Hanging offenses weren't always what they seemed

Feb. 4—As happens at this time every year, Republican lawmakers say they