Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1899-12-01
THE LAWS ENFORCED
The Citizens of Rio Arriba County
Do Their Duty in Court
Matters,
ANCIENT MURDER AVENGED
The Sunday Law Observed and the Vic
lators Of the Gaming Laws Indicted
The First Court Term in Two
Years.

| ing from TERRA Amarillo, where sue
cessful two weeks term of court was
held. In the party We're Judge John R,
McFie, District Attorney r. c. Gortner,
District Clerk A. il Bergele, Court In
terpreter Alexander Read, Attorneys B.
M. Read and e. l.. Solignac, besides
Sheriff Augustin Martin and his deputy,
Amado Ortiz, who had six prisoners in
charge and delivered them to the peni-
tentiary. While at TERRA Amarillo the
court officials We're entertained by Hon,
and Mrs. T. D. Burns. Court Stenogra-
to prepare for court there next week.
The other court officials will leave for
Taos tomorrow forenoon.
AS result Of the two weeks term of
court the penitentiary gates last night
opened to receive, for the terms of their
natural lives, Anastacio Martinez and
Ramon Patron, convicted of murder in
the second degree Desiderio Sandoval,
for seven years for murder in the third
degree; Manuel a. Martinez, for two
years for assault to kill; Jose Ycilio Ro-
Nero, for two years for obtaining
money under false pretenSes, and Juan
Sanchez, for two years for burglary 1t
cannot longer be- said that convictions
are impossible in Rio Arriba county, or
that juries there fail to do their duty.
The court officers all unite in stating
that the present juries, both grand and
petit, We're men Of character and intel
ligelce. and governed only by a strict
sense of duty. The firm and fair admin
istraton Of Judge McFie is largely re-
sponsible for the atmosphere of honor
and justice that pervaded the business
of the court. District Attorney Gortner
is being congratulated very much on his
vigorous and successful prosecutions.
Speaking of the business of the recent
term, District Attorney Gortner said:
Two of the cases tried were almost
dramatic in their material. Anastacio
Martinez murdered his man in 1891,
with a pistol shot, discharged after
dark in the little plaza of Vallecito. He
did not touch his victim, and slipped
quietly away from the scene Of the
crime. Next morning his trail was fol-
lowed. Murder p.tll out and a letter,
received through the postotfice the day
before and opened, was found in the
trail, addressed to Anastacio Martinez
The footprints were found to be like his.
Circumstance after circumstance came
forth, making close chain around the
guilty man. At last, confident in the
protection of the law, an old woman
who had lived near by told that she
had seen the shot fired. After nine years
we were remarkably fortunate i'm unit
ing all these remote facts and bringing
Martinez to justice. He was ably and
strongly defended by Judge Laughlin,
but the case was utterly beyond de-
fense.
"Desiderio Sandoval's case Is one that
illustrates to a remarkable degree the
steadfast regard Of duty which our jur-
ors had Sandoval killed his wife and
her paramour. The relations of the two
We're notorious in their community
Public sentiment sympathized with
Sandoval. But the statute only justifies
found actually in the act of car1Ial in
tercourse The directions of the bullets,
the condition of the clothes, and the po-
sitions of the bodies when found showed
that such was not the situation. The
woman's hands and the middle of her
face We're powdered d-burned by a shot
through her forehead, which, entering
the base of her BRAIN caused immediate
paralysis. AS If to testify eloquently to
the deed, the woman's hands, therefore,
were stiffened before her face; she was
pleading for mercy when shot. Still, at
the last term, on Indictment for the
killing of the woman, Sandoval was ac-
quilted. That was the time when the
court discharged the jurors without pay
and the term broke up in am uproar. A
| conviction now for the murder of the
man, certainly, to my mind, attests the
| character of the Rio Arriba county jur-
or No doubt was made that the mur-
dered man had had Illicit relations with
Sandovals wife; vet the jury, in the
face of the former acquittal, stood uI
| squarely to the proposition that the
homicide was not justffable under the
statute, and convicted him."
| The GRAND jury report and some cour
ite,nS f,lrni she'd nv mail hv a cor,Se
spondent before the court term ended
are printed on the second page of this
ma YssT tO-dav