DA to seek 3rd trial in killing of SF deputy
Voluntary manslaughter charge planned after two murder trials ended with hung juries
SANTA FE — The district attorney in Las Cruces said Thursday that he will seek a third trial for Tai Chan, the former Santa Fe County sheriff’s deputy accused of fatally shooting a fellow deputy after a night of drinking on a 2014 road trip.
But this time, District Attorney Mark D’Antonio said, he will pursue a charge of voluntary manslaughter, not a murder count.
Chan, 32, has been tried twice for murder in the death of 29-year-old deputy Jeremy Martin at a Las Cruces hotel. The two deputies were staying there on their way back from delivering a prisoner to Arizona.
Both of Chan’s trials ended in mistrials after juries couldn’t reach unanimous verdicts.
“After consulting with the family of deputy Jeremy Martin and Las Cruces Police Department, our office has determined that this is the best course of action to take,” D’Antonio said of seeking a manslaughter indictment. “We will make sure that justice is served.”
Chan maintains he shot Martin in self-defense.
“This will be the fourth attempt to convict Tai Chan of acting in self-defense after he was attacked in that hotel room,” said John Day, one of Chan’s attorneys, referring to the two mistrials and the case later being dropped by a special prosecutor. “In New Mexico, you still have a right to defend yourself, and at least half of jurors in the previous trials understood that.”
The date for taking the case to a grand jury has not been determined, a news release from D’Antonio’s office said. Dis-
trict Attorney’s Office prosecutors will be handling the case.
Late last year, D’Antonio appointed two lawyers from the fraud division of the state Office of the Superintendent of Insurance as special prosecutors to take over the case. After the two mistrials, he said, “fresh eyes” would help.
In August, one of those appointed prosecutors, Troy J. Davis, dropped the case. In his court filing, Davis said Chan “possibly needs to be re-indicted for Voluntary Manslaughter with a firearm enhancement.”
The case against Chan had taken a blow in May, when state District 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 had failed to poll jurors to clear up questions about their impasse on a range of charges from firstdegree murder to manslaughter.
Chan’s attorneys then filed a motion calling for dismissal, saying the only existing indictment of Chan was for first-degree murder and the judge had ruled against further pursuit of that charge. When special prosecutor Davis dropped the case, he said dismissal and re-indictment of Chan for manslaughter would resolve the legal problems brought up in the defense motion. D’Antonio said at the time that he was “shocked and dismayed” that Davis had dismissed the case.On the night of Oct. 24, 2014, Martin and Chan argued and drank heavily at a bar and then returned to their room at the Hotel Encanto. Martin died after being shot five times in the back and arm. Ten shots were fired from Chan’s duty weapon. But who shot the gun first and who was the aggressor were disputed at trial.