A state district judge ruled Friday that Rio Arriba County Sheriff James Lujan is too well-known in the county to stand trial there and a criminal case against him will be heard, instead, in Santa Fe.
Judge Kathleen McGarry Ellenwood — who presided over a trial in June against Lujan in the rural Rio Arriba County seat of Tierra Amarilla, which ended with a hung jury — is the second judge to move a case against the sheriff out of the county.
Judge Bryan Biedscheid in June ordered a second case against Lujan — one that hadn't yet gone to trial — moved to Santa Fe as well.
Both judges ordered the change of venue in response to motions filed by 9th Judicial District Attorney Andrea Reeb, appointed as a special prosecutor to handle the cases against Lujan.
Reeb filed the motions following the mistrial in Tierra Amarilla, arguing in part that as the elected sheriff of the county, Lujan held too much influence over its residents for jurors there to be impartial.
Both cases against Lujan involve former Española City Councilor Phillip Chacon.
In the case Reeb has said she intends to retry after jurors deadlocked 8-4 in favor of acquittal, Lujan faces felony charges of bribing or threatening a witness and harboring a felon during an incident in 2017, in which he is accused of helping Chacon evade police officers Chacon had led on a high-speed chase.
In the case presided over by Biedscheid, the sheriff is charged with three misdemeanor counts of resisting, evading or obstructing an officer. He was accused of showing up drunk at a crime scene at Chacon's home in Española in March 2020 and attempting to take over the operation from police.
Reeb's motions to move the cases out of Rio Arriba said jurors polled after the mistrial felt uncomfortable deliberating in the Tierra Amarilla courthouse, where numerous sheriff's deputies who report to Lujan were providing security. The jurors felt their conversations could be heard by people outside the courtroom.
Reeb also argued heavy media coverage of the trial made it difficult to find jurors without knowledge of the allegations against Lujan.
The prosecutor broached the idea of moving the cases to another judicial district, in San Juan or Doña Ana County, for example, but both Biedscheid and McGarry Ellenwood elected to keep the cases in the First Judicial District, which includes Rio Arriba, Santa Fe and Los Alamos counties.
Biedscheid — who said his decision to move the misdemeanor case was based in part on the lack of physical space in the Tierra Amarilla courthouse — left the possibility for Rio Arriba County jurors to hear the case in Santa Fe. He invited Reeb and Lujan's attorney Jason Bowles, to submit briefs on which county the jury pools should be drawn from.
Bowles has filed a brief asking Biedscheid to draw jurors from both Rio Arriba and Santa Fe counties. He argued "there are significant differences between persons residing in Santa Fe County and those residing in Rio Arriba county," and that using only jurors from Santa Fe County would result in a jury pool "comprised of members vastly disproportionate to that of Mr. Lujan's peers."
Residents from the two counties "live in vastly different communities each composed of members who have distinctly different racial, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds upon which they would draw to make a determination of Mr. Lujan's guilt," Bowles wrote.
There are twice as many people living in poverty in Rio Arriba County as in Santa Fe County, Bowles added.
Reeb has filed a brief in favor of drawing jurors only from Santa Fe County. She argued a jury pool from Rio Arriba County would make the venue change moot.
Biedscheid is scheduled to consider those arguments at an Aug. 26 hearing.
McGarry Ellenwood said Friday jurors in the case she's handling will be selected only from Santa Fe County.
McGarry Ellenwood was appointed to the District Court bench in July 2020, less than a year before Lujan's trial. His trial in June was the first she presided over.
The judge said she previously "underestimated the effect of trying the sheriff in the county in which he is sheriff" and the effect the "overwhelming number of deputies" at the courthouse would have on jurors and witnesses.
She thought it was "utterly inappropriate" for Lujan's supporters to hold a barbecue on court grounds during his trial without discussing it with her, she added.
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