Albuquerque Journal from Albuquerque, New Mexico • Page 34

METRO NEW MEXICO Friday, March 1, 1996 Jury Awards $2.6 Million in 1995 Wrongful Death By Tom Sanchez Journal Staff Writer A Los Lunas jury last week awarded a former Belen woman $2.6 million for the wrongful death of her daughter, who with her father was killed when their Bronco ran into a truck backing up on the highway. Thirteen-month-old Felisha Monique Blea died Feb. 3, 1995, along with Aaron Joe Blea on NM 314. Felisha was the daughter of Jennifer S. Vigil, and AaVon Blea, 21, was Vigil's fiance Vigil's attorneys, Pedro G.

Rael and James L. Sanchez, filed the suit against Richard Hernandez and Antonio Bachicha, doing business as Bachicha Trucking. The suit was filed in the 13th Judicial District Court in March 1995 and alleged wrongful death, negligence, gross negligence and recklessness. Attorney LeRoi Farlow, who rep resented Hernandez and Bachicha, could not be reached for comment Thursday. According to a court document, the jury found that Hernandez, who drove the truck, was negligent and that negligence was the cause of the accident.

Rael said that just before the crash "the semi-truck, weighing 80,000 pounds, was backing on a portion of Highway 314 because it had missed the turnoff to what is I now the John Deere business." State Police said the Bronco, heading south, ran into the truck. Felisha Blea was not restrained in the child's seat, police said. Rael said an accident reconstruc-tionist testified on behalf of Vigil and Felisha. "Her opinion was that backing on a highway with an dump truck full of dirt, without flashers or a turn signal, and without a properly qualified driver in the truck, with an electrical short or malfunction in the lighting system, was the cause of the accident," he said. Rael said witnesses testified that there was a car in front of the Blea vehicle that almost hit the truck but moved out of the way to the left lane, leaving the Bronco, and the backing truck in a collision path.

The Bronco braked, Rael said, and Aaron Blea steered to the right to go around the truck on the shoulder, but he didn't make it. The jury found Blea 10 percent negligent in the accident. "The breakdown of the verdict is that $1.6 million went for the loss of the daughter and $1 million was given in punitive damages against the driver and the company for gross negligence," Rael said. Rael said some defense lawyers have told him that the $2.6 million award was the highest in the state for the death of a minor. D4 Albuquerque Journal Inmate Transfers To Speed Up Activist Apparently Kills Self brothers "had talked to him recently and that he was not depressed and was excited about his life." Bixby urged deputies to "do a really thorough job of investigating the possibility of a homicide." Carrillo said Merten had sent the handwritten letter to a friend in Aspen, Bert Fingerhut, who called the sheriff's office in Deming urging deputies to check on his friend.

The letter said Merten planned to "check out" Feb. 18, Carrillo said. Deputies found the body of Merten, 44, in the greenhouse behind his home 25 miles east of here near the Floridas Mountains around 7 p.m. Wednesday. He had a 9mm Smith Wesson automatic pistol in his hand and a bullet wound in his head, Carrillo said.

Merten appeared to have been dead four to 10 days, he said. ter but said it made no mention of the Feb. 15 cattle shootings at the Smyer Ranch. Carrillo and state Livestock Board investigator Tom Bill Black said Merten was one of several people questioned after the 10 cattle were found slain. "He was (questioned) along with everybody else who lived out there," Carrillo said.

"His residence was the closest to where the cattle were shot." Black said Merten lived within three miles of the scene. Local environmentalist Pat Dancer, a member of the Luna County chapter of Sangre de Cristo Animal Protection, and Kevin Bixby of the Southwest Environmental Center in Las Cruces said Merten had been a leader of the Sierra Club's Las Cruces chapter. Dancer said one of Merten's Police Investigating Area Cattle Deaths The Associated Press DEMING An environmentalist who had been questioned about the killing of 10 cattle near his home has been found dead in his greenhouse, the apparent victim of a self-inflicted gunshot, investigators said. An automatic pistol was found in the hand of Tony Merten, and a suicide letter has turned up, Luna County sheriff's Lt. Armando Carrillo said Thursday night.

