The Vendetta That Pursues Me
Only we can stop this. Only we can make it right.
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Alexander Dumas wrote in his epic novel, The Count of Monte Cristo, in 1844, that “an axiom of jurisprudence tells us to look for the one who profits from the crime” so as to arrive at the culprit.
Advice that was likewise passed on to me by my father who told me in no uncertain terms that to get to the bottom of who did what it’s necessary to know who benefited from what. Of course, the challenge is not always in the concept, rather, it's in the application, just like the devil is in the details. What I mean is, I have always known who committed the crime for which my life has been forfeited.
Like Edmond Dantes, malicious actors conspired, acted upon, and brought about a crime so as to walk away with their prize, and did so with absolute impunity. One could say, even did so with the help of the very investigative and judicial actors that are charged with protecting us from such atrocities.
The facts in a criminal investigation should create the narrative, rather than the narrative creating the facts. Unfortunately, investigators all too often step into investigations with the underlying agenda of substantiating a theory rather than letting the facts create one. A hunch. An idea. A self-serving narrative confessed by a suspect.
Or a witness account that for whatever reason rings true with a detective. Any of these are just as likely as the next to become the central theory of an investigation, even though the facts are yet to be discovered.
Detectives are trained to allow the totality of the facts to create the narrative. But the exigencies of the bureacracy in which they operate doesn't always tolerate the time and effort required to do so. And, as one defense attorney so directly informed me, then there are the “external factors” to consider.
These could be anything. Racial tensions. Media witchhunts. Political bias. Personal vendettas. Professional ambition. The list goes on and on. Factors that judicious minds have always been aware of as the tyranny of human error, which is why they sought to protect us with constitutional safeguards like the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments to the Constitution.
In theory, my conviction should never have been upheld beyond the direct appeal that concluded in 2010, four years after my conviction.
It was upheld because the lawyer assigned to represent me was touched by one of those external factors that prevented her from presenting the very constitutional violation that led to my wrongful conviction.
The answers that she has given, in an attempt to explain her atrocious behavior, speak for themselves as they are nonsensical and unsubstantiated by the facts. And, the same or different external factor also made her successor repeat the same perfidy in the state post-conviction proceedings.
Though, in her defense, she was at least honest when she explained that she feared retaliation from New Mexico’s legal community if she presented the truth; and, since she did go to extreme lengths to be removed from my case, from claiming that she was being threatened to finally quitting her job, she must have felt that the threats against her for potentially presenting truth to power were real.
And as a mother it's at least understandable that she would betray a client for purposes of self-preservation. I most certainly don't fault her for it. What and who I do fault is the obscene overreach that we seemingly permit to every branch of government.
Presidents overreach with executive orders related to healthcare, immigration, even criminal justice. The highest court in the land does the same with decisions that effectively create laws that grant personhood to corporations or invent concepts like qualified immunity to protect corrupt state actors.
Congress does it by drafting odious legislation like the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), that in no way lives up to its stated purpose of making the death penalty more effective or in any way preventing terrorism. And all of this we accept by saying, democracy is messy, but at least we're free! But, are we?
How much does corporate spending and lobbiest intervention in politics impact our votes? The answer, more than we would like to acknowledge. Because there is a blurry line between what we think of as freedom and democracy and what we know to be fascism. And it's not always clear which side of that line we are on.
I think of Jeffrey Epstein as a very clear example of overreach. Nobody believes that he really committed suicide in that federal cell where the cameras just happened to be malfunctioning and nobody was on watch.
No more than anyone believes that the Clintons didn't use their power to silence Monica Lewinsky. Or that Trump didn't use the power of his office to try and get Ukraine to investigate his political rival.
How about the pursuit of Julian Assange across international borders with lying witnesses and the fabrication of evidence, all for speaking truth to power? Or the fact that at this very moment there are men in Gitmo who have served more years than I have without formal charges or due process? And by no means is this an exhaustive list.
But perhaps because of the consistency of the assaults that our democratic republic receives on a daily basis from within our borders, through both corruption and abuses of power from elected and appointed officials, we're not overly concerned or even surprised to hear about a Trump-appointed U.S. Marshall overreaching his federal mandate to pursue a personal vendetta.
We dismiss it as something tragic or unfortunate, like global warming or mass-shootings, only to say, I'm sorry, but what can I do about it? Simply another external factor, that my previous lawyer pointed out to me as the reason that the courts remain silent on the unconstitutionality of my conviction.
