{"id":24044,"date":"2024-12-16T02:40:08","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T09:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-sheriffs-office-violating-law-in-da-hatfields-case-watchdog-says\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:47:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:47:18","slug":"san-juan-sheriffs-office-violating-law-in-da-hatfields-case-watchdog-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/san-juan-sheriffs-office-violating-law-in-da-hatfields-case-watchdog-says\/","title":{"rendered":"San Juan Sheriff\u2019s Office violating law in DA Hatfield\u2019s case, watchdog says"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Christian
Christian Hatfield is interviewed at the scene of his crash, the intersection of U.S. Highway 64 and San Juan County Road 5099 about 1 a.m. Aug. 30. (Screenshot from body camera)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government has joined the Tri-City Record<\/em> in an effort to obtain access to public records involving the car crash and possible DUI case involving Montezuma County District Attorney Christian Hatfield.<\/p>\n

In a letter dated Dec. 9, Amanda Lavin, legal director of NMFOG, states the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office \u201chas unlawfully denied\u201d three requests for records pertaining to this case, and therefore is in violation of the state Inspection of Public Records Act.<\/p>\n

The Tri-City Record<\/em> of Farmington on Sept. 3 requested incident reports, dashcam and lapel-cam video of the crash, which happened at 1 a.m. Aug. 30 on U.S. Highway 64 near County Road 5109. Since the request 14 weeks ago, the newspaper has not received the public video evidence.<\/p>\n

The San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office turned over the blood warrant, as well as blood test results on Dec. 16, and the Tri-City Record<\/em> is reviewing the documents. However, the video evidence and photographs are still being withheld.<\/p>\n

IPRA requires the records custodian to permit inspection of requested records \u201cimmediately or as soon as is practicable under the circumstances, but not later than 15 days after receiving a written request,\u201d according to Lavin.<\/p>\n

A second request for video evidence was made Oct. 23.<\/p>\n

A response was received Oct. 25 from Elijah Montoya, San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office evidence custodian, stating, \u201cI am reaching out to let you know that our department is currently critically understaffed and requests for bodycam are severely backlogged. It will be an extreme delay before we are able to process your request.\u201d<\/p>\n

Also on Oct. 23, the Tri-City Record<\/em> requested the blood warrant, search warrant and arrest warrant of Hatfield. The Tri-City Record<\/em> waited seven weeks for this evidence and has repeatedly received emails from the Sheriff\u2019s Office stating the evidence is \u201cpending.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, other public documents suggest a draft arrest warrant and a blood warrant exist, because the initial incident report dated Sept. 5 states that a \u201cblood warrant was signed by Judge Bradford on Aug. 30 and executed the same day.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Christian
Christian Hatfield<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The report also states that a \u201cwarrant will be sought for (redacted) in reference to DWI and consumption or possession of alcoholic beverages in a motor vehicle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The New Mexico State Police\u2019s crash report noted that there was \u201can open container of an alcoholic beverage located on the front right passenger floorboard labeled Mexican lager. The container was crushed from the sides but still had residual liquid.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Police also noted there was \u201ca pill bottle with several pills inside next to this open container,\u201d and the label on the bottle contained Hatfield\u2019s name and the drug name Ambien.<\/p>\n

In an email Sept. 30 between San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s records tech Megan Mitchell and 11th Judicial District Attorney\u2019s clerk specialist Rachel Barker, Mitchell wrote, \u201cI have attached the blood warrant for this case, I don\u2019t think it got sent over to you guys after we received it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barker responded by asking for the blood results and stating that the San Juan County District Attorney\u2019s Office \u201cgot all of the paperwork through intake.\u201d<\/p>\n

It has been seven weeks, and the Sheriff\u2019s Office still has not released the paperwork. It did send an email Nov. 13 stating that the office is \u201cstill waiting for results.\u201d<\/p>\n

A follow-up email from Jennifer Coponiti, Sheriff\u2019s Office civilian operations supervisor, arrived on Dec. 2 stating, \u201cThese results are still pending. I have made a couple calls and left messages with the state lab but have not heard back as of right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reasons given by the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office for not making the documents available were addressed in a Dec. 9 letter written by Lavin to the office.<\/p>\n

