Jury trials to resume in local counties

Four judicial districts in New Mexico — including the 9th in Clovis and Portales — have been given the green light to start holding jury trials again, but there are already concerns about the constitutionality of those trials in the age of COVID-19.

The state Supreme Court gave four of the state’s judicial districts permission to hold jury trials, according to the Administrative Office of the Courts’ spokesman Barry Massey.

The high court temporarily put trials on hold amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

District courts in New Mexico’s most populous cities have not yet been approved to resume jury trials.

The 12th Judicial District Court in Alamogordo held the state’s first COVID-19-era jury trial on Monday. Johnny Gutierrez, 47, was facing one count each of trafficking a controlled substance and use or possession of drug paraphernalia. The proceedings were broadcast on YouTube.

The jury convicted Gutierrez of the misdemeanor drug paraphernalia charge, but couldn’t come to a unanimous decision on the felony trafficking charge, causing Judge Angie Schneider to declare a mistrial. Carolyn Glover, a spokeswoman for the 12th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said the office plans to retry the charge.

But before the trial started Monday, Gutierrez’s attorney, Roberta Yurcic, filed a motion for a mistrial. She argued that the court’s plan for jury trials was not made available to her before the trial, that Gutierrez would not be able to effectively communicate with her during trial due to social distancing protocol, and that Gutierrez was not being afforded his constitutional right to a public trial because members of the public were being directed to watch the YouTube stream.

Yurcic also argued that Gutierrez wouldn’t be afforded his right to confront his accusers due to the requirement that everyone in the courthouse wear a mask.