Liberty without learning is always in peril;
learning without liberty is always in vain.
-- John F. Kennedy
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Today's candidates don't repeat Udall's better lines, like his observation that the difference between a cactus and a caucus is that with a cactus, the pricks are on the outside.
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OK, enough clowning around.
Graft in New Mexico. In Albuquerque? Are I sure? Yep.
Amazingly, even our fine upstanding officials may get their fingers caught in the honey pot.
Favors for friends and relatives? Yep.
From Judges? Yep.
Seems our judicial standards commission found that Judge J. Wayne Griego, "knowingly involved himself and interfered with the adjudication of Metropoltian Court cases for family members, friends, close personal colleagues, court staff members and their families."
Where I came from this is called "fixing" a ticket. It's illegal and usually results in a jail sentence and removal from the ABA and the courts, along with a jail sentence and fine.
But this is New Mexico. And Albuquerque, besides.
It seems he was reprimanded in 2005 when he ordered his secretary to sign off on a traffic case plea agreement because he was "delayed" when returning home from a vacation. He received a $500 fine and was placed on supervised probation to be mentored by another judge.
Apparently the mentoring failed. Just last month 26 different witnesses spoke at the commission hearing. The commission found him "meriting discipline" for violating the New Mexico Code of Judicial Conduct and willful misconduct while in office.
They said Griego committed the misconduct in 14 of the 19 counts he was charged with.
They also said he was aware of, and participated in, the improper mishandling of the traffic citations. And that he had taken advantage of his position to dispose of citations.
Don't know if there was graft involved or not, but by the same token, this man needs to be removed from the court system and spend some time in that big "hotel" in Santa Fe. A formal reprimand will not suffice when an elected official is caught in illegal actions.
Oh, and by the way...Griego ws appointed by Bill Richardson in 2003.
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