Homicide case against former SF deputy dropped
Tai Chan has been tried twice in colleague’s death
SANTA FE — A special prosecutor has dismissed the criminal case against Tai Chan, the former Santa Fe County deputy accused of the shooting death of a fellow deputy at a Las Cruces hotel in 2014.
But the action doesn’t necessarily mean Chan is totally in the clear.
Chan, 31, has been tried twice for
murder in the death of 29-year-old deputy Jeremy Martin on Oct. 24, 2014. The two deputies were staying in Las Cruces on their way back from delivering a prisoner to Arizona.
Both prosecutions ended in mistrials after juries couldn’t reach unanimous verdicts.
Chan maintains he shot Martin in self-defense after a night of drinking and arguing with Martin.
In his Wednesday filing dropping the case, special prosecutor Troy J. Davis said Chan “possibly needs to be re-indicted for Voluntary Manslaughter with a firearm enhancement.”
“Re-indictment of charges will cure any issues raised by the defense,” the filing said.
Davis also said the dismissal ends his appointment to the case. Davis, an attorney in the fraud division of the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance, was appointed to take over the case by Las Cruces District Attorney Mark D’Antonio after the two mistrials.
D’Antonio said “fresh eyes” on the case would help.
With Davis out of the picture, any
new indictment of Chan apparently would have to be pursued by D’Antonio. The district attorney and another top prosecutor in his office couldn’t be reached for comment Thursday.
The drawn-out case became more problematic in May, when District Court Judge Conrad Perea ruled against further prosecution of Chan for murder on double jeopardy grounds.
Perea found that another judge who presided over Chan’s second trial last year had failed to poll the jurors to clear up questions about their impasse on a range of charges from first-degree murder to manslaughter.