Deputy DA, former cop run for vacant judgeship

Candidates offer varied ranges of experience

An open judgeship in Santa Fe Magistrate Court has brought out two Democratic candidates with years of varying legal experience to seek election to the bench.

Judge Donna Bevacqua-Young, appointed by the governor in 2013 and then elected in 2014, is vacating the court’s Division 3 seat to run for state district court judge. Running in the June 5 primary to replace her are Deputy District Attorney John Rysanek and former state police officer Samuel Sena.

Rysanek sees the judge position as the “next logical step” in his law career. He has worked in the Santa Fe District Attorney’s Office since 2011, the same year he graduated from the University of New Mexico’s Law School. “I love work, and I love hard work, and I think I can do it more efficiently,” he said.

Ryansek served as an associate trial attorney and senior trial attorney until being promoted to Deputy DA in August 2015. He oversees the office’s intake department, meaning he evaluates criminal complaints before they go to a grand jury to ensure arrests are constitutional, as well as determines what charges the DA should pursue.

“What I have to do … has some aspects of what a magistrate does,” Rysanek said. “I review the search warrants and arrest warrants, and I review them for legal sufficiency, whereas a magistrate (judge) is

reviewing them and determining whether there’s probable cause.”

Before he was an attorney, the father of three and grandfather of one spent much of his twenties finishing an Information Technology degree while helping raise his two now-adult children. He has a six-year-old stepson with his wife Kerry and the couple just welcomed a new daughter this month.

He said he was “burnt out” by I.T. after obtaining his degree in 2004, which led him to a new career path at what is now Easter Seals El Mirador, a local group home for adults with disabilities.

“That’s where I found what I wanted to do with my life, which was to help people, help the public,” Rysanek said. He became El Mirador’s community services manager before leaving for law school in 2009.

If elected, he said he wants to establish new programs that divert low-level offenders from prosecution, noting they are proven to reduce recidivism more than the “status quo.” He’s interested in a veterans court, modeled after the one in Albuquerque, and a “restorative justice” initiative whereby, if both parties consent, an offender makes amends to the victim of a crime as an alternative to traditional sentencing. Examples include mediation, restitution or community service.

Restorative justice can be used whether or not there is a conviction, Rysanek said. Even if a victim doesn’t want to see a perpetrator punished, “The court should still be there to (say), ‘OK, if you don’t want that … maybe there’s still this thing we could try,’ he said. “Ultimately, what you want in the justice system and in prosecuting is you want to resolve things and deliver justice, and sometimes justice is not a conviction.”

Serving the community

According to Sena, his desire to run for judge is simple. He wants to continue serving following his 15 years as a New Mexico State Police patrolman.

“I wanted to continue to serve our community,” the Santa Fe native said, adding that he spent much of his police career on cases presented in Magistrate Court and that he also served as law enforcement representative on the court’s DWI/Drug Court program. “I had a passion for it for many, many years,” he said.

Sena’s tenure with the State Police ended in controversy. Records show his July 2016 retirement followed a notice of possible termination during an investigation into his falsification of firearm qualification scores in 2015 when he was a state Law Enforcement Academy instructor. The academy’s board later suspended his police certification for one year, finding him guilty of “dishonesty” and displaying “a lack of good moral character.”

Reports state Sena told officials that he had the shooting scores on his phone, but it malfunctioned and deleted the data. He admitted the scores he provided were “fabricated,” based on his recollection. When the Journal reported on the matter recently, Sena said his State Police career shouldn’t be “diminished because of a single event” and that he had learned from the mistake to the point that “it will make me a more effective judge.”

Since leaving the force, Sena has continued work with Magistrate Court’s DWI/Drug Court. As a community liaison, Sena said he is on a panel including attorneys, judges and treatment providers to determine specialized plans for each participant, which can include job placement opportunities or specific addiction treatment.

He said his work with the drug court comes from compassion, something he says he also needed as a patrolman. Sena added that as an officer, he received firsthand experience and training on issues he would deal with as a judge, including traffic and property crime cases, DWIs and domestic violence cases.

“That along with the compassion, fairness and consistency, those things and that experience, I do believe allows me to be effective and fair,” he said.

Sena and his wife, Gina, have been married since 2003. He has a 23-year-old son, two step-children and step-grandchildren.