Defense: Rights violated in murder case
Suspect has been in jail 19 months
Adefense attorney maintains that the Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office is unjustly delaying the murder trial of a man who’s been in jail for more than 19 months.
Prosecutors say the reasons for the delays in the highprofile case — including staff turnover, inadequate state funding for the District Attorney’s Office, high fees for a medical witness and a witness who still needs to be located — are out of their control.
In April, public defender Jennifer Burrill filed a motion in District Court to have seconddegree murder and other charges dropped for 59-yearold Robert Mondrian-Powell. Burrill argues that MondrianPowell’s constitutional rights to a speedy trial and due process are being violated.
Mondrian-Powell is accused of fatally shooting Elvira Segura in the neck in the fall of 2016 at Segura’s Nambé home.
State Police believe he may have been living with the corpse for several weeks, because Segura’s body was significantly decomposed when she was found on Sept. 27, 2016. Mondrian-Powell held a yard
sale at the house for a few days in mid-September 2016, and police believe that Segura’s body was inside at the time.
Mondrian-Powell was arrested in Las Cruces in October 2016 and told police that he shot Segura in the bathroom while the two were in a violent altercation. He has been in the Santa Fe County jail since then, with bail set at $500,000, cash only, on charges of murder, tampering with evidence, aggravated battery with a deadly weapon and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle.
Burrill says in her motion that prosecutors have continually failed to provide witness information to the defense and have caused delays that have unjustly postponed MondrianPowell’s trial.
A jury is scheduled to be selected in August, about 22 months after Mondrian-Powell’s arrest. Burrill says Mondrian-Powell has health problems, including cardiac arrhythmia, “due to the stress of the pending charges and oppressive pretrial incarceration.”
“The State’s blatant refusal to comply with basic discovery rules coupled with the extreme anxiety suffered by the defendant due to the delay in these proceedings continues to prejudice the defense and as such this matter should be dismissed on both due process and speedy trial grounds,” the motion says.
Deputy District Attorney Martin Maxwell, who is now the third lead prosecutor on the case, said in his response that there was a large amount of evidence to collect and review for the case, and that his office has no control over
other factors that led to delays, including a lack of financial resources and turnover at the DA’s Office.
He also said part of the delay is “due to the courts” taking 41 days before a holding an arraignment and a first court appearance before a judge for MondrianPowell.
“In the present case, there has (sic) only been justifiable delays which are reasonable due to the copious amount of evidence that was collected, the considerable number of witnesses that had to be interviewed and the legal issues that defense raised that required pre-trial litigation,” Maxwell wrote. The response says it would be a “miscarriage of justice” for a judge to dismiss the case now.
Maxwell says the complexity of the case should allow prosecutors to have more time. “Approximately twentyone months of time for a second-degree murder trial with complex issues is not a violation of the Sixth Amendment,” Maxwell wrote.
The prosecution had trouble getting a former Office of the Medical Investigator doctor who conducted Segura’s autopsy, Laurie Edelman, to do a pretrial interview.
She was finally interviewed on May 18 after Santa Fe District Judge T. Glenn Ellington ordered her to grant the interview.
District Attorney Marco Serna said Tuesday that Edelman, who now lives in Texas, was requesting payment before being interviewed.
“I was disappointed that the doctor was so unwilling to testify unless we paid an hourly rate ($400) that was substantial,” Serna said. “It’s difficult to pay that
much for an OMI doctor that’s out of state.”
Maxwell cited a lack of funding as one of the reasons Edelman wasn’t able to be interviewed sooner. “Our Governor and legislatures are cognizant of the fact that the criminal justice system is short of resources,” Maxwell wrote in his response.
Although Edelman was finally interviewed last month via Skype, Burrill says in her motion to dismiss that Edelman said in the interview that she was not the one who identified Segura’s body.
As of May 29, Burrill said the state still has not listed a witness who identified the body, meaning the case might be further delayed so both sides can find and interview that witness.
“Prosecutor Maxwell has made a claim that the State will not seek another trial continuance, however, if the State amends the witness list again it is likely that those interviews of newly listed witnesses will not be concluded before the August 2018 jury trial setting,” Burrill wrote.
Serna said Tuesday that he believes there will be no further delay and that he is confident Judge Ellington won’t drop the charges when he hears
arguments at a June 22 hearing.
Burrill’s motion also cites prosecutor turnover as a reason for delays.
Former prosecutor Natalie Perry left the District Attorney’s Office last year, and her successor on the case, Kevin Nault, left the office in April. Maxwell, who is now the lead prosecutor, said turnover should not be held against the state. “Counsel leaving the District Attorney’s Office was not an administrative delay, but delays that were unforeseeable,” prosecutor Maxwell wrote.
Burrill also argues that Mondrian-Powell’s rights were violated in a lower court. Records show that Santa Fe Magistrate Court Judge George Anaya granted two extensions so the state could review and gather evidence before the case moved up to District Court, the standard progression for felony charges.
“The State failing to be prepared is not an exceptional circumstance and the extensions by Judge Anaya violated the defendant’s due process rights,” Burrill wrote.
Maxwell argues that the prosecutors had no control over the 41-day delay between when the case was filed in District Court and the date Mondrian-Powell first saw a judge. According to court records, the criminal information was filed in District Court on Dec. 2, 2016, but Mondrian-Powell didn’t make his first appearance in front of Ellington until Jan. 11, 2017.
“The State did not have any control over the Court’s calender, therefore this delay should not be counted against the State,” Maxwell wrote.
“
THE STATE FAILING
TO BE PREPARED IS NOT AN EXCEPTIONAL CIRCUMSTANCE AND THE EXTENSIONS BY JUDGE ANAYA VIOLATED THE DEFENDANT’S DUE PROCESS RIGHTS. JENNIFER BURRILL PUBLIC DEFENDER ”