NM Capitol Report | A view from the New Mexico state capitol

Is 15 years for a life 'cruel, unusual?'

State Supreme Court considers that question in murder case

At 17, Allen Dwyer slipped inside an unlocked home, killed the old man who lived there and stole $90 to feed his methamphetamine addiction.

Haunted because he took a life, Dwyer walked into a police station two years later and confessed.

Dwyer pleaded guilty to felony murder in 2011, and a state district judge sentenced him to 15 years in prison.                                                                                              Quici, the victim, was an active senior

Now, in an appeal to the state Supreme Court, Dwyer calls that punishment “cruel and unusual.”

His public defender says a psychological evaluation recommended a 10-year prison term, given Dwyer’s youth and remorse.

In addition, Dwyer says he should qualify for 30 days of good time for every month he serves. His plea bargain limits his good time to four days a month, meaning he must serve almost 13 years of his 15-year sentence.

Dwyer’s appeal is one of eight cases that the New Mexico Supreme Court has accepted for August. The justices will not hear arguments in his case, but will review briefs submitted by the state attorney general and public defender.

Dwyer’s crime occurred in January 2008 in Roswell, where he targeted an 82-year-old man named Tony Quici. Active and fit, Quici participated in the Senior Olympics and enjoyed spending time at a senior center.

He died several days after a Meals on Wheels worker found him facedown in a pool of blood.

Based on Quici’s injuries from a beating, police from the beginning considered his death a homicide. But Dwyer had wiped the house clean of fingerprints, leaving police without a suspect or any solid leads.

Then in 2010, Dwyer stepped forward to implicate himself and solve the case.

He struck a deal with prosecutors that classified him as a serious youthful offender.

The plea agreement called for a 20-year prison sentence, but court records state that District Judge Ralph Shamas suspended five years, consideration for Dwyer’s contrition and the fact that he confessed. Prosecutors agreed to that cap in punishment.

Briefs filed with the Supreme Court state that Shamas also said Dwyer would have faced a 20- to 30-year sentence had he been caught fleeing Quici’s house after mortally wounding him.

The judge said he did not consider Dwyer’s meth addiction in determining punishment, as those dependent on illegal drugs then could seek leniency whenever they committed a crime.

Attorney General Gary King’s staff stated in its brief that a voluntary plea of guilty ordinarily means a defendant waives his right of appeal. The government said Dwyer’s punishment was appropriate for a terrible crime and should stand.

Dwyer’s public defender countered that Shamas “abused his discretion” and that limiting good time to four days a month was “a clear error of judgment.”

Halting a damper on fair season

State OKs emergency rule to contain vesicular stomatitis

County fairs are beginning, and the state is opting for medical caution when it comes to animals.

The state Livestock Board has approved an emergency rule to contain the virus vesicular stomatitis.

All livestock events (fairs, rodeos, equine events, etc.) are to designate a veterinarian to inspect inbound horses, cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, llamas and alpacas for vesicular stomatitis. 

“You’ve got literally hundreds of animals coming in close proximity with one another at fairs across the state. said Dave Fly, veterinarian for the state. “It’s an ideal setting for a virus like VS to spread.”
 
The state Department of Agriculture said that, for New Mexico-only events such as fairs, animals will be allowed to enter with a clean physical inspection or a clean health certificate issued within the previous five days.

Another prison bust, another breakthrough

Corrections Department setting good example for open government

The state Department of Corrections will release details Wednesday about a contract employee who was arrested for bringing contraband into a prison.

It could be a second case of drug smuggling behind prison walls.

If it seems that the prison system has had a rash of wrongdoing involving its staff members, that may not be true.

Under Corrections Secretary Gregg Marcantel, the department is making public all significant criminal cases involving employees and inmates.

Because of this openness, more cases of misconduct or crimes by prison employees are making headlines than before. The department was not nearly so forthcoming before Marcantel took over in November.

His staff released details in June about a case of cocaine and heroin smuggling at a Las Cruces prison.

Candace Holmes, 21, then a contract kitchen worker, was arrested and charged with bringing drugs into the prison for inmate Frank Morales.

Ten years her senior and a convicted drug dealer, Morales is accustomed to using people. Holmes was only his latest victim.

