Stacked Deck? Alyssa Perez & 3 Jobs

I feel a little late on catching this but Alyssa Perez, who signed up to run for the seat held by her uncle Gonzalo Garcia in a coordinated last-minute maneuver, said something at the debate on Monday night that made me curious.

I've got no beef with Perez personally, I just don't like the way it looks like a sitting judge was trying to bequeath his seat to his niece. Seems wrong, but hey, I don't think we voters are qualified to pick judges in the first place, so what do I know?

But back to my query.

Perez has three jobs. She's a part-time jail magistrate, so she fills in on shifts that the permanent magistrates aren't able to take. Magistrates sign warrants and read you your Miranda rights when you're arrested. She's also an attorney in private practice, and most of her defense work comes from judicial appointments from what it looks like on the county website. And, she's the staff attorney for CLEAT.

And therein lies the rub.

So she's a magistrate AND she represents law enforcement...AND judges appoint her to defend the accused?

Seriously, how is that possible? If she's the staff attorney FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT, how does she ever get appointed to defend someone? CLEAT is the law enforcement union, so she represents law enforcement offices from a range of agencies.

Has no one in the courthouse ever raised this question?

Look, I'm sure that as the magistrate there is a system in which she can't be appointed to cases in which she was the magistrate. The fact that she wouldn't get an appointment to a case which she acted as the magistrate is an acknowledgement that there's an issue of fairness. Ruben Nuñez is running for office, he's a magistrate, and he gets appointed to cases, as well.

But he does't represent cops too.

Let me back up a second and explain what appointments are. You know that part in every cop show where they arrest a vato and tell him he has the right to remain silent and has the right to an attorney? Appointments are the attorney part. In El Paso County if you can't afford a lawyer but you're being accused of a crime you can either have a public defender, or the court can appoint an attorney to represent you.

Remember that whole wheel controversy were a few lawyers with cozy relationships with judges were making a ton of money off of that system? Thats what we are talking about here. That system has gone under reforms, but the point is, attorneys are appointed by a judge to represent a defendant in court.

Now I'm obviously not an attorney, but neither are most voters, and something just doesn't seem fair about all this. So there is a system in place to not allow a part-time magistrate to be appointed to a case that they were the magistrate on. Why? Well because its not fair. Its a conflict. You can't have someone who was the magistrate at your arrest, or signed the warrant for your arrest, turn around and be the person who is assigned to defend you.

So how the hell can you have someone who represents law enforcement, who conducted the arrest, and possibly the investigation that led to your arrest, be assigned to defend you?

More to the point for voters, who's only way of judging whether or not someone makes a good judge is the voters' belief that the candidate will be a fair judge, why does an attorney who represents law enforcement even take defending someone in the first place? It seems like anyone's sense of justice and fairness would preclude them from even taking the case.

How does it work for defendants? They gotta go meet their lawyer at the CLEAT building? Actually, now that I think about it, is the fact that she's the lawyer for CLEAT ever disclosed to the client?

If you're a judge or defense lawyer reading this and I'm wrong here, please set me straight. But this just seems like the deck would be stacked against a defendant if someone who is a jail magistrate (even if they weren't the magistrate on their case), represents law enforcement, and then is supposed to defend you.

I know that the full-time judges aren't allowed to take other legal work, so this just seems really problematic. If I'm wrong here, someone set me straight. If I'm wrong here, I'll write about it and explain how I was wrong.

But I don't think I am...