Could this be the factor behind why one lawyer after another deliberately denies me effective representation? Could this be the “threat”?
There is no doubt or question as to whether or not a presidentially appointed U.S. Marshall has marked me as his personal enemy and target of his ire. Afterall, he believes that I am responsible for his brother’s death and murder, and it's neither illegal or unethical for him to hate me.
What is both of these things, however, is him using his almost unlimited, governmental powers to pursue his vendetta against me. Granted, Trump did it with his enemies, and maybe because of that he feels entitled; and besides, who really cares about the constitutional guarantees and rights of a convicted felon? Or, an even more disheartening truth is that this is not my first experience with missplaced vendettas.
You could say that my earliest experiences with the abuse of power in law-enforcement involved a mall cop who was married to my aunt. An alcoholic who took pleasure in beating his wife, and because of which a cousin and I went to pay him a visit only to find ourselves threatened with more violence.
And the next time I was seen at the mall he had me arrested for destruction of a handicap parking sign (yes, one of the blue ones), that I neither had the tools, the vehicle, or the will to destroy.
The charge didn't lead to anything serious, unless you consider having to drag my mother to juvenile court, miss school, or having to answer to the impossibility of how I could have unbolted and mangled a steel parking sign with my bare hands. Not something serious, but the humiliation of the whole process was more than enough.
Then again, when I was an undergrad at the university I began dating an older coed whose ex-boyfriend was a campus police officer. He couldn't except that she had chosen me over him and every week I had parking tickets to deal with, even though I had a clearly visible parking permit affixed to the inside of my windshield.
A few years later I had a police officer arrest me for having dinner with his ex-wife. He handcuffed me and drove me to the outskirts of the city, all the while lecturing me on biblical justice and the meaning of righteous vengeance, then left me without a telephone or transportation on the side of the highway so as to further contemplate whether a second date was in my best interest.
So based on my previous experiences with law-enforcement I guess I shouldn't be surprised by my present circumstances: a U.S. Marshall using his influence to see to it that my legitimate constitutional claims never see the light or scrutiny of judicial injury.
In this instance, not for dating his ex-wife or questioning his integrity, but for the much more sinister reason that he sees me as being responsible for his brother’s death.
Not because of any facts – DNA, forensic science, or eyewitnesses – or even any logical reason. His belief is based on the self-serving accusations of the man who actually killed his brother as part of a much larger and macabre plot against me.
But through the blinders of his pain and hate all he has ever been able to see is that had I not come to New Mexico, followed by greed, anger, and divorce his brother would still be alive.
He doesn't care that my intentions for viewing a vacant property were entirely legitimate, or that I was likewise lured to the same property as his brother under false pretenses.
Just like he doesn't care that other actors killed his brother for the sole purpose of doing me harm, and that the authors and beneficiaries of this horrendous crime pursued and executed their agenda with impunity.
Nor does he care that my daughter lost her father, my wife her husband, my mother her son, or my grandmother her grandson. All he cares to note is that my ambition led to a business and a marriage that both failed, and the collateral damage of those failures likewise claimed his brother’s life.
And despite his anger, his vendetta, or his loss the fact remains that the aforementioned Sixth Amendment commands that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right… to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The holding case on this constitutional guarantee is Crawford v. Washington, and has been ever since 2004.
A case that added clarity to ambiguity by defining things like witness and testimony, thereby guiding the courts in upholding the Constitution.
A case that clearly states that the self-serving statements of my only accuser, Eloy Montano, are in fact testimonial in every extension of the word, and, therefore, “the only indicium of reliability sufficient to satisfy constitutional demands is what the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation.” Which is precisely what I was denied at trial, and precisely what no court has responded to after seventeen years of incarceration.
Here was a crime where the only beneficiaries were my ex-wife and business associates in Arizona. Yet, despite the clarity of the facts on this truth the police and the courts continue to ignore the true culpability of the actors involved, just like they’ve ignored the Constitution as they help one of their own to pursue his personal vendetta at the expense of what we call truth, justice, and democracy.
This is exactly what a fascist regime does, where power trumps truth and constitutional rights are only given at the whim and benevolence of a tyrant.
If the line is blurred between who we are and what we have become it’s only because we have collectively permitted the elected and appointed actors of our democracy to pursue personal agendas and vendettas with impunity.
Only we can stop this. Only we can make it right.
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