Alleged drunken drivers keep their licenses after police no show
By T.J. Wilham
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NEW MEXICO (KOAT) — Alleged drunken drivers are not having their driver’s license suspended even though state law requires a mandatory six-month suspension even if they are arrested for the first time.
It’s because New Mexico law enforcement officers are not showing up to driver’s license suspension hearings, thus allowing suspected drunk drivers to hit the streets while they await trial.
A Target 7 Investigation has learned this has occurred 42 percent of the time in the past two years, allowing more than 2,200 alleged drunken drivers to avoid serving the suspensions.
This comes at a time in which the FBI is investigating several Albuquerque Police Officers who may have gotten paid from a defense attorney to not show up for criminal court hearings, which is a separate process.
Several officers have had their homes searched by federal agents and have since resigned. Prominent DWI attorney Tom Clear also had his office searched.
Under New Mexico law, when a driver is arrested for drunken driving, their license is automatically suspended for six months and 20 days after their arrest unless they request a hearing to appeal. This happened in about 35 percent of arrests statewide, state officials said.
“If the officer doesn’t show, the case gets dismissed, then as far as your driver’s license is concerned, you are good to go,” said KOAT legal expert John Day.
The alleged drunk driver’s license can still be suspended if they are convicted in the criminal case. They can also avoid a suspension by agreeing to install an ignition interlock.
“We found in research that swift, sure and certain punishment would help deter,” said Linda Atkinson of the DWI Resource Center. “You think of it as, MVD giveth, MVD taketh away because when you sign your license, you’re implying your consent to obey all laws regarding driving.”
Target 7 obtained the data through a public records request and examined every hearing for the past two years. It shows that some large departments – like the Dona Ana County Sheriff’s Office – hasn’t appeared 90 percent of the time thus allowing alleged drunken drivers to continue to drive.
“I get angry. I’m pissed. But, the bottom line is, I think I’m disgusted with the system that fails the community,” Atkinson said. “Those officers work for someone. They work for me as a taxpayer. It’s a corrupt system, and that’s what we’re seeing unveiled with all of this.”
Atkinson is referring to what is currently going on in Albuquerque, where the police department has a slightly worse rate of no-shows compared to the rest of the state. Nearly half of the time, officers did not show up for their hearings.
“The Motor Vehicle Division basically bends over backwards to accommodate officers and their schedules,” Day said. “The idea that officers are not showing up for these things certainly raises questions. Because the rules are basically written to favor letting the officers have some leeway.”
Shortly after news broke, his officers were being investigated by the FBI. Albuquerque Police Chief Harold Medina held this news conference and acknowledged that the problem might have spread to suspension hearings.
According to emails obtained by Target 7, in February and days before the news conference, the state’s chief hearing officer sent an email to Medina saying he did a review of the cases and “noticed a significant pattern of those identified officers failing to appear under subpoenas in cases where Tom Clear was the attorney of record and that first blush, this is well above the traditional officer no-show rate that occur at our hearings.”
“Wow. So, I’m curious. Did they dig a little deeper,” Atkinson asked. “Sounds like (the chief hearing officer) was going to be in contact with the FBI.”
Target 7 looked at about 100 people who were able to get their license back after an APD officer failed to show up for their suspension hearing, six of them went on to get arrested again for a DWI within months.
“It’s a very, very dangerous message to be putting out,” Atkinson said. “Nothing will happen to you. You can drive drunk.”
Albuquerque isn’t the worst.
Las Cruces police officers didn’t show up to these hearings 83 percent of the time and their colleagues at the Doña Ana County Sheriff’s Office failed to appear 90 percent of the time. Santa Fe police missed only 7 percent of their hearings — the best in the state
Target 7 reached out to the Albuquerque Police Department. They said Chief Harold Medina was unavailable to do an interview.
In an email, a spokesman said:
“The MVD hearing officer reached out to Chief Medina when the news of the DWI investigation was publicized. After some research, we were told MVD sent notifications by mail to the Office of the Chief in the past. It appears in some cases the notifications about the status of hearings were forwarded to the pertinent area command, but there was no centralized process to sort through the paperwork and track missed hearings.”
“Since the issue came up, MVD is now sending notifications to APD’s designated email address that is monitored by APD’s court liaison. All notifications that identify missed hearings are electronically assigned to Internal Affairs.”
“Since MVD started sending notifications through email, APD’s court liaison identified 51 instances of Failure to Appear (FTA) for APD officers. Of those, 28 have been processed by APD and submitted to IA. The other 23 are pending.”
“The Internal Affairs Professional Standards Division will investigate and determine whether officers violated policies, or whether they had legitimate reasons for not showing up to a hearing.”
Below is a look at every law enforcement agency’s attendance records for suspension hearings in New Mexico.
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