The prison system outlined the crime and how it caught the alleged smuggler and Morales.

Marcantel's staff said it would schedule a news conference Wednesday to provide particulars of the latest case.

His department is setting a high bar for the rest of state government.

We shall see if the New Mexico Finance Authority is as forthcoming about how a fake audit made it through a system that is supposed to be full of checks and balances.

Four state cabinet secretaries sit on the finance authority's board. They are Jon Barela, economic development; John Bemis, energy and natural resources; Tom Clifford, finance and administration; and David Martin, environment.

They should follow Marcantel's example and provide every detail about what went wrong.

Cabinet secretary, businessman rap Obama

They say president believes in big government, not entrepreneurs

President Obama’s own words have energized Republicans in north-central New Mexico, a traditional stronghold for Democrats.

About a dozen members of the GOP, including a businessman and the state’s economic development director, gathered this afternoon to criticize Obama for saying: “If you’ve got a business, you didn’t build that.”

“It makes me very angry,” said Wayne Sonchar, whose family operates two businesses that are headquartered in Raton. “I never expected to hear it come out of a president of the United States.”

A hard-working, risk-taking family built his businesses, not the government, said Sonchar, 56.

Jon Barela, secretary of the state Economic Development Department, said Obama’s comment was revealing.

“He believes every American should worship at the altar of big government,” said Barlea, above.

Sonchar and Barela appeared at Republican headquarters in Santa Fe as part of “We Did Build This” events going on across the country.

Obama has tried to blunt the Republican criticisms, first raised in advertisements targeting him as a president out of touch with small business owners.

In response, Obama said: “Those ads, taking my words about small business out of context, they're flat-out wrong. Of course Americans build their own businesses.”

Barela said he did not accept the president’s argument that his words were twisted.

He said Obama’s administration was responsible for an "unrelenting attack on small business.”

Sonchar, who lives in Las Vegas, N.M., said he once was a Democrat, mostly because the party’s dominance in San Miguel County meant primary elections decided who would hold county and state legislative offices. He said he switched to the Republican Party in frustration because Democrats were for abortion rights and against business interests.

Under Obama, he said, the regulatory environment had become more adversarial. Sonchar said the president had “no clue” about what it takes to run a business.

As for building a business, Sonchar said not everyone wants or expects government handouts.

He said his father started B.T.U. Block & Concrete, one of the companies still run by Sonchar’s family. Sonchar later launched a second business, B.T.U. Building Materials.

Government’s regulatory structure grew too much between Presidents Reagan and George Herbert Walker Bush, Sonchar said.

“With this president, it’s on steroids,” Sonchar said, citing environmental and healthcare laws that he called burdensome.

Barela, himself a state government employee, said he attended the news conference to criticize Obama while on his lunch break.

“I’ve been very judicious about that,” he said of separating campaign issues from his responsibilities as the publicly paid leader for job creation in New Mexico.

Barela, who ran for Congress in 2010, said he wanted to speak out against Obama because he has a fundamental disagreement with the president.

“He sees government as the solution to every problem we have.”

Gary Johnson -- nowhere man

Libertarian presidential candidate stuck in quicksand

Gary Johnson's dream of getting into the televised debates with Republican Mitt Romney and President Obama is a one-in-a-thousand shot.

Johnson's camp cannot seem to account for his appearances, much less get him on the giant stage.

It sent a press release today saying Johnson would hold an online town hall meeting -- either Tuesday or Thursday.

We sought clarification via email, but got no response. In looking further, an entry on Johnson's website says the event is indeed on Thursday night, just in case you want to participate.

Johnson will be going head-to-head with prime-time Olympic coverage. Listening to his town hall meeting would be more exciting than beach volleyball but perhaps not as interesting as the equestrian.

A former two-term governor of New Mexico as a Republican, Johnson remains an unknown to most of America. His campaign is keeping it that way.

No Libertarian candidate for president has ever carried a state. At this stage, Johnson does not appear capable of playing the spoiler role, even in New Mexico.

PRESS RELEASE FROM THE CANDIDATE
Online Town Hall Thursday with Gov. Gary Johnson
& Women's Right Activist Ann E. W. Stone
 
Thursday, August 2, 2012
6 PM PDT/  7 PM MDT/  8 PM CDT/  9 PM EDT

Please join Governor Gary Johnson, the Libertarian Party presidential nominee, for an online town hall Tuesday evening, 9 p.m. EDT/ 6 p.m. PDT.

ALSO FROM JOHNSON

This town hall will be featured on Vokle.com. To ask questions via video or text, simply sign into your Facebook account or sign up for a Vokle account. If you just want to watch the town hall, go to  www.GaryJohnson2012.com.

A golden performer in our midst

Even his legion of critics should applaud LeBron James, 3-time Olympian

LeBron James, aching after a long season, exultant after winning an NBA championship, could have skipped the London Olympic Games.

Instead, he is playing for the U.S. basketball team for a third consecutive Olympics. He was part of the third-place club in 2004 -- the critics called him LeBronze James for that -- and the gold medal-winning team in 2008.

James, 27, more than any other athlete this year, is helping the Olympics solidify itself as a worldwide attraction.

James played 66 regular-season NBA games and 23 playoff games from Christmas Day until June 21.

Citing fatigue, he could have bypassed the Olympics and nobody would have faulted him.

This is especially true because his Miami team won the NBA championship this year, a prize far bigger than an Olympic medal in basketball.

                                                                                                James exemplifies Olympic spirit

Instead, James will be on the court in London, giving kids in Akron, Ohio, Croatia, China and Russia an extra incentive to watch the Olympics and play ball themselves.                            

Swimmer Michael Phelps is back too, but the Olympics are his ticket to more endorsements and cash.

James is rich beyond belief. The Olympics will not pad his income in any appreciable way. He also is risking injury, but that has not deterred him.

He is playing for his country and for the fun of it. That is the Olympic spirit at its finest.

James follows these Olympians as legends of the modern Games:

Al Oerter, United States -- He was a champion in four consecutive Olympic Games, winning gold medals in the discus in 1956, 1960, 1964 and 1968.

Szewinska winning the 200 meters at the Mexico City Olympics in 1968

Irena Szewinska, Poland -- She competed in track and field in every Olympics from 1964 to 1980, winning seven medals, three of them gold. Szewinska would have been even more dominant had she not interrupted her training for motherhood between the '68 and '72 Games.

Viktor Saneyev, Soviet Union -- He won the triple jump in three consecutive Olympics -- 1968, '72 and '76. Saneyev also took the silver in 1980.

Greg Louganis, United States -- The greatest diver in history, Louganis won the silver medal in the platform competition in 1976, when he was 16 years old. The U.S. boycott of the 1980 Games in Moscow (Jimmy Carter's folly) meant Louganis did not return to the Olympics for eight years. He won both golds in diving, platform and springboard, in 1984, and he repeated the accomplishment in '88. No athlete matched him for artistry or consistency.

Carl Lewis, United States -- As a personality, Lewis was easy to dislike. He oozed arrogance. As an Olympian, he was a titan. He won 10 Olympic medals -- nine of them gold -- in track and field between 1984 and 1996. Lewis took gold in the long jump in four consecutive Olympics, 1984, '88, '92 and '96. His last triumph came when he was 35, ancient for an Olympic jumper.

A-F school grades -- triumph or mess?

Democrats say rating system is cause of mass confusion

Sen. Howie Morales: 'I like it if it can be accurate. Right now it's not.'

Even New Mexico’s 10 highest-rated public schools have miles to go in their drive for excellence, says the state’s chief of public education.

Wood Gormley Elementary in Santa Fe ranks No. 1 statewide with a score of 92.44 points. Monte Vista Elementary in Las Cruces is second with 89.39 points.

Their scores were an outgrowth of the state’s new A-F system for grading 831 schools. Even the schools making good marks now have a road map on how they can gain another 7 or 10 points and turn out even better students, said Hanna Skandera, secretary-designate of public education.

Many people in powerful positions disagree with Skandera that progress has been made because of school grades.

State Rep. Rick Miera, chairman of the House Education Committee, says the A-F system is confusing to all.

“You look at the formulaic version of it and it’s incomprehensible,” said Miera, D-Albuquerque. “A-F grades for schools were supposed to simplify things, but that has not happened.”

State Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, said he will introduce a bill in January to keep the A-F system but clarify and improve it.

“I like it if it can be accurate. Right now it’s not,” Morales said.

He has gone so far as to tell school boards in his southern New Mexico district not to make drastic changes, such as reassigning a principal, because of a school’s grade.

Morales says the system Skandera celebrates as a breakthrough is full of holes.

For instance, he said, 10 percent of a high school’s grade was tied to how students rated their teacher. But high school students have five or six teachers, yet the grading formula made no allowance for that.

Skandera said only 3 percent of the grade actually was based on student responses. As for the confusion over which teacher was being evaluated, she said students knew well enough that their answer was a composite to include all their teachers.

With the state formula now in place, Morales said, certain schools with gains in student proficiency between January and July actually were downgraded. The changes seemed arbitrary to him.

Skandera said a few such grading slumps had occurred, but with a sound statistical foundation.

Valley High in Albuquerque dropped from a B to C between January and July, even though one set of numbers showed it to be on the upswing in student proficiency. But Skandera said a deeper examination of student performance showed that Valley inherited kids who were doing well in middle school, but then their progress tailed at the high school.

Skandera, appointed by Republican Gov. Susana Martinez, said Democrats in Legislature originally said they did not want a narrow grading system based on standardized tests. Now they have a formula that takes into account a series of factors about school performance, but they still complain, she said.

Skandera’s chief critics have been Morales, Miera and Sen. Linda Lopez, D-Albuquerque. Together they have more than 40 years of legislative experience, but how much did public education improve in their time in office? Skandera asked.

New Mexico residents are not content for their schools to rank 48th or 49th nationally, she said.

In the last 18 months, student performance and the effectiveness of schools have taken center stage, Skandera said. In her view, parents and school patrons are more engaged than before.

But adults battling over process or power threaten to get in the way of what is crucial, she said.

“Too many times we miss the opportunity to champion our kids,” Skandera said of the legislators attacks on the Public Education Department.

Morales has been friendly enough toward Skandera, saying he would vote to confirm her as education secretary even when other Senate Democrats questioned her credentials. After two regular legislative sessions and one special session, Skandera still has not received a confirmation hearing from the Senate Rules Committee.

If Skandera finally gets a hearing in January, her reforms on school grading and teacher evaluations are sure to be issues the committee will explore.

Morales said the grading formula for schools is flawed, dense and even detrimental.

When a school can rise or fall a couple of letter grades in a matter of months, the system is broken,

Morales said. Such volatility shows that the Martinez administration’s promise to use three years of student performance data to establish grades is more myth than truth, he said.

Morales said Skandera’s department even changed the formula between preliminary grades in January and the first binding ones in July, further confusing teachers, principals and everybody else.

Skandera said it was true that the formula was modified, but one would not expect it to be stagnant from a trial run in winter to implementation in summer. She also said there were no surprises, as a public hearing about the revamped grading system was noticed and then held in March to make everyone aware of refinements.

Skandera said school grades had excited the populace and started to build momentum for better schools.

“A grandma came up to me and said, ‘Education is now on our lips.’ We are beginning to see progress,” Skandera said.

New Mexico’s top 10 schools
1. Wood Gormley Elementary, Santa Fe, 92.44 points.
2. Monte Vista Elementary, Las Cruces, 89.39.
3. Southwest Intermediate Learning Center Charter, Albuquerque, 88.49.
4. Alice King Community Charter, Albuquerque Public Schools, 86.91.
5. Anthony Elementary, Gadsden district, 86.52.
6. Sidney Gutierrez Middle Charter, Roswell, 86.38.
7. Albuquerque Institute of Math and Science Charter, 85.43.
8. Tatum Junior High, Tatum Municipal School, 84.74.
9. Edgewood Elementary, Moriarty-Edgewood district, 84.46.
10. Early College Academy, Albuquerque Public Schools, 84.02.
All 10 received A’s in the state’s new grading system for schools.
Source: State Department of Public Education

50 schools to pilot controversial evaluations

Part of teacher ratings would be linked to student test scores

A showdown over teacher evaluations is under way.

State legislators never approved a bill to tie part of the evaluations to student performance on standardized tests. But Hanna Skandera, the state’s secretary-designate of public education, is moving forward anyway with a pilot program, beginning this fall.

“We are not going to wait,” Skandera, right, said in an interview.

Fifty schools in five districts have volunteered for the pilot program. The districts are Aztec, Bernalillo, Las Cruces, Truth or Consequences and Central Consolidated Schools in northwestern New Mexico.

Skandera, 38, never a classroom teacher or principal, has been in charge of the Public Education Department for 18 months without receiving a confirmation hearing in the state Senate.

Asked if implementing a controversial evaluation system by departmental rule would weaken her standing with legislators, she said she was doing what she thought best for students.

“I want to put kids first, to champion them. That is our clarion call,” Skandera said in an interview.

One legislator, state Rep. Rick Miera, said her move was wrongheaded.

Skandera, as part of Gov. Susana Martinez’s administration, pressed early this year for a bill to reform teacher evaluations by connecting them to student test scores. It cleared the House of Representatives 57-9 but not did not pass the Senate.

Now, Miera said, Skandera has done a turnabout by saying legislative approval for the change is unnecessary.

“It’s a shame. We have three branches of government and it’s common for one to disagree with another. But we should not put students into the middle of that,” said Miera, right.

He said he also disagreed with the essence of Skandera’s plan, in which 35 percent of a teacher’s evaluation would be contingent on student tests scores in math and reading. The original bill wanted to count the tests for 50 percent of a teacher’s evaluation.

As a matter of good public policy, student scores should not figure into teacher evaluations, Miera said.

For one, teachers then teach to a standardized test, actually hurting student development. For another, many teachers specialize in history, social studies or band. They cannot be judged on test scores the same way as those who teach math or reading, Miera said.

Sen. Howie Morales, D-Silver City, said he also was disturbed that Skandera had bypassed the Legislature, especially for a teacher evaluation program that he considered to have a track record of failure.

“There is no data that shows it works,” said Morales, a former teacher who has a doctorate in education.

He declined to comment on whether he would oppose Skandera if she receives a Senate confirmation hearing next year. Morales previously said he would vote for Skandera because Gov. Martinez had the right to pick her management team.

School superintendents such as Stan Rounds of Las Cruces are preparing for the pilot program now. Rounds was at a conference in Virginia and, without access to phones, he did not respond to messages seeking comment.

Currently, New Mexico teachers are evaluated on a pass-fail model. More than 90 percent are judged competent, but the system is restrictive and does not recognize excellence, Skandera said.

She said principals or administrative teams now evaluate teachers in a subjective system. The change to using student test scores for part of teacher evaluations would add a data-based component to the process, Skandera said.

Miera said he believed Skandera was seeking ways to make public schools and teachers look bad.

“They are doing things made not to work so we can have a voucher system and privatize schools,” Miera said. “Really, I don’t believe aliens are coming out of the sky. But I believe that is where they are headed in trying for vouchers.”

Skandera said the existing teacher evaluation system simply is inadequate and must be changed. Teachers themselves, she said, are dissatisfied with it, as they seldom get timely feedback about their performance and the best rating they can achieve is “competent.”

Alford and Knight hit gold

UNM coach was Olympian at 19, a stellar shooter with an inside connection

OLYMPIC MOMENT

Eight years before there was a Dream Team of Olympic basketball, Michael Jordan won his first gold medal.

It happened at the Los Angeles Games of 1984, after Jordan's third and last season as a collegian. He joined the Chicago Bulls after the Olympics, the third player chosen in the NBA draft.

Bob Knight coached that '84 Olympic team to an 8-0 record, though not without controversy.

Knight cut Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, Terry Porter and Johnny Dawkins from the club.

He kept one of his own players from Indiana University, guard Steve Alford.

At the time, Knight's choice of Alford was a bigger story than Barkley's ouster.

The Washington Post wrote this on July 24, 1984:

Knight's selections for the men's basketball team were debated, with outrage centered on the retention of his Indiana guard, Steve Alford, rather than Louisville's Lancaster Gordon, who outplayed Alford in the trials.

Outrage? We think not.

Knight had a galaxy of stars to choose from. He could not go wrong, even though Porter turned into a ferocious NBA player and Alford a forgettable one.

But in the '80s, Alford impressed almost everyone with his shooting and toughness. He may not have been better than Gordon, Dawkins or Porter during the Olympic trials, but he knew Knight's system and had the coach's confidence.

Politics are part of the Olympics, and that includes picking the players.

Knight, right, put it in slightly different terms all those years ago.

"Another group of coaches may have picked another team. We picked a team we thought was the most conducive to the way we want to play," he said.

It worked. Alford, now UNM's coach, was part of an Olympic team whose closest game was 11 points. It defeated Spain in the gold medal game by 31 points.

The Soviet Union, often America's strongest opponent in those times, boycotted the L.A. Olympics. It was retribution because the United States had refused to participate in the 1980 Olympics in Moscow.

Dumb politics, courtesy of Jimmy Carter, who decided to turn the Olympics into something he could leverage for his own purposes.

The '84 Olympics would have been more interesting had the Soviets been there to challenge Knight's club. But Knight and Alford could not worry about that. They smashed through the rest of the field.

Knight, one of the top five coaches ever, was hard to play for. Alford knew how to handle the coach's abusive tirades, and that helped make him an Olympian.

Plan would shred nominating petitions forever

Candidates would pay filing fee to qualify for primaries

One legislator says he has a plan to end election madness.

State Sen. Howie Morales wants to outlaw nominating petitions, the system now used by major-party candidates to qualify for primary election ballots.

Morales, right, plans to introduce a bill next year to do away with the petition system, which he considers flawed and outdated.

“We should just have candidates pay a filing fee to be on the ballot. I’m going to carry legislation along those lines,” said Morales, a Democrat from Silver City and a former county clerk.

The petition system this year was especially chaotic. Challenges to nominating petitions filed by 10 incumbent legislators reached the New Mexico Supreme Court.

Jennifer Romero, who was a candidate for district attorney of Bernalillo County, also received a Supreme Court hearing after a district judge found her petitions one signature shy of the number needed to qualify for the primary election. The Supreme Court reinstated Romero’s candidacy, but she ended up losing to the incumbent in a lopsided race.

Of the challenges to state legislators, nine of the 10 that reached the Supreme Court were for technical violations of campaign law.

Incumbents such as state Sens. Tim Jennings and Pete Campos, in office for 33 years and 22 years, failed to write the number of their district on nominating petitions. The Legislature in 2011 added that requirement to the petition law, but Jennings said he did not remember it.

Republican Cliff Pirtle, 26, who is running for the seat Jennings’ holds, then sued in hopes of knocking the incumbent off the ballot.

The Supreme Court decided not to disqualify any candidate for technical violations of the petition law. Justice Charles Daniels, pointing to a courtroom packed with politicians and their lawyers, said the petition law’s fine points had created mass confusion.

In a 3-1 vote, the Supreme Court also rejected a more substantive challenge to petitions filed by state Rep. Dianne Hamilton, R-Silver City.

Democrat Terry Fortenberry, who is trying to take the seat Hamilton holds, said five of the 12 petitions she submitted were technically flawed. He also claimed that 22 other signatures Hamilton turned in were from people not registered to vote or not registered as Republicans.

Fortenberry said she filed 63 valid signatures, seven fewer than necessary to make the ballot.

For her part, Hamilton, right, said she was away from her southern New Mexico district because of a family emergency during most of the time petition signatures were being gathered by her supporters.

When she returned, she said, she could not correct the technical deficiencies Fortenberry cited because state law prohibits amending petitions that already have been signed.

The days of candidates carrying their own petitions and interacting with voters have given way to intermediaries doing much of the legwork, Morales said. He cited this as another reason to junk the petition system.

Richard Winger, editor of California-based Ballot Access News, tracks ways that candidates qualify for primary elections. He said a slight majority of states now use filing fees.

Winger likes Morales’ idea to switch from petitions to a fee-based system.

“It would really be smart. The government gets the revenue and does not have to spend money for checking petitions or for challenges,” he said.