Santa Fe DWI Judge Resigns

[dagnabit9]

Here's the link to the website:

http://www.abqjournal.com/north/405102north_news11-04-05.htm

And also the text:

Friday, November 4, 2005

Judge Gallegos Resigns, Criminal Charges Filed on Thursday

By Jeremy Pawloski
Journal Staff Writer
Frances Gallegos resigned as Santa Fe municipal judge on Thursday, the same day she was charged with three counts of tampering with a public record in a criminal complaint filed in Magistrate Court.
State Police spokesman Jimmy Glascock confirmed late Thursday that the criminal complaint had been filed and that Gallegos will likely be summoned to a future court appearance.
Tampering with a public record is a fourth-degree felony, and if Gallegos is convicted, each count is punishable by up to 18 months incarceration and a $5,000 fine.
District Attorney Donald Gallegos of Taos— no relation to Frances Gallegos— said Thursday night his staff is continuing to review information in the case and that there is the potential for additional charges against the now ex-judge.
Gallegos delivered her resignation letter to the Journal on Thursday night and said she was also faxing it to city officials.
In the resignation letter dated today, Gallegos makes no admission of guilt in the matters concerning the "myriad" of ethical violations alleged by the state Judicial Standards Commission in pending disciplinary petitions before the state Supreme Court.
The Judicial Standards Commission alleges, among other things, that Gallegos tampered with DWI records that are sent to the state Department of Motor Vehicles. The commission maintains that Gallegos changed the records in an attempt to falsely enhance her reputation with the public by showing stiffer DWI sentences than she actually gave.
"My decision to resign in no way is an admission of any wrongdoing," Gallegos wrote. "I profess my innocence and had I continued with my attorney Aaron Wolf as legal counsel I know we would have prevailed!"
"Yes there might have been some oversight and human error; however, none of us is free from human error, no lawyer, no judge, and no single person," the letter states.
Gallegos said she was not aware of any criminal charges filed against her when she was interviewed Thursday. The Journal subsequently confirmed that the criminal complaint had been filed.
The Judicial Standards Commission's allegations resulted in Gallegos' paid, 90-day suspension by the state Supreme Court in August. Her suspension was set to end at the end of the month.
Gallegos said that she has not been offered any deal or leniency from the Judicial Standards Commission in exchange for her resignation.
In October, the commission had offered to "resolve" all of its disciplinary petitions against Gallegos if she agreed to resign from the bench and never again seek judicial office. But Gallegos rejected the offer at that point and let pass a deadline set for the offer by the commission.
The commission has three pending disciplinary petitions against Gallegos before the Supreme Court. In addition to altering DWI records, the commission has also accused Gallegos of failing to give some defendants who represented themselves in her court the opportunity to plead "not guilty," and that she forced DWI offenders to attend a specific aftercare treatment center, regardless of the results of those offenders' DWI screening exams.
It was unclear Thursday night what the status of Gallegos' disciplinary matters before the Supreme Court will be in light of her resignation.
Judicial Standards Commission director James Noel said that in general, "the recommendation of a respondent judge does not necessarily terminate the respondent's proceedings." Noel however, would not comment directly on Gallegos' petitions.
Gallegos states in her resignation letter that the Santa Fe City Council's decision last month to not pay for her legal defense contributed to her decision to resign.
"Since the City Council elected not to continue my legal representation, I have no financial ability to prove my side of the alleged (sic) allegations," she writes. "I do not have the financial resources to fight these charges."
Gallegos also cited the personal toll of having the allegations against her made public.
"Today's announcement is one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do," she writes. " ... I believe this decision is in the best interests of the city court as well as in the best interest of my family and friends. My loved ones should not have to suffer the pressure and stress of the negative publicity and the tremdous (sic) toll it has taken on all of us. My first priority, family is the most important thing to me."
Gallegos asked that her programs in Santa Fe Municipal Court, some of which have already been discontinued, not be abandoned in the wake of her resignation.
"I pray that in an effort to 'erase over eleven years of Judge Frances Gallegos presiding over Municipal Court' from the history of Santa Fe, that the alternative programs do not get discarded or thrown away just because, I began them ... These programs belong to the people and the families whose lives are better because of them."

[Micky Dee]

That Gallegos failed to give some "pro se" defendants that is, defendants who represent themselves in court the option of pleading not guilty.

That Gallegos forced all DWI offenders to attend a specific after-care treatment center, regardless of the results of those offenders' DWI screening exams.

