Judge Considering Reversal of 2006 Harold Ulibarri Murder Conviction & Order for a New Trial

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.