The office stated the records were not disclosed because the \u201cdocuments are still pending\u201d and that \u201cthe department is currently critically understaffed and requests for bodycam are severely backlogged,\u201d and that \u201cit will be an extreme delay before we are able to process your request.\u201d<\/p>\n

NMFOG attorney Lavin responded that \u201cnone of these purported reasons for refusing to allow inspection of the requested public records are valid under IPRA,\u201d because \u201cthe Supreme Court has made clear that a public body may only withhold documents from inspection under IPRA because of a specific exception contained within IPRA, or statutory or regulatory exceptions, or privileges adopted by the court or grounded in the constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavin wrote that even draft documents are considered public record \u201cand must be made available for inspection under IPRA.\u201d<\/p>\n

NMFOG made similar requests for records on Dec. 9. Lavin asked \u201cto inspect public records in possession of the San Juan County Sheriff\u2019s Office related to the Aug. 30, 2024, car accident involving Christian Hatfield, including any and all warrants, investigative reports, and laboratory reports.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavin received a response Dec. 12 from Coponiti, who stated, \u201cWe will contact you to arrange for an inspection appointment when the response is ready for you to inspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Lavin pointed out that she requested the documents in electronic format under New Mexico Statute Annotated 1978 \u00a7 14-2-9, which \u201crequires the county records custodian to provide them to the requester in that format.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavin also requested to inspect all video public records in the sheriff\u2019s office\u2019s possession related to the Aug. 30 car crash involving Christian Hatfield, specifically any related dashboard camera footage, lapel camera footage and other video footage.<\/p>\n

She received a response stating that \u201cProperty & Evidence-Video-BodyCam will contact you to arrange for an inspection appointment when the response is ready for you to inspect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavin stated she wanted the video in electronic format, at which time she was told she would need to pay $10 for a disk copy.<\/p>\n

When Lavin agreed, she received an email from the sheriff\u2019s office stating that it\u2019s unable to provide \u201celectronic correspondence of video at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lavin also sent a request on Monday to the Department of Health State Laboratory, which conducts blood testing for cases involving drugs and alcohol.<\/p>\n

She noted in the request that \u201ceven if a final report is not yet available,\u201d she\u2019d like to be provided with \u201celectronic copies of any available reports, notes, drafts, warrants, written requests to conduct the analysis, or any other available records related to the analysis of the blood sample submitted in connection to the arrest or investigation of Christian Hatfield.\u201d<\/p>\n

Draft documents are not exempt from disclosure under the Inspection of Public Records Act, per the New Mexico Court of Appeals ruling in Edenburn v. New Mexico Department of Health, 2013-NMCA-045, 299 P.3d 424, Lavin wrote.<\/p>\n

Lavin\u2019s request was denied Monday. The state lab cited medical privacy laws for withholding the records.<\/p>\n

\u201cFederal HIPAA regulations at 45 C.F.R. \u00a7 164.502 and 45 C.F.R. \u00a7 160.103 prohibit the Department of Health from disclosing individually identifiable health information that relates to the past, present, or future physical or mental health or condition of an individual, and that either identifies the individual or can be used to identify the individual. Your request seeks such information and cannot be fulfilled,\u201d wrote Susan Montoya, chief records custodian at the state Department of Health.<\/p>\n

Lavin disagrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe blood sample is evidence in a criminal investigation and not related to administration of health care services. The requested records relate to analysis of a blood sample that was obtained via a criminal warrant signed by an Aztec Magistrate judge and the requested report is of a type commonly used as evidence in DWI cases,\u201d Lavin wrote on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

As of Friday, the Health Department has not responded.<\/p>\n

In her letter, Lavin urged the sheriff\u2019s office \u201cto permit inspection of the requested records as soon as possible to avoid consequences for failing to comply with IPRA.\u201d<\/p>\n

No other response has been received by Lavin or the Tri-City Record<\/em> concerning these requests.<\/p>\n

This article was updated Dec. 17 to include a statement that the blood warrant and blood test results were received by the Tri-City Record.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Records of blood warrant received, draft documents, videos in crash case still being withheld<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22979,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[168,28,443,2656],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-24044","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-crime","tag-headlines","tag-san-juan-county-new-mexico","tag-san-juan-county-sheriffs-office-new-mexico"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24044"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78373,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24044\/revisions\/78373"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22979"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24044"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24044"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=24044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}