But Carrillo said he would wait for an autopsy report from the state Office of the Medical Investigator before deciding definitely whether the case was a suicide. He declined to disclose the contents of the supposed suicide let Judges Back Faster Document Filing By Susanne Burks Journal Staff Writer Albuquerque district judges have abandoned a proposal for a paperwork change aimed at moving sentenced felons from the overcrowded jail to prison faster. The criminal judges of state District Court, facing resistance from the state Department of Corrections, on Tuesday decided instead to propose a new local court rule that would speed the transfers by requiring more prompt filing of a key document. Harry Tipton, resident services manager of the Bernalillo County Detention Center, said later that the abandoned proposal, which the jail preferred, would have made transfers possible any time from the day after sentencing to a week later. He couldn't estimate timing under the agreed-to change but said it at Mondragon failed to approve it.

Dantis later briefly revived it. Corrections attorney Nick D'An-gelo objected at the criminal judges' Feb. 20 meeting that the lone page didn't bear all the information the prison system needs and expressed concern about possible delay in the prison's receiving the formal sentencing document. But he also cited the department's liability for lawsuits by prisoners whose authorized release is delayed. D'Angelo proposed to the judges a more inclusive two-page "preliminary" sentencing document.

But Presiding Judge Frank Allen Jr. of the court's Criminal Division said Tuesday it was almost as long as the final formal sentencing document. The judges agreed to propose a court rule requiring the formal document to be filed within seven days of sentencing. Allen said later it will be proposed first to all of the judges and eventually must go to the state Supreme Court for approval. least would make the transfers possible sooner than under the existing system.

The problem tackled by the criminal judges in two meetings centers on the "Judgment and Sentence" document, the official record of the sentence that in effect authorizes transfer of the felon to prison. The District Attorney's Office prepares it after sentencing and submits it to the defense attorney for approval and then to the judge for signing. The problem is that getting the document prepared and filed can take weeks from the day a judge imposes sentence. The criminal, meanwhile, remains in jail. The judges previously discussed and the jail used briefly, according to former director John Dantis a one-page "preliminary that would be filled out in the courtroom at sentencing to authorize immediate transfer to the prison system.

The plan, when first proposed, died an early death in 1994 when then-Corrections Secretary Eloy Center To Study Primate Aging DAHGB! Ballroom Eaattiim (EoflUHnflirv Hestem Enjoy the fun, good times and new friends. Learn from the youth express world's largest and best dance studios. category are chimps that have already been taken out of active use. They've gone past their usefulness as far as medical research goes, as it exists now," McKinney said. "That's why this particular initiative offers such a great opportunity to not only bring funding in to support these chimps in their later years but to have a direct benefit over on the human side of the equation." Senior chimps would not be removed from family settings in which they are colonized, McKinney said.

"The only actual separation will be on paper," he said. "They will be kept in a statistical group." with dignity and care," Coulston said. Now that the oldest chimps are being retired from medical service, Coulston spokesman Don McKinney said negotiations are under way to join the new facility with a research group studying aging in humans to compare data. He declined to disclose the name of the group until agreement is reached. He said the new center's database includes all 550 Coulston chimpanzees, ranging up to age 55.

Monkeys would not be included. Each chimp comes in with detailed lifelong medical records. "Most of the chimps in the older By Richard Benke The Associated Press Th" Foundation, which r- a primate center research-jig AIDS and other diseases, on Thursday announced the creation of the National Center for the Study of Aging in Primates. The Alamogordo facility thus has established a retirement sanctuary for chimpanzees formerly used in medical research, said Frederick Coulston, founder and chief executive officer of the Coulston Foundation. "These animals have more than earned the right to a retirement 6 lessons Teen views and news.

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