Defense attorney: Curry County grand jury selection tainted

The lawyer representing accused child killer Noe Torres is asking District Judge Donna Mowrer to set aside Torres' grand jury murder indictment.

In a motion filed Wednesday, Attorney Kirk Chavez alleges grand jury selection in Curry County is tainted because the District Court has allowed members of District Attorney Matt Chandler's staff to select and excuse grand jury members at will.

Chavez made the same charges in another murder case last year and they were rejected by Ninth Judicial District Chief Judge Teddy Hartley.

Chandler called the latest Chavez allegations a "cut and paste motion that has no facts, authority or law to back it up."

"Each and every grand jury that I have participated in over the past decade was randomly selected by the Administrative Office of the Courts," Chandler wrote in an email, "and it is my understanding that the lists are generated by a computer in Santa Fe that randomly selects citizens in every county throughout New Mexico."

The latest motion by Chavez closely resembles a request he filed with Hartley in the case of Enrique Deleon, 25, who was accused of shooting and killing his neighbors Joe Valero, 44, and Lupita Casteneda, 25, in September during an alcohol-fueled argument that erupted at a neighborhood barbecue on Prince Street.

At a hearing on the motion in February, members of the District Court staff testified grand jury members were selected from a random list generated by the state. They also testified that jurors were assembled on an order from a judge and instructed by the judge.

Hartley ruled, "The court finds there was no showing of fraud nor prejudice to this defendant (Deleon) in the conduct of the grand jury proceeding."

No date has been set for Mowrer to hear Chavez's latest motion in the Torres case.