by Garza, and Commission Director Jim Noel told justices the commission will hold a secret hearing on those pending matters on Oct. 10.<\/p>\n

Those other investigations, according to Noel, are into allegations:<\/p>\n

\u2022 that Garza violated local court rules of the Do\u00f1a Ana County Magistrate Court.<\/p>\n

\u2022 that he \u201cattempted to bring a minor into a bar.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2022 that he was in a car with Lauren Spillsbury when she was pulled over for speeding, and asked the police officer, \u201cDo you know who I am?\u201d and told Spillsbury, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, I\u2019ll take care of these tickets.\u201d Garza was disciplined earlier this year in a separate case for improperly involving himself in a drunken driving case against Spillsbury.<\/p>\n

\u2022 that he ordered Spillsbury\u2019s license cleared of any suspensions in the middle of a pending case.<\/p>\n

\u2022 that he was removed from the on-call list of judges who can sign warrant requests from police officers because, on two occasions, he revealed the identities of undercover officers to people at a bar.<\/p>\n

But justices didn\u2019t address any of those allegations Wednesday, and will wait to see whether the commission asks them to take action against Garza related to those allegations.<\/p>\n

At the hearing, Noel made his plea to the court for Garza\u2019s suspension without pay and the ordering of drug tests, and complained that Garza\u2019s actions have hurt the case against him because, more than a month after the tests were ordered, results might not reveal what they would have then.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of Judge Garza\u2019s actions, the commission has lost evidence irretrievably,\u201d Noel said. \u201c\u2026 The court should not tolerate such action from a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza\u2019s attorney said the commission rule and order from the high court allowing the commission to order drug tests violate the New Mexico Constitution and Garza\u2019s right to be free from unreasonable search.<\/p>\n

\u201cA judge is no less entitled to his constitutional rights than a criminal on the streets or anyone else,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But Ryanczak said she was applying the standards of criminal law in making her argument. At least one justice asked a question indicating that he might agree with Noel\u2019s contention that the commission process is administrative, and the standards of criminal law do not apply.<\/p>\n

Garza shook his head repeatedly during the hearing and asked his attorney to allow him to speak. After she told him no, Garza stood and asked the court to allow him to speak, saying if he did not, \u201cI will regret it forever.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justices did not allow Garza to address them.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m very extremely disappointed in this procedure today,\u201d Garza said after the hearing. \u201cI have not had an opportunity to defend myself to date.\u201d<\/p>\n

Garza did submit in writing an answer to the commission\u2019s petition on the drug allegations, but has not had an opportunity to orally defend himself.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese charges have been tacked on and tacked on and tacked on,\u201d Garza said. \u201c\u2026 They basically want to get rid of me.\u201d<\/p>\n

A prior version of this posting incorrectly stated that Garza is accused of revealing the identities of undercover officers to attorneys. Also, the photo included in this posting was taken at Garza\u2019s hearing Wednesday in Santa Fe<\/st1:place><\/st1:city>.<\/o:p><\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Do\u00f1a Ana County Magistrate Judge Carlos Garza is considering whether to comply with an order from the New Mexico Supreme Court that he submit to a drug test by the end of the day. Following a hearing Wednesday morning in Santa Fe, the high court suspended Garza for 30 days without pay and ordered him […]<\/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-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","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=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}