Michael Morris – In Focus

Editor’s Note – By popular demand I will do my best to do as so many of you have requested – ignore the ADN like you.

One has to wonder why it is 12th Judicial District Attorney Scot D. Key has been so noticeably absent from Republican events during the first challenge for the DA’s Office in 12 years. As amazing as it may seem it is possible that Key is simply assuming the job is his for life. Alternatively it is more likely that Key is weighing the value of the job in light of the magnitude of the challenge of running on his record. Either way Republicans are noticing Scot Key is not even acting like a party member much less an elected official from the party up for re-election.

If I were Scot Key I would be avoiding the spotlight as much as possible. It really is his only chance of retaining the office. In his last term Key has provided a reason for every constituency to detest him. From trying to indict cops for busting meth dealers to the Posey trial to his office’s inability to win even the occasional marginally involved case this Borat parody of a prosecutor has managed to offend just about everyone. Everyone that is except for the beneficiaries of Scot Free by Scot Key (tm) who avoid trial due to, at minimum, incompetence.

Let me take you through a small sample of the sort of conduct that prompted me to take such a thorough look at this miserable excuse for a prosecutor. Take the case of Heidi Stringfellow. Stringfellow was busted with a pound or so of meth and crack and a couple of handguns. Key’s Klowns (tm) let her out by not managing to get the case filed within 30 days. Instead of owning up to the truth Key sent then ADA Kirby Wills to lie to the press telling the Ruidoso News the feds had picked up the case. Of course this was just a lie. After being caught in this lie Key managed to get the case filed. Stringfellow stayed around town for a while then moved to Artesia where one of the cops Key tried to indict when he worked in Capitan, now an Artesia officer, picked her up. This was more than a year. Since that arrest Mr. Key has done everything to make this case go away from delay after delay to the current tactic which focuses on tossing the case during a suppression of evidence hearing set for Feb. 8 in Lincoln County.

I would venture to guess Mr. Key would agree with me that one of the highlights of his administration was the case of Billy Anders. Anders, an Otero County Sheriff’s deputy, shot the man who had killed a civilian and his partner just moments before. The suspect was handcuffed when the shot was fired. Key tried to simply ignore the matter for a long time. In fact it was not until the US Attorney threatened to seek the death penalty on Anders that Key even attempted to pretend to do his job. Of course Anders was not helped a bit by his selection of village idiot Bob Doughty as his attorney either. In a few political moments of wilding Key threw together a case that ignored justice just as much as his persecutions of the “out crowd”. Instead of meaningful justice we gave Anders a year in solitary confinement.

Frankly I am amazed that some people actually, with a straight face, defend charges of corruption in this administration offering that the malfeasance is the result of incompetence rather than “a piece of the action”. That is the best Key loyalists have been able to muster so far. Of course I disagree. Here is an example. Scot Key hired a guy named Frank Cavazos to be the finance manager at the DA’s office. The first and most striking aspect of this hiring is that Cavazos was not in the least qualified for the job. Coming off of a string of clerking jobs in a souviner shop and grocery store the DA’s office did not even bother to contact at least one recent employer I know of. What on earth would prompt Key to recruit this guy to run the office finances? When I broke the story of Cavazos and his squeeze and accomplice Pam Clark being fired from the DA’s office (2005 Story) I was mildly surprised to find Cavazos and Clark living in a trailer park with Cavazos being sued for non-payment of a payday loan. Cavazos was charged with a raft to embezzlement felonies.

After meandering through the courts for nearly a year Cavazos entered into a plea bargain on a half dozen felonies for an 18 month sentence. That sentence seemed fair for a first offense on 2 dozen felonies consisting mainly of Cavazos and Clark selling gas for cash at local stations paying with state credit cards. That was on December 13, 2006. From there on the works had to be in. Cavazos got a Christmas furlough from jail later in the month. In February, after a mere 2 months into the sentence the District’s poster boy for sanity testing of judges, Frank Wilson, in a rather back alley deal, released Cavazos quietly. Crime doesn’t pay unless you know the DA. [A side note for regular readers Cavazos was represented by Adam Rafkin who had to sue Cavazos for his fee – now there IS justice – lol.]

I think the whole Cavazos hiring deserves some scrutiny. The character of the DA is a prime issue as a corrupt one is even more harmful to the community than a merely incompetent one. This election will be decided in the Republican primary as apparently no lawyer in the Democrat Party has the balls to run against this reprehensible “human being” including the men responsible for this man. Those would be Burt Atkins who interjected himself into the special prosecutor procedure to save Key from felony child abuse charges securing instead a mere misdemeanor battery conviction for a savage tandem beating of his 12 year old learning disabled stepdaughter perpetrated with the help of his wife Liz, also convicted in 1994 and Gary Mitchell who gave Key a job after he resigned in the wake of the conviction. What kind of people are you looking for in such positions of power? Why?

There are real world effects of a prosecutor more concerned with who among the bandits owns him. Chief among these effects is an absence of confidence in the existence of the community as such. Kids pile out of town like survivors from a fire right after graduation. Ask Ron Griggs. He left right afterwards returning only to collect his inheritance that included a City Commission seat. Additionally there are a lot of $$$ costs as well. For example a significant portion of the proposed $8-14 million jail expansion is directly the result of the incompetent band of Klowns Key has assembled not being to bring cases to trial in any extended time period thus shifting the cost of a sentenced inmate paid by the state in state facilities to a pre-trial guy sitting in jail for a year without a day in court paid solely by those of us in Otero County. Yeah, Vote Key.

It seems as though Scot Key has decided that keeping his mouth shut and living in the shadows represent his best chance of holding onto the best job he ever had. I agree. Apathetic voters may actually figure change will change nothing. I can confidently say it is impossible to do worse by electing anyone but Key, even if it had to be Dave Ceballes. Vote the way you wish, but don’t blame anyone else for the sad state of the criminal justice here in the 7th [12th] District.