by Jake Arnold

​The Northern Pueblos Regional Transportation Organization (NPRTPO), at their monthly meeting last week (8/2/23), issued a strong letter of recommendation to the NM Department of Transportation (NMDOT) endorsing citizen proposals for a major State Road 554 improvement/reconstruction project.  The NPRTPO  told the NMDOT that this contemplated project should gain "STIP" ( Statewide Transportation Improvement Program) status.  

NPRTPO's members listened to extensive commentary from numerous El Rito and Abiquiu area residents and other concerned individuals (advocating for the safety of the many bicyclists touring on the highway) at the July 12, 2023, meeting.   

Formal consideration of new NMDOT projects by that labyrinthine and many-layered cabinet-level department begins with such recommendations on the part of the several RTPOs operating throughout the state, which are designated as NMDOT affiliates 

Issuance of such a letter of recommendation and inclusion in the STIP are necessary steps along the way to possibly achieving the goal of making such a project, as proposed by citizens at the NPRTPO meeting in July, a reality.
 
In that letter the NPRTPO also asked the NM DOT to conduct request that the NM DOT conduct at Road Safety Audit (RSA) of this highway corridor as part of its assessment of whether or not to grant the citizen proposals regarding a major State Road 554 project in the STIP. 
 
The NPRTPO chair, Vernon Lujan of Taos Pueblo, said at the 8/2/23 meeting, that he had spoken with several friends and associates in the Abiquiu area and those individuals agreed with the concerns raised by members of the public at the July NPRTPO meeting (the principal focus of those voiced concerns were opinions that State Road 554 is an extremely dangerous highway as it now exists).

The NTRPO recommendation letter in question, describing those citizen concerns is available for perusal at this link:  Click Here

by Jake Arnold

Fair disclose/transparency disclaimer: Jake Arnold served on the Harold Ulibarri defense team as a paid investigator on behalf of the defendant during the run-up to the trial  after Ulibarri's 2005 arrest. He assisted/advised his defense attorney on jury-selection as well as strategic & evidentiary matters during the 2006 trial.  Arnold also conducted a post-conviction investigation in matters related to the conduct of some of the jurors during the trial and possible misrepresentations about themselves/backgrounds during the "voir dire" jury-selection proceedings immediately prior to the commencement of that trial.  Arnold's investigative report of his post-trial investigation was included in briefings associated with attempts to reverse that conviction 2008-2008, which did not meet with success.  

​Last week (8/2/23) First Judicial Judge conducted a long-awaited/delayed evidentiary hearing, dismissing the objections of prosecutors, in the matter of a petition by Harold Ulibarri to overturn his 2006 conviction for murdering his onetime domestic partner or housemate and mother of his children, Rhonda Gutierrez, in Chama on Halloween weekend in October, 2005.  A series of Ulibarri's post-conviction attorneys had initiated court filings seeking a conviction reversal and new trial, based on the emergence of new DNA analysis evidence after Ulibarri had exhausted his appeal of his conviction.
 
Uilbarri has been incarcerated since his 2006 conviction.
 
This sensational case captured the rapt attention of nearly everyone in Rio Arriba County back then.  The murdered victim, Rhonda Gutierrez, was a well-respected and beloved county employee at the county offices in Tierra Amarilla. Ulibarri was a senior NM Department of Transportation highway crew chief and had a second job as elk-hunting guide during the autumn/winter season.
 
New DNA evidence (pointing to another suspected perpetrator) is the focus of this matter. Ellington said he would render his decision (probably) in September.  This case and a "new" DNA analysis supposedly fingering Rio Arriba resident Kenny Duran is the basis for Ulibarri's many repeated petitions for reversal of his conviction and a new trial filed the beginning of 2009.  Since that time the matter has been under prolonged consideration by several successive judges assigned to the case post trial.  The matter now before Ellington is not another appeal as far as criminal case procedures go, but a plea by Ulibarri to order a new trial based on evidence that only came to light after his conviction.
 
Gutierrez had entered into a romantic relationship with Duran (married at the time).  Duran had also been involved romantically with another county employee and her possible involvement in the murder and her activities in confronting Gutierrez over her relationship with Duran was one of the subjects of arguments in the case before the jury, as voiced by Ulibarri's trial defense attorney, Tony Scarborough. 
 
At the time of trial, DNA samples were collected at the murder scene of the Ulibarri/Gutierrez home in Chama by State Police laboratory technicians, and were found to contain Ulibarri's DNA. That DNA analysis also suggested that other DNA found at the scene may have come from other individuals--an unidentified male and perhaps (speculation based on the "partial" elements of DNA in the collected samples) from anther female, other than Gutierrez.
 
