Get Your Turkey at the 8th Judicial District

A Difficult Thanksgiving

According to tradition we thank our creator, family, friends, the gods, the Sacred Mountain or life itself for blessings on Thanksgiving. As we utter these words of humility and comfort, I shall cross my fingers. Given the failing state of civil society across the Mid East, in Mexico, and here in America, it seems there is less hope and little change for the better: see Ferguson, see Albuquerque.

In an effort to keep the rabble mindful of their duty to their corporate masters, the rule of law has been turned out of the House of Justice. Like some abandoned outlier, the law is used now to serve judicial careerists, cops, judges, and prosecutors, agents of the National Security State and the militarization of government.

We all live or die in Ferguson and Albuquerque. By shooting the black man or child, the homeless or the mentally challenged, the cops send a message: work at Walmart; keep your mouths shut, and do as you’re told. Keep your hands away from toy guns or change the color of your skin. We’re listening to your phone calls and watching you at home and abroad. Money rules and nurtures power.

But, as opposed to Ferguson, our long and local  road of tragedy has turned Taosenos into specialists of gallows or black humor. To survive, we laugh.

Now the Taos cops sometimes take their orders from a DA’s office, an office immersed in acts of subterfuge against the U.S. Constitution, the New Mexico Constitution and Statutes.

To wit: I have just finished reading a “Motion to Dismiss for Governmental Misconduct or in the Alternative, to Suppress all Evidence Stemming from an Improper Wire Interception,” a document filed recently by a defense attorney in the now notorious “Plumber’s Mansion” case or as the Sign Man called it: “Feds Probe Plumber’s Crack Case.”

Is a drug case without drugs, money, or guns but only phone calls and check records truly a drug bust?

The issue here concerns a defense attorney’s objections to the fusion of federal and state law re: subpoenas, first issued administratively and legally by a federal DEA agent for purposes of acquiring info on “pen registers,” i.e. using “trap and trace” methods to acquire the metadata on phone records or numbers only: who you call, who calls you.

Subsequently, based on the “metadata” subpoenas from the feds, the federal DEA agent, one Kevin Mondragon (who is not from here) and the Taos DA, one Donald Gallegos of Questa, filed, according to court documents an 85-page bundle of documents, including a 63-page affidavit, 12 page application, and 8-page court order in District Court at 5:00 pm on 11 Oct. 2013.

At 5:10 pm, same day, Judge Sarah “Speed Read” Backus apparently signed off on the 8-page court order, prepared one assumes by the DA, or warrant to wire tap the phones of several suspected drug dealers in greater Taos County. Though the “code talkers” discuss automobile parts and cows or horses, money occasionally but rarely if ever drugs, according to the docs, they must be guilty of “something.”  According to defense attorney documents, the Judge and DA and DEA Agent skipped the part in the affidavit and application about “facts” related to “probable cause.” They relied on imaginative interpretation of the local scene i.e. El Mitote or circumstantial evidence.

Now the “speed reader” has been excused by a defense attorney, who suspects Her Honor of ignoring the highly dense documents, which offer detailed sociological commentary about the habits of La Gente but few if any facts on cops and “alleged” criminal activity.  Apparently certain local  neighborhoods are ill at ease with strangers like the DEA agent, whom the neighbors accosted when he parked on the streets.

(Caramba! First the drug dealers? Now the DEA? Vamoose, pinch copper, vamoose.)

The documents list a whole variety of colorful nicknames attached to Hispanic-Mexican names: “Chacal,” “Polanco,” “Gaby,” “Chago,” “Chiqulin,” “El Grande,” etc.  I could hear my friends from The Wire, McNulty, Lester, and Bodie, the kids and cops, chortle. The DEA Agent followed one dude, who kept driving different cars. Damn drug dealers. The agent said “they” made alleged exchanges behind closed doors? Damn drug dealers. And “they” won’t let his “confidential sources” in the door to buy anything. Damn drug dealers.

The notorious Taos DA Mr. Donald “Duck ‘N Cover” Gallegos and the DDA, one “Emilio “Shampoo” Chavez, who only recently cut back his puffy semi-Afro, are currently being investigated for misuse of subpoena powers in the KCEC Ma Barker Bandido case by the New Mexico Disciplinary Board of the Supreme Court. Having discovered a second way to circumvent New Mexico law, thanks to a compliant DEA agent, whose federal boss, apparently, suggested he turn the case over to the dynamic duo in Taos, the DAs began running wild (again).

Life imitates art.

The dates on the latest aberrations suggest the DA and DDA acted subsequently to being noticed by defense attorney concerns about the prior issuance of 100 unlawful subpoenas in the Ma Barker case but prior to Judge John Paternoster’s ruling that quashed the indictments in the same case. The Good Judge could find no precedent for the legitimacy of the DA’s so called “hometown” subpoenas.

Recently on Oct. 9, 2014, in the Paternoster court, the Judge heard Defense Attorney Todd Coberly, who represents one of the alleged gang members in the Ma Barker case, raise an issue about Shampoo Chavez’s unorthodox use of the subpoena and discovery powers. The details are as arcane as they are ridiculous. When referring to Shampoo Chavez, Coberly used terms like “hubris,” “audacity,” and said, “anybody else would be disbarred.”

In the above case, Paternoster seemed slightly nostalgic and lamented the public’s loss of faith in the judicial system. His Honor referred to Ferguson, and seemed sad, as he discussed the options for correcting Chavez’s wayward practice. “We are talking about preserving our public credibility of the legal system in the country,” Judge Paternoster said.

One wonders why the DA and DDA are not on administrative leave? They have tarnished the system and continue to stain all who come within reach: cops, judges, and they even blame secretaries. It’s amazing. Like the community of Ferguson, we are confronted here by a low bar when it comes to the practice of justice.

Happy Holidays from the Bad Gringo.