Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Panel Recommends Judge's Removal

By Jay Kroshus
Journal Staff Writer
    The New Mexico Judicial Standards Commission has recommended that Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court Judge Thomas Rodella be removed from the bench and barred from ever holding judicial office again.
    In a petition filed in State Supreme Court Tuesday, the commission alleged judicial impropriety by Rodella in three specific cases— including intimidation of a witness in the commission's investigation of Rodella.
    Phone calls to Rodella and attorney Tony Scarborough— who has represented Rodella in the past— were not returned Tuesday evening.
    The commission petition accuses Rodella of going to "extraordinary lengths" to spring an acquaintance and DWI defendant from jail in 2006; of improperly injecting himself as judge into a domestic violence case by telling a woman she didn't have to obey a subpoena to testify against her husband, then tampering with records in the case; and by first steering a case into his court as a post-election favor, then trying to intimidate a party in the case who complained about Rodella to the Judicial Standards Commission.
    Rodella's testimony to the commission on these matters was "in many respects not credible," the commission found.
    Rodella was elected magistrate in 2006. But he was first appointed to the position in 2005 by Gov. Bill Richardson, a controversial move by the governor.
    Rodella, husband of state Rep. Debbie Rodella, D-Ohkay Owingeh, previously had been the subject of election-related complaints in Rio Arriba County and was once suspended from the State Police, where he worked for 13 years, for firing at a deer decoy that game officers had set up to catch poachers.
    Rodella resigned as judge in July 2005— after just three months on the job— when controversy erupted after he drove from Tierra Amarilla to Española to help get a DWI suspect out of jail on the Fourth of July weekend that year.
    Also, news reports came out detailing investigations of Rodella while he was with the State Police in the 1990s. He had been disciplined for marijuana use, improper use of a weapon, physical abuse and other charges.
    Rodella returned to run for the judgeship in 2006 and came out on top in a six-candidate field.
    The Judicial Standards Commission's investigation of Rodella became public last year. Scarborough, Rodella's lawyer, issued a statement alleging that commission director James Noel was conducting "a wide-ranging, illegal and secret investigation" of Rodella that included gathering information on "innocent citizens," state legislators and other public officials. Noel said the commission had no jurisdiction beyond sitting judges.
    The three cases cited by the commission in Tuesday's petition include:
   

Rodella's involvement in obtaining the release of Carlos Manzanares, the father of a friend, from a Tierra Amarilla jail after Manzanares' arrest for allegedly driving while intoxicated on July 4, 2005. This the case that helped lead to his resignation after his appointment to the judgeship by Richardson.
    The commission found that Rodella got out of bed at 10 p.m., drove 70 miles to the jail to "hand carry a release order" expediting the release of Manzanares to his wife's custody, without any bond being posted. Rodella then assigned Manzanares' case to himself and presided over Manzanares' arraignment.
    The commission said that Rodella and Manzaneres' son— Carl Manzanres— are members of a religious group, Los Hermanos Penitentes. After the younger Manzanares called Rodella about his father's arrest, Rodella made at least 10 phone calls about the arrest and trying to get Carlos Manzanares out of jail, the commission said.
    Rodella "allowed family and social relationships to influence his conduct and judgment," the commission found.
   

While running to regain the judgeship in 2006, Rodella asked Pete and Dorothy Martinez of Chimayó for their support and said he would help them "if they ever had a problem in court," the commission alleges.
    After he won the Democratic primary that year— there was no Republican candidate to oppose him in the general election— he learned from the Martinez's daughter they had a problem with a renter.
    Rodella eventually met with the couple at their home, reviewed the rental agreement and told them they should take the case to court. Rodella "assured Mr. and Mrs. Martinez that they would not have a problem winning in court," told them to not file their complaint until Rodella had been elected and advised them to excuse Rio Arriba's other magistrate judge from the case so that it would be assigned to Rodella.
    But when the case got to Rodella in July 2007, he disqualified himself after an initial hearing in which he examined documents provided by the renter.
    In November, after Rodella received notice that the Judicial Standards Commission was investigating complaints by Pete Martinez, Rodella in a letter to the commission asked for a criminal investigation of Martinez for alleged forgery in the landlord/tenant dispute. The letter prompted a State Police investigation, but the commission wrote that its purpose was "to harass Mr. Pete Martinez and/or compromise" Martinez's testimony before the commission.
   

In May 2007, Rodella as judge inappropriately interfered in a domestic violence case by telling the alleged victim that there would be "no legal consequences" if she chose not to testify, even though she had been subpoenaed by prosecutors. The commission found that Rodella had "overstepped his mandated boundary as a neutral arbiter of law."
    Rodella recused himself from the case when a prosecutor raised the issue, but later recalled the case and dismissed it. The commission accused Rodella of tampering with evidence by altering or destroying his original recusal document.