Upset special: cooperation on crime legislation
Ellen Snyder, a killer serving an 11-year prison sentence, might inspire New Mexico politicians to do something rare.
Partly because of Snyder’s case, Democrats and Republicans in the state Legislature could join forces to pass an important crime bill.
Snyder in 2002 shot her husband to death in their Albuquerque home. Then she hired a heavy equipment operator to dig a hole in the backyard. It became the makeshift grave of her victim, Michael Snyder.
The crime was a closely guarded family secret. Ellen Snyder persuaded her son not to call police. She told anyone who asked that her husband had abandoned her.
Her lie finally was exposed in 2010. A tipster provided detectives with details of the crime, and they unearthed Michael Snyder’s body soon after.
Ellen Snyder would then say she and her husband had argued bitterly the morning she killed him. She claimed he was abusive and angry enough to take her life. To save herself, she said, she killed him.
Eight years had passed from the time of the killing until her arrest. New Mexico has a six-year statute of limitations for second-degree murder, the charge that was most appropriate for Ellen Snyder.
This law took away the best option for prosecutors building their case against her.
They decided they could not argue for first-degree murder, a premeditated crime that has no statute of limitations.
Snyder caught a break, and she seized it.
She pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter, tampering with evidence and making false statements. The judge gave her 11 years, the longest sentence possible under the circumstances. Second-degree murder alone would have carried a 15-year sentence.
After Snyder went to prison, state lawmakers introduced several bills to extend statutes of limitation for various crimes, including second-degree murder. The proposals failed, either because they were bulky and complicated, or because of petty fighting between Democrats and Republicans.
Now two lawmakers from Albuquerque have filed a rifleshot bill to eliminate the statute of limitations on second-degree murder.
The measure is House Bill 115 by Reps. Monica Youngblood, a Republican, and Antonio “Moe” Maestas, a Democrat.
“With DNA and the ability to prosecute cold cases, it doesn’t make sense to have a statute of limitations on any murder,” said Maestas, formerly an assistant district attorney in Bernalillo County. “It’s very difficult to convict on first-degree murder in many cases. This would give prosecutors the option to bring a second-degree murder charge that they may not have had.”
Maestas said the change could be valuable if detectives crack any of hundreds of unsolved murders, including those of 11 women whose bodies were discovered on Albuquerque’s West Mesa.
Youngblood and Maestas often are opponents on crime bills. For example, she annually introduces a measure to reinstate the death penalty. He always helps to defeat it.
By working together this time, they might be able to get enough votes to pass what should be a noncontroversial bill.
“A murderer should worry everyday about getting caught,” Maestas said. “I think we have a chance to get this through because it serves the public interest.”
Maestas and Youngblood have introduced a second measure to increase the penalties for second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder. That measure is House Bill 112.
A defendant convicted of second-degree murder would be sentenced to 18 years in prison, up from 15 years.
The punishment for attempted second-degree murder would be nine years. It now is three years.
Democrats in the Legislature often have voted against bills for harsher sentences, notably reinstatement of the death penalty.
They had good grounds, given that police and prosecutors sent four innocent men to death row when New Mexico allowed capital punishment.
But ending the statute of limitations on second-degree murder is a sensible policy. Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, has placed both bills by Youngblood and Maestas on the agenda for the legislative session now underway.
It is too early to declare victory, but there is reason for optimism.
Democrats can do what is right by eliminating the statute of limitations for any murder. And Republicans are working on a crime measure that can improve the justice system, not simply be used in campaign attack ads.
This bill should sail through. Maybe, just maybe, neither party will needlessly make waves.