No jury of her peers for Rep. Youngblood
The irony is unrelenting now that law-and-order state Rep. Monica Youngblood is a criminal defendant.
Youngblood, R-Albuquerque, always advocated for harsher criminal sentences. She complained about killers getting off easy, so she annually introduced a bill to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico.
She helped get another measure through the House of Representatives to expand the state’s three-strikes law to imprison more felons for longer stretches. That bill died in the Senate, much to the displeasure of Youngblood. She said criminals seemed to have more rights than victims. But now that Youngblood is accused of aggravated drunken driving, a charge that threatens to end her political career, she has found that defendants don’t always have the edge over prosecutors.
Just last week, Youngblood asked for a jury trial. Her request was submitted by her high-profile attorney, a man who twice served on the state Supreme Court.
Youngblood lost her motion, even with a legal heavyweight on her side. A judge in Bernalillo County’s Metropolitan Court instead sided with prosecutors from the office of District Attorney Raúl Torrez.
Torrez’s staff relied on a legal precedent from a 2014 case similar to Youngblood’s. The defendant was a man named Howard Cannon, who was represented by a public defender. He was charged with drunken driving, a first offense that carried penalties of up to 90 days in jail and a fine of up to $500.
The state Court of Appeals held that Cannon was not entitled to a jury trial because he faced a maximum jail sentence of less than six months.
The ruling against Youngblood also comported with a decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1989. The nation’s highest court decided that people charged with drunken driving typically do not have a right to a jury trial if they face no more than six months in jail.
Some states, notably Texas, still grant jury trials in criminal cases that carry relatively short jail sentences. These states recognize the importance of a trial to the accused. New Mexico doesn’t operate that way.
Youngblood never introduced legislation to expand jury trials. During policy debates at the Capitol, she championed ride services like Uber as a way to reduce drunken driving. But Youngblood mostly tried to make the state justice system more punitive.
Now the state is Youngblood’s courtroom enemy. That helps explain why she
wanted a jury trial rather than a trial before a judge.
It’s obvious that her strategy is to challenge the competence and fairness of the Albuquerque Police Department officer who arrested her after 1 a.m. at a DWI checkpoint.
A jury pool could include people who have a negative view of law enforcement in general and the troubled Albuquerque Police Department in particular. One dissident juror would have been enough to help Youngblood avoid a conviction.
She has less chance of persuading a judge that she was a victim of a bad cop. Police body-camera footage shows Officer Joshua Montaño was a cool-headed professional while questioning Youngblood and overseeing her roadside sobriety tests.
After arresting Youngblood, Montaño wrote this in his report: “While I spoke with Monica, I noticed that her eyes were bloodshot and watery, her speech was slurred and I could smell a strong odor of an alcoholic beverage emitting from her facial area.”
Youngblood told the officer she had had a fight with her boyfriend. She said she had not consumed any alcoholic drinks that night, but she declined to take a Breathalyzer test.
Wearing handcuffs, with her political career flashing before her tired, red eyes, Youngblood began mounting her defense. She took on the part of victim. Youngblood told Montaño she had passed all the sobriety tests but he arrested her anyway.
A woman of Mexican descent, Youngblood said several times that constituents had complained to her about Albuquerque cops mistreating ethnic minorities. She said she had dismissed those criticisms as unfounded.
Her world view changed in one night. Now the cops aren’t always the good guys, and the system isn’t stacked in favor of the bad actors.
In truth, Youngblood should be more thankful than ever to the men and women of law enforcement, especially Officer Montaño.
He got her off the streets before somebody died or ended up in a wheelchair.