During the investigation of the murder by the State Police, officers obtained a comparison sample of Ulibarri's DNA and also obtained a sample of Duran's DNA from him during that time period, since he was a potential suspect by virtue of his role as Gutierrez' date for the Halloween party and the two had spent the night together after the party at a Chama motel.  Duran had  told the State Police that he delivered Gutierrez to her residence (home owned by Ulibarri) early the Sunday morning when Ulibarri came upon her body later than morning.
 
Ulibarri reported that he had discovered Gutierrez in the bedroom of that home when he visited  early on a Sunday morning she and Duran had attended a Halloween Party together the previous Saturday evening.  After their separation Ulibarri nonetheless spent substantial time at the home (which he owned), when he was visiting/looking after their children. 
 
After he discovered the body--according to Ulibarri's version of the events of that morning--he drove her lifeless body to the clinic in Tierra Amarilla, where she was pronounced dead.  No murder weapon was ever located by the State Police, who believed Ulibarri had disposed it elsewhere that morning.  An autopsy determined that the weapon used to kill Gutierrez was a .22 caliber gun--likely a handgun--based on the slugs recovered during the post post mortem by the Office of the state Medical and a slug that did not penetrate her body, but was found on the gurney on which her body rested at the clinic.  
 
According to testimony at the 8/2/23 evidentiary hearing, the State Police laboratory did not send the DNA sample to another laboratory that had the capacity to conduct more sophisticated/comprehensive DNA analysis that could have determined the profile of a male contributor of the other of DNA.  The contention of Ulibarri's post-conviction attorneys was that the State Police were remiss on this count.
 
During the tortuous saga of court filings and counter-filings in this matter since 2009 a judge did order that the state Police laboratory-preserved DNA sample, indicating a second male was a contributor, be sent to a different laboratory retained by Ulibarri's legal team.  That independent laboratory analyzed that DNA sample using those more sophisticated, comprehensive techniques lacking on the part of the State Police back in 2006. According to testimony by that laboratory owner on 8/2/23,  the profile of the second male contributor was that of Duran or a closely-related male relative (such as his father/male child/male sibling).  
 
Nick Sitterly, Ulibarri's current attorney, is attempting to have Judge Ellington accept this newly available DNA analysis to justify a new trial. If Ulibarri does obtain a new trial, his line of defense would include a supposition that Duran is just as much a likely perpetrator of the murder as Ulibarri himself and that this proposition establishes sufficient reasonable doubt of his guilt that a jury should hand up a not guilty verdict nearly 20 years after the initial trial jury found him guilty in 2006.  Any new trial would probably not commence until sometime in 2025 or 2026.  If Ellington doses reverse, and order a new trial, Ulibarri may well be released from prison during the interim, given the court rules in place since the old bail bond system ended.  
 
 

By Jake Arnold
​
First Judicial District Judge Jason Lidyard has scheduled the arraignment of Kevin Martinez, charged with murdering Elmer Sanchez Jr. in Hernandez in October, 2022.
 
This case against Martinez is proceeding after Lidyard bound over Martinez for trial at the conclusion of a preliminary hearing the judge conducted last week in Tierra Amarilla.  Preliminary hearings are conducted when defendants are charged when a "criminal information" (a type of complaint) is filed against them, rather than the charges being brought via grand jury indictments. 
 
Binding over a defendant for trial does not indicate a judge has come to a conclusion regarding the defendant's guilt or innocence, but is rather a determination that the judge believes sufficient evidence is at hand to justify a trial at which a jury would render a verdict.  Most felony cases in New Mexico district courts are now prosecuted on the basis of a criminal information. 
 
Often defendants waive their right to a preliminary hearing, but in this matter Martinez' attorney vigorously questioned witnesses in a failed attempt have Lidyard dismiss the case at this stage based on conflicting/contradictory testimony from those witnesses.
 
The trial date in this case will be set by the judge at Martinez' arraignment in Lidyard's Tierra Amarilla courtroom on August 15, 2023.  
 
Martinez is also facing trial in three additional felony cases in which Lidyard is the pressing judge.  Those other cases are all set for trial later this year.  The charges in those other cases are:
• 23 counts of rape and kidnapping in a long-delayed case dating back to 2020.  Martinez is being held without bond pending trial in this case after he failed to appeared for several routine pre-trial hearings in this matter since 2020
 
• Burglary of facilities at Northern New Mexico College in El Rito earlier this year (that alleged crime occurring the same day that Martinez was suspected of stealing a catalytic converter from a car in El Rito).
 
• Aggravated assault with a deadly weapon (a motor vehicle) and associated charges stemming from an incident at the Dollar General Store in Hernandez earlier this year when Martinez allegedly tried to run over law enforcement officers seeking to apprehend him as a fugitive in the murder and burglary cases.  According to police reports, Martinez successfully evaded those officers and was later apprehended several weeks later by a SWAT team at hideout near Española that they had under surveillance.
 
The recent non-bond hold in the rape/kidnapping case effectively means Martinez must remain in custody while the other three felony cases are pending concurrently.