LAS CRUCES >> Siding with the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office, a state district judge has ruled that the agency followed open records laws and does not have to release publicly any further details about a high-profile New Year’s Day fight that left one alleged intruder dead and another man, Joe Torrez, in legal limbo.
In the weeks after the deadly Jan. 1 altercation, sheriff’s deputies arrested five people for their suspected role in an aggravated burglary of a mobile home in the 600 block of King James Avenue — the residence of Joe Torrez, a 28-year-old mixed martial arts fighter.
Torrez, meanwhile, was questioned by authorities for the stabbing death of one of the alleged intruders, 25-year-old Sal Garces. Torrez has not been charged or formally cleared, but his attorney maintains Torrez acted in justifiable self defense.
Torrez, under the advice of attorney C.J. McElhinney, has not cooperated with DASO since Jan. 2. At the time, McElhinney said he was bracing for a legal defense. To that end, McElhinney requested DASO’s reports about the investigation through open records laws.
DASO released some details but withheld others, citing a law enforcement exemption to the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act. So McElhinney filed a civil suit, asking the court to force DASO to release remaining case files.
Driggers reviewed the case files in his chambers in the weeks after a March 28 hearing, then ruled last week that DASO did not have to make public any more documents related to the investigation.
McElhinney is planning to appeal the decision, and said Monday he is preparing necessary paperwork for the New Mexico Court of Appeals.
“I plan to fight this until we win, or we can’t fight anymore,” he said in a phone interview.
McElhinney also reiterated what he said to Driggers at the March 28 hearing: That DASO was relying on an overly broad interpretation of state open records laws, provided, in part, by a open records compliance guide assembled by the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. McElhinney said the guide combined, in error, elements of state and federal open records laws.
In his ruling, Driggers wrote that he found the AG’s guide to be “persuasive authority.”
Days after the incident, McElhinney launched a successful public support campaign for Torrez through social media.
Last week McElhinney took to the “Support Joe Torrez” Facebook page to explain why he had “respect” for Driggers’ decision, but disagreed with the reasoning.
“There has been a recent trend in American law and politics, especially at the national level, for the government to hoard information on its citizens and to prevent citizens from accessing that information,” McElhinney wrote. “These tactics have now trickled down to the state level. … Do you want the state government to be able to maintain a secret file on you that it does not have to share? That is essentially what has happened to Joe in this case.”
In court, DASO argued that they are withholding the information to protect the integrity of the case. The investigation contains information about rival gangs which could endanger witnesses, DASO’s lead investigator on the case, Robert Nevarez has said.
Part of the reason Torrez remains under investigation, DASO officials say, is that evidence contradicts his early statements to DASO.
After the March 28 hearing but before Driggers made his ruling, McElhinney received from DASO copies of two statements Torrez made to investigators. The first statement was taken from Torrez at the scene, McElhinney said, and the other was taken in a brief interview Jan. 2 that McElhinney ended.
What authorities didn’t furnish to McElhinney was another statement Torrez gave at DASO headquarters on the afternoon of Jan. 1. McElhinney said he received an email Monday from the county attorney that a technical issue stopped DASO from retrieving that interview.
“During the second interview, we had audio and video difficulties with the recording,” DASO spokeswoman Kelly Jameson said in an email to the Sun-News.
Both Jameson and McElhinney declined Monday to provide copies of Torrez’s statements to the Sun-News.
While it remains unclear what Torrez said in the interviews, Jameson added that the recording equipment glitches won’t hamper the investigation ” because the second interview was very similar to the first,” Jameson said.
The investigation is ongoing, Jameson added, as sheriff’s deputies are still waiting the lab analysis results from evidence at the scene. The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator also has yet to release Garces’ autopsy report.
James Staley can be reached at 575-541-5476