The commission's other pending petition against Gallegos alleges that she altered DWI sentencing records that are sent to the state Motor Vehicle Division in order to show stiffer sentences, in an attempt to "falsely enhance her standing with the public."

Really?? Now why would she do that. Gallegos was re-elected last year to her third four-year term and had recently announced that she was thinking of running for mayor. I guess her $65,000-a-year judgeship wasn't paying the bills.

The local MADD outfit has been awfully quit about all of this. It turns out that MADD's Municipal Court Monitoring Community Action Team, had criticized her for not having at least a 90% conviction rate in past years. They apparently they told her that if she wanted to further her political aspirations she better get with the program or they would actively camping against her.

..by the City MIS Department at MADD's request from dispositions entered by municipal court staff on DWI cases adjudicated by Judge Fran Gallegos. The analysis reveals:

Only 37 out of 912 cases involved a jail sentence.
A conviction rate of 49.7%. (The state average was 85%)
Only 54% of the aggravated DWI cases that refused the breath/blood tests resulted in a conviction.
Only 8.6% of offenders convicted of aggravated DWI were sentenced to jail (aggravated DWI carries a mandatory jail sentence).


ANALYSIS

Result 1: Less than 50% (N=453) of 912 DWI cases resulted in convictions. Forty-two percent (N=366) of these cases were dismissed. These include 24% that were dismissed with "no conditions" and 18% "with conditions."

Yep she sure pissed off MADD, so in order to get on their good side she resorted to screwing around with people's lives.


Gallegos' practice of altering the sentencing records for DWI defendants on the paperwork that her court sent to MVD could pose direct harm to those defendants.

"She didn't amend them, she altered them, she changed the absolute disposition of the matters," Noel said. "She went back to cases that were dismissed and gave these individuals 90-day sentences."

If an MVD employee subsequently reviewed the driving records for these individuals, "they're going to see a DWI conviction on there for a matter that was dismissed. This is not clerical, this is a problem."

http://www.freenewmexican.com/news/34348.html

Agent alleges judge altered DWI files

By Jason Auslander | The New Mexican
October 29, 2005

Suspended Municipal Judge Frances Gallegos appears to have altered closed driving-while-intoxicated case files to misrepresent her conviction record on drunken-driving cases, according to a state police investigation.

“Falsifying a public record is a felony,” state police Agent Patrick Oakeley said in a search-warrant affidavit filed Friday morning in District Court.

The warrant was executed on the offices of the state Judicial Standards Commission on Oct. 19, when state police seized boxes containing hundreds of Municipal Court documents.

The commission had subpoenaed the documents for its investigation into one of two sets of misconduct allegations against Gallegos, who was suspended for 90 days with pay Aug. 24 by the state Supreme Court.

The allegations that the Supreme Court ordered the commission to investigate first claim that Gallegos did not allow lawyerless defendants to plead not guilty, conducted summary trials and acted incompetently. The second set of allegations concern the driving-while-intoxicated records and was the subject of Oakeley’s investigation.

In the affidavit, Oakeley wrote he was assigned Aug. 18 to investigate “alleged criminal activity” by Gallegos in connection with the DWI records. He met Aug. 23 with Jim Noel, executive director of the standards commission, who told him that matters before the commission were “highly confidential” and that a search warrant would be needed to take the documents, according to the affidavit.

The next day, the affidavit states, Municipal Court records manager Sharon Romero told Oakeley that Gallegos had assigned her to pull all the DWI cases the judge had adjudicated and amend them using a form designed by a clerk. That clerk, Jeremy Hanika, also was interviewed by Oakeley.

Hanika told Oakeley that Gallegos ordered the DWI files to be pulled after she was criticized by an anti-drunken-driving group for being lenient on jail time for DWI offenders.

He said Gallegos blamed her staff for not reporting the sentences accurately to the state Motor Vehicle Department and wanted amended forms filled out for all her past DWI cases, according to the affidavit.

“Mr. Hanika stated that during this project, he began to notice that the cases he turned in for Judge Gallegos’ approval were being altered by the Judge to reflect harsher jail sentences,” Oakeley wrote.

Hanika said Gallegos used white-out to blot out the jail time he had correctly written on the amended form and write in a larger amount of jail time in purple ink, according to the affidavit.

“Mr. Hanika went on to say that he observed Amended DWI Forms that indicated jail time for DWI cases that had been dismissed and had no need for sentencing,” Oakeley wrote.

“Mr. Hanika stated that these corrections always indicated more jail time.”

