Judge right to reject guilty plea in girl’s death

We write to correct the ill-informed assumptions in your Sept. 24 editorial regarding a few legal decisions made by District Court Judge Charles Brown in Albuquerque. Specifically, your publication called him out for rejecting a factually deficient plea agreement for Jessica Kelly, and for following court rules and the New Mexico Constitution in regard to holding poor people in custody before trial.

Your editorial paints Judge Brown as going easy on criminals. That could not be further from the truth. Judge Brown is known for issuing very harsh and long sentences for criminals once they are found guilty. If there is a sentencing range, he most often gives convicted criminals the maximum sentence.

Fortunately for residents here in Albuquerque, what Judge Brown is also known for is following the law. All judges are supposed to interpret the laws of our land and ensure the statutes that the Legislature passes are followed and that the Constitutional rights of all individuals before the court are not violated. That is exactly what Judge Brown did in the cases cited in the editorial.

For instance, Rule 5-303 of the New Mexico Court Rules implemented by the New Mexico Supreme Court requires a judge be provided an adequate factual basis for someone entering a guilty plea. That is supposed to prevent people from pleading guilty to something they did not do under the law. The federal court rules require the same. Both of the rules are founded in the due process rights that protect all of us and that are mandated in our constitutions.

At the plea hearing for Kelly, Judge Brown was presented with facts that did not support the offense of first-degree child abuse, which requires Kelly had specific knowledge — not speculation — that a man who came into the apartment was going to murder Victoria Martens. The prosecutor’s office failed to present a legally sufficient plea agreement to the court. That was its job. Had Judge Brown accepted that guilty plea, it could have been withdrawn or found illegal upon appeal. Thus, by doing his job, Judge Brown saved a lot of taxpayer money, and a serious injustice.

In other claims, your editorial criticizes Judge Brown for following the New Mexico Constitution’s bail provisions and releasing individuals pretrial. Everyone accused of a crime in New Mexico and in the United States is presumed innocent. As a community, we have made the thoughtful and correct decision that poor people should not be locked up while they await their trial just because they are poor, while wealthy people — who may be more dangerous — are able to post high bonds. Instead, we require that if the government wants to hold someone in custody prior to a finding of guilt, the prosecutor must put on evidence that the person is either a danger to the community or a flight risk. That is the prosecutor’s job, not the judge’s job.

What happens with the highly-touted pretrial releases of suspects in Albuquerque is that the prosecutor fails to do his or her job. That job isn’t very hard — give the court sufficient evidence of dangerousness or flight risk. Then the court is able to hold the suspect under the law.

The prosecutor, the police and the media need to stop blaming judges when judges insist that law enforcement and the prosecutors follow the law. That is the job of judges in America. They protect everyone’s rights. Fortunately, we have some judges in this state, like Judge Brown, who have integrity and are still willing to do their constitutional job when prosecutors fail to their job.

We should be thoughtful and grateful when a judge honors the law and the constitutional rights we are so fortunate to have in our great country. When judges honor the law they are protecting the civil rights of not only the accused, but of everyone.