Complaint against judge dismissed

A legal complaint against a Quay County magistrate judge over an alleged lack of courtroom access was dismissed last week after the plaintiff’s attorney requested it, citing a resolution of the case.

A notice of dismissal was filed Oct. 25 in the 10th Judicial District Court because the “the matters raised in the petition … have been resolved.”

Tucumcari attorney Donald Schutte, who filed the complaint on behalf of Sue Moore, said by phone Friday that District Judge Albert Mitchell Jr.’s interim order after the complaint “removed the hurdles” for courtroom access.

Schutte also said Mitchell and the court’s administrative office also were trying to work out guidelines so people could observe future magistrate court cases with no restrictions.

“From Sue’s perspective, we accomplished what we wanted, and that was to open the (courtroom) doors up,” Schutte said.

Moore filed the complaint Sept. 17 against Quay County Magistrate Judge Timothy J. O’Quinn after she and a relative, an alleged victim in a criminal case, “were not allowed back into the court room where the hearing was to occur until permission was granted by someone in the back” during a Sept. 11 hearing in Tucumcari, according to the original complaint.

The complaint also stated “discussion about the case may have happened before they were allowed back into the court room.” The complaint stated Moore and the alleged victim would have spoken against the release of the defendant from jail during the hearing.

The complaint stated access to the magistrate courtroom was restricted and that a person needed to sign in at the door and wait for someone to approve his or her admittance. The filing stated such restrictions are “contrary to law,” citing the New Mexico Constitution and other statutes.

The defendant in the criminal case cited by Moore wasn’t named in the complaint, but court records showed it was Everett Nox Cato, accused in August of battery against a household member and aggravated battery against a household member by strangulation or suffocation. The latter count is a third-degree felony that could lead up to three years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

O’Quinn later recused himself from Cato case, which was transferred to district court in Tucumcari in mid-October. The case is pending.

Mitchell issued his interim order Sept. 19, acknowledging the state “has a strong public policy that government actions will be conducted in public view.”

While acknowledging the court’s need for security and order, Mitchell’s order stated the magistrate courtroom door will be opened 10 minutes before a hearing and remain unlocked until 10 minutes afterward or until the building’s front door is locked.

Mitchell added: “No inquiry will be made about why anyone is entering the Court during those periods of time. No records will be kept of who enters the court or the nature of the business in entering the court, while the court is in session.”

Mitchell noted his order doesn’t totally bar a magistrate judge from restricting access to a courtroom, but he or she must enter a written order to do so beforehand.

“It is expected that this will only occur in those special and unique circumstances” and “should not be general practice,” Mitchell wrote.

Schutte said his plaintiff’s initial complaint wasn’t against O’Quinn so much as against the court’s security procedures. O’Quinn just happened to be the judge that day when the allegedly unlawful restrictions occurred, he said.

O’Quinn, contacted Monday through a magistrate court judicial specialist, declined to comment.

Moore’s complaint was referred to the New Mexico Supreme Court. Schutte said the high court might issue courtroom-access guidelines for the rest of New Mexico in the wake of the initial complaint.