Romero told Oakeley she thought the effort to amend the cases was an attempt by Gallegos to “make herself look good,” according to the affidavit. Romero also said she saw evidence of the judge’s using white-out to alter the amended documents.

“Ms. Romero stated that numerous staff members approached her and told her that Judge Gallegos was changing the dispositions of the DWI cases and that the changes did not match the Judgment and Sentencing forms and the original Abstract forms,” Oakeley wrote.

Romero told Oakeley she believed the changes the judge made were “wrong,” according to the affidavit.

Gallegos hung up on a New Mexican reporter seeking comment Friday.

Citing a possible conflict of interest, District Attorney Henry Valdez has forwarded the results of the state police investigation to Taos District Attorney Donald Gallegos. Taos Deputy District Attorney Tim Hasson refused to comment on the case Friday.

[dagnabit9]

The anti-drunken-driving group the New Mexican article is referring to that criticized Gallegos was not MADD, but a group called the DWI Resource Center based here in Albuquerque. It is run by a Ms. Linda Atkinson who is a pseudo-MADD type person in her own right. Back in the late 80's/early 90's timeframe, she got the state (or the county or the city - I forget) to make it mandatory for everyone below the age of 45 to attend her 'class' before obtaining a new driver's license. Her class consisted of many MADD-like rants and raves surrounding the premise that New Mexico has one of the highest fatality rates in the US (we don't). Her snake-oil show has since folded.

Anyway, she compiled stats on all the judges in Santa Fe and Albuquerque and their individual and collective conviction rates when it came to DWI and got them published in the local papers. Many judges were very upset with her even to the point of legal action. I've heard nothing from the judges or Ms. Atkinson on this particular matter. Nor have I heard anything from the local MADD chapter president.

[Micky Dee]

dagnabit9 wrote:

The anti-drunken-driving group the New Mexican article is referring to that criticized Gallegos was not MADD, but a group called the DWI Resource Center based here in Albuquerque.

Auh yes, Linda Atkinson
http://www.ridl.us/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=831

But When I said..

The local MADD outfit has been awfully quit about all of this. It turns out that MADD's Municipal Court Monitoring Community Action Team, had criticized her for not having at least a 90% conviction rate in past years. They apparently they told her that if she wanted to further her political aspirations she better get with the program or they would actively camping against her.

Quote:
..by the City MIS Department at MADD's request from dispositions entered by municipal court staff on DWI cases adjudicated by Judge Fran Gallegos. The analysis reveals:

Only 37 out of 912 cases involved a jail sentence.
A conviction rate of 49.7%. (The state average was 85%)
Only 54% of the aggravated DWI cases that refused the breath/blood tests resulted in a conviction.
Only 8.6% of offenders convicted of aggravated DWI were sentenced to jail (aggravated DWI carries a mandatory jail sentence).


ANALYSIS

Result 1: Less than 50% (N=453) of 912 DWI cases resulted in convictions. Forty-two percent (N=366) of these cases were dismissed. These include 24% that were dismissed with "no conditions" and 18% "with conditions."

This is in fact MADD and not the DWI Resource Center >

[marcellus91872]

First unreliable alcohol monitoring devices,then false stats,then rewriting the constitution,then senseless laws from the political pressure due to,now this,and who is to say she is the first.Candace Lightner was right,they have lost their focus on safety,heck the don't even focus on justice.This judge prabably made decisions based on facts,and sentenced on assessments,facts and obsevations,now subject to scrutiny,made a conscience decision to keep her job.I assure you,MADD's acheivements have caused more than one law to be broke,even laws that have more than a .000065% chance of having an innocent victim perish.I added a comment at the new mexican link on this page,wonder if they will post it?

[dagnabit9]

Micky -

Let me explain why I said what I said. I got a bit side-tracked in my statement as I do sometimes tend to ramble a bit before getting to my point.

Yes, it is correct that a MADD led organization had criticized this judge. What <<I>> was trying to say was that earlier in the year, Ms. Atkinson's group published the DWI conviction rates of ALL the judges in the Albuquerque and Santa Fe courts. Some of the judges went to the state basically asking for her head on a pole, as if to say "How dare she put our business up to public scrutiny!!" Well, I think this has pretty much blown over and we don't hear a lot from Ms. Atkinson's group anymore.

Also, on another note, somewhat same subject: to attend the DWI class that Ms. Atkinson was putting on, you had to pay a $45 fee (non-refundable). This is no longer the case as her class is no longer being held.