Something's missing in Cibola County
More than 500 have ignored court orders

By Jim Maniaci
Cibola County Bureau

GRANTS — Some 537 people failed to appear before the two Cibola County Magistrate Court judges or pay their court-imposed fines from July 1 to Dec. 2, court records show.

Ranging from age 16 to age 75, they owe the court $64,795.

The court compiled the accompanying list for the five months, so it does not show those who settled their accounts from Dec. 2 through Friday due to the time involved in both court and newspaper personnel assembling and publishing the list, which is 10 pages long when printed out on a computer. Thus the bench warrants for their arrests have been answered and are no longer in effect.

Some people on the list may have had their fines (and additional fees imposed by the judge or state law) taken care of by the state of New Mexico when the winter heating rebate checks were sent.

Joe Garcia, assistant bench warrants clerk for the court, located in the new Cibola County Justice Center east of Sakeluras Boulevard on N.M. Route 117 (old Route 66) just east of Grants, said the court's outstanding balances were deducted from those checks as they will be from income tax rebates. If the amount owed the court was less than the rebate the person received the balance. If the amount owed was more, of course, the court received the rebate and the person still has a balance owed to the court.

On the list as the five people owing the most are, in order: Aaron Benally, $1,264; Chancelor Upshaw, $815; Denise Lopez, $764; Delirn Tolino, $715 and Michael Henry, $608.

About 70 percent of the five-month list of warrants are for failure to appear (FTA) and 30 percent for failure to pay (FTP), he noted.

"Those are the only two warrants we have," Garcia explained.

A judge can impose the FTA fine of $100. This excludes other fees which are tacked on and vary in price, he said.

However, "Those fines are not imposed until the person shows up for their hearing and pleads not guilty, guilty or no contest," Garcia said.

In the current batch, he indicated most are New Mexico residents who received citations, mostly for traffic incidents, with some felonies and a few battery (domestic violence or otherwise) cases. Some three-fourths of them are moving traffic violations or operating a vehicle with a suspended or revoked license. He estimates 15 percent are drunk driving cases and the rest are felonies.

Chief Clerk Pam Garcia (no relation) said the drop in DWI cases seems to be continuing. "It's pretty much the same, nothing's changed," she said.

That would be good news compared to the rest of the state, whose returning rise as one of the worst for DWIs in the U.S. was featured on the front page of the New York Times' Dec. 4 Sunday edition with a condensed version printed in this newspaper Dec. 6.

The chief clerk said in a story in the Sept. 24 Independent, the last time the list was published, there were 1,479 DWI charges filed with the court during the fiscal year ending July 1, 2004. That dropped to 977 for the year ended July 1, 2005.

— To contact reporter Jim Maniaci, telephone 285-6184 in Grants or (505) 870-7775 (cellular).