Suspect in Nambé teen’s death again denied release
Appeals court sides with judge who found Nuñez poses too great a danger to public
Even after a state district judge in Santa Fe ruled last month that Jordan Anthony Nuñez, a defendant in the slaying of 13-year-old Jeremiah Valencia, was required to stay in jail until trial, his lawyers didn’t give up.
Court documents show Mark Earnest, an attorney representing Nuñez, 20, who is charged with a dozen felony counts of child abuse resulting in death and tampering with evidence, asked the New Mexico Court of Appeals to overturn the ruling, arguing that prosecutors didn’t present enough evidence to show Nuñez posed too great a danger to the community to be released from jail.
The attempt was short-lived. On Thursday, the appeals court denied Nuñez outright, upholding the detention order by District Judge Matthew Wilson.
Nuñez has been in jail for nearly nine months on charges related to the homicide. He was arrested in late January, court records show, on suspicion of helping to cover up the death of Jeremiah, who authorities say was tortured and killed in late November at his Nambé-area home and buried along a nearby roadside.
After learning of the boy’s death in January, detectives with the Santa Fe County Sheriff ’s Office charged Thomas Wayne Ferguson — Nuñez’s father and the boyfriend of Jeremiah’s mother — with first-degree murder in the case.
Jeremiah’s mother, Tracy Ann Peña, and Nuñez both faced charges of child abuse and helping to cover up the killing.
Ferguson committed suicide in the Santa Fe County jail in April.
The case took a twist in more recent court proceedings, with prosecutors saying they believe Nuñez willingly participated in Jeremiah’s torture and may have even dealt the fatal blow.
Nuñez’s lawyers have maintained that any role Nuñez played in the boy’s abuse was directly influenced by fear of his father.
In September, prosecutors and defense attorneys spent two days and some 10 hours in court arguing over whether Nuñez’s should stay in jail pending trial. Prosecutors argued he is dangerous — saying Nuñez willfully abused Jeremiah, even shocking the boy with a dog collar, and possibly killed Jeremiah by torturing the boy after he’d already been severely beaten. Nuñez also threatened to kill a co-defendant if she snitched, prosecutors said.
Defense attorneys called witnesses who testified that Nuñez never beat the women in the household, and that he and his siblings had endured significant abuse by Ferguson when they were children.
Wilson, while acknowledging Nuñez was “under the manipulation and control of his father,” sided with the prosecution.
In the October appeal, defense attorneys Earnest and Theresa Duncan argue that Wilson ruled wrong. The appeal said prosecutors did not have substantial evidence to prove Nuñez could be dangerous to the community, in part because their argument heavily relied on the testimony of Jeremiah’s sister, who was 12 when Jeremiah was killed.
The defense attorneys — who also called the girl as their own witness — wrote that the girl was “living in a heightened state of fear and trauma, [and] is not competent to testify regarding the voluntariness of Jordan’s actions.”
Because of a “complete absence of ‘evidence’ ” that Nuñez could be dangerous in the future, his attorneys argued, he should be released from jail and Wilson’s ruling overturned.
Court of Appeals judges issued their own decision in a document filed Thursday. Wilson had plenty of evidence to determine whether or not Nuñez was dangerous, they wrote in the brief ruling. They allowed his ruling to stand.
Pending another twist in the case, Nuñez is likely to stay behind bars until trial, which is not likely to happen before March.