Serving the High Plains
Serving the High Plains
QCS Managing Editor
A group calling itself the Committee for Law and Order has begun a campaign to remove Tenth Judicial District Court Judge Albert Mitchell from the bench.
Mitchell faces a retention vote in the Nov. 4 general election, since he has served six years, according to state election laws. To be retained, he must garner 57 percent of the vote.
The group seeking Mitchell’s ouster has purchased three full-page advertisements in the Quay County Sun. Each advertisement cites specific cases in which it alleges Mitchell has been too lenient on criminals or has taken too long to make some key decisions.
These allegations and others are repeated in postcards that the committee mailed to county residents, which were delivered Friday.
Mitchell has replied in advertisements that start in today’s Quay County Sun.
The responding ads cite Mitchell’s record of cases heard as the only judge in the judicial district, the few times his decisions have been challenged, and praise he has received from his colleagues as a judge.
Scott Simpson is chair of the committee seeking Mitchell’s ouster.
In July 2009, Mitchell granted two weeks away from jail for Moses Earl Ingram. Three days later, Ingram beat Simpson’s daughter, Amber Simpson, then 27, nearly to death.
Mitchell said he has regretted the results of his decision and said he gave too much weight to a request from Amber Simpson, who was identified as Ingram’s fiancee, that charges she filed earlier against Ingram be dropped.
Ingram was later caught and sentenced to more than 31 years in prison for attempted murder and kidnapping, among other felonies, court records show.
“Scott Simpson has every right to be as angry with me as he wants to be,” Mitchell said. “If I were in his place, I would be just as angry.”
Besides the Ingram case, the committee cites Mitchell’s decisions in other cases, including that of Tony Day.
Day, 14 at the time, murdered his adoptive mother Sue Day and her adoptive daughter Sherry Folts, in November 2012.
The committee says, Mitchell authorized field trips while Tony Day was receiving treatment and being evaluated at a secure facility in Albuquerque. Also, Day’s sentencing as a juvenile, the committee said, was too lenient.
Day was sentenced to remain in juvenile justice custody receiving treatment until he reaches age 21.
Mitchell said he followed the law in the Day case. And that required he be released at age 21.
“The idea was to show whether Tony Day was capable of learning,” he said, “and the testimony of teachers and the CYFD’s psychiatrist showed that Tony was quite capable of learning.”
That, he said, required him to sentence Day as a juvenile.
