Judge rejects plea deal with no jail time in drive-by shooting

May 23—State District Judge T. Glenn Ellington on Tuesday refused to accept a plea agreement prosecutors had offered to one of two teenagers involved in a drive-by shooting last summer that injured a 70-year-old woman in the South Capitol neighborhood.

The agreement called for Patrick Christopher Marquez, 19, to spend five years on probation and would have required him to undergo substance abuse screening and complete a gun safety course.

Marquez is charged with four felonies: aggravated battery with a deadly weapon, shooting at or from a motor vehicle causing great bodily harm, conspiracy to commit shooting at or from a motor vehicle and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. If tried and convicted on all four counts, he would face a maximum penalty of more than 16 years in prison.

Under the terms of the proposed deal, he would have pleaded guilty to being an accessory to shooting at or from a motor vehicle and conspiracy to commit shooting at or from a motor vehicle.

Marquez's attorney declined to comment on the case after the plea hearing Tuesday.

The charges against Marquez and co-defendant Santos Ben Atencio, also 19, stem from an early morning incident in June in which Santa Fe police responding to reports of shots fired discovered a woman sitting in her recliner in her home on a small residential street off Paseo de Peralta had been struck in the leg and abdomen by bullets fired from outside.

Following an investigation, Marquez and Atencio were accused of shooting at the woman's home from a vehicle driven by Marquez, who had followed her granddaughter there, according to a criminal complaint. The document states the teens were in a dispute with the granddaughter over a comic book they accused her of stealing.

The judge rejected the plea deal after questioning Deputy District Attorney JoHanna Cox about whether the wounded woman had approved of the agreement and how the state's position in the case had evolved from prosecutors initially seeking to hold Marquez without bond until his trial to offering him a deal that guaranteed him no jail time.

"Your honor, at the time that was filed, this was a very serious offense," Cox said. "It still is a serious offense, but in the discovery process ... there is a lot that has been learned about the defendant. He has significant substance abuse issues. He does not have an extensive violent criminal history, but he needs more assistance than could be provided through the incarceration channels."

Cox told the judge she had spoken "extensively" to the victim and "she is aware of the terms of the plea."

"She was happy to see that Mr. Marquez was willing to take responsibility for his substance abuse issues," Cox said, adding the woman's granddaughter also has substance abuse issues, so she was "sensitive to those needs of the defendant."

Cox then read the court a letter penned by the wounded woman, in which she described waking up that morning in June and sitting down in her recliner, when "all of a sudden I was shot by two bullets."

"One bullet went in and was lodged in my right thigh," Cox read from the woman's letter. "The other bullet went through my abdomen, tumbled around and was lodged in my abdomen. ... I had to undergo major surgery for my injuries. My intestine and colon had to be reconstructed.

"Shattered windows, splintered wood trim and wall damage had to be repaired. My electric recliner, which had bullet holes and blood splatter, had to be replaced," the woman wrote.

Having lived in Santa Fe her entire life, the woman wrote, she had always felt safe, especially in her own home. Now, she wrote, she and her family feel "great anxiety and fear" whenever they hear loud cars or car doors being slammed.

"This incident has left a huge impact on me and my family's lives and well-being," the woman wrote.

"None of that sounded like she would agree to this plea," Ellington told the deputy district attorney. "It was a description of the harm that she personally sustained."

Cox told the judge she had spoken with the woman by phone over the past few weeks, and the woman agreed to the plea deal.

"That is what she wrote," Cox said. "We do not tell the victims what to write. So that is what she wanted to share."

After learning from Cox the defendants had followed the woman's granddaughter to her home looking for a stolen comic book, Ellington rejected the plea agreement.

"I won't accept a plea to a guaranteed suspended sentence under those circumstances," he said.

Jury selection in the case against Atencio — who is accused of firing the shots that struck the woman — is scheduled to take place in June, according to online court records.

Cox told Ellington the District Attorney's Office also expects to resolve his case through a plea agreement, but scheduling conflicts prevented the office from holding Atencio's plea hearing at the same time.

The District Attorney's Office did not respond to an email Tuesday asking how the judge's rejection of Marquez's plea could affect Atencio's case.