SECOND MISTRIAL DECLARED IN EX-DEPUTY CHAN CASE
Jurors deliberated 3½ hours in fatal shooting
Jury deliberated for three and a half hours without reaching a verdict against former Santa Fe sheriff’s deputy Tai Chan, who says he shot fellow officer in self-defense.
LAS CRUCES — For the second time in a year, a jury failed to reach a verdict in the murder trial of former Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputy Tai Chan.
Third Judicial District Judge Fernando Macias declared a mistrial Tuesday after jurors deliberated three and a half hours and declared they could not reach a unanimous decision.
The state accused Chan of deliberately killing his law enforcement partner Jeremy Martin in October 2014 after a drunken night out and asked the jury to return a guilty verdict of murder in the first degree.
Chan’s attorneys claimed he shot Martin in self-defense and asked the jury to find him not guilty.
“It is not unusual for a jury not to be able to arrive at a verdict,” Macias said in court.
Last summer, the first two-week Chan trial also ended in a mistrial after jurors deliberated for 14 hours and could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The Martin family, including the victim’s mother, widow and siblings, looked shocked and dismayed as they exited the courtroom.
Speaking through tears, Martin’s widow, Sarah Martin, said, “My husband was stolen. He doesn’t get to come and tell his side of the story. He was taken from us, but his life matters. His life matters.”
“His four children deserve to be told that the man who shot their father in the back, that there are consequences for that behavior,” she said.
Third Judicial District Attorney Mark D’Antonio, who prosecuted the case, said he would decide within a
week or so whether to try the case a third time. He said he was “very disappointed with the results today.”
“We are working right now in consultation with the family to determine the next steps in this case,” he said.
Chan and his family followed defense attorneys John Day and Tom Clark out of the courtroom. Chan declined to speak to a gaggle of press but appeared relieved.
“This is the second time the state has tried this case,” Day said. “The outcome today shows that reasonable people can differ on what happened that night. But it’s clear that juries have looked at this case twice and no jury is willing to convict him at all. So we’re hopeful the state takes that into consideration in determining what to do next.”
The jury took at least two passes counting votes for convictions including first-degree murder, second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.
In a first pass, three jurors voted for first-degree murder, according to D’Antonio’s office, but a second pass drew no votes for that charge. Day said that six of the jurors “said he was outright not guilty” on a second pass.
Attorneys presented vastly different scenarios in their closing arguments of what happened in Room 711 at the Hotel Encanto after midnight on Oct. 28, 2014. Jurors retreated to the jury room for deliberations shortly after noon and an impasse was declared at 3:30 p.m.
In his closing rebuttal, prosecutor D’Antonio called Chan a “heartless killer,” “a wolf cloaked in the uniform of men and women whose duty is to serve and protect other people” who made a “deliberate and calculated act to kill Deputy Martin right then and there.”
Defense attorney Day called the state’s take on the evidence “alternative facts,” pointed out faults in Las Cruces Police Department’s investigation and underscored the multiple times Chan told police once in custody, “He shot at me first. He tried to kill me.”
Ten rounds of Chan’s Glock 31 duty weapon were fired; five struck Martin in the arm and back. The shooting — a single shot followed by two more volleys of shots — took place in the span of 15 to 25 seconds. Both sides agree on those facts.
But who shot the gun first, who initially acted as the aggressor in a struggle inside the hotel room, was argued extensively by the prosecution and defense. The jury heard dozens of witnesses.
Chan and Martin stopped for the night in Las Cruces after transporting a prisoner from Santa Fe to Arizona. Once offduty, they headed out to drink, watch football and meet up with Chan’s friends. Witnesses said the two men argued at a restaurant-pub over a double-homicide case but it didn’t get physical. Back at the hotel, witnesses testified to hearing banging, arguing and scuffling inside Room 711.
Whatever happened inside the room first, Chan fired shots down the hallway as Martin fled toward the elevator. Martin collapsed in the lobby in a pool of blood and was transported to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.