Tag Archives: Roosevelt County

legal news, local news

Constitution trumps jail security

Score one for the Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

A district judge has ruled that the Roosevelt County, N.M., policy restricting jail inmates’ visitation with their attorneys is unconstitutional.

http://www.newschannel10.com/story/28826840/judge-rules-restricted-attorney-access-at-area-jail-unconstitutional

The policy was enacted after some inmate escapes at the Portales lockup. Sheriff’s department officials restricted the days and times attorneys could visit their clients. State District Judge Donna Mowrer said the restrictions violated constitutional guarantees that inmates were entitled to meet with their attorneys whenever they wished.

The county said the restrictions were enacted out of security and staffing concerns.

I’m with the judge on this one.

Inmates mustn’t be denied access to their lawyers, who in some cases are the only people in their lives.

A lawyer, Eric Dixon, protested the restrictions, citing an occasional inability to visit clients incarcerated because his weekday work schedule prevented him from getting to the jail until after hours.

Constitutional protections should be honored whenever possible. It seems to be the Roosevelt County jail administration is in a position to follow the tenets set forth in our nation’s founding document.

 

Uncategorized

County clerk shows honor and resigns

Roosevelt County (N.M.) Clerk Donna Carpenter has just quit her job and given new meaning to the term “honor.”

http://www.pntonline.com/2013/12/20/roosevelt-county-clerk-resigns/

Carpenter resigned her post because she disagrees with the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision that effectively legalizes same-sex marriage in that state.

Carpenter said she believes more strongly in God’s law than in man’s law. Thus, she quit a job she’d held for only about a year after being elected in 2012.

Why the honor in her quitting?

It’s a matter of principle. She decided she no longer could serve as county clerk if the state’s highest court was going to make her issue marriage licenses against her deeply held religious beliefs.

I cannot quibble with her decision.

I’m not going to enter the discussion over whether I endorse “marriage equality.” I’m still grappling with that in my own heart and head. Donna Carpenter’s decision to resign, though, is a deeply principled one for which she should be applauded.

She could have stayed on, swallowed hard and said, in effect, that while she disagrees with the ruling, she took an oath to follow the laws of the state. Or, she could have kept her job and refused to endorse the ruling issued by the New Mexico court; the result of that would have been a costly and probably futile court battle that would have cost her constituents a boatload of money.

She didn’t. She said she couldn’t follow the law and would surrender the office to someone who could follow it.

Donna Carpenter made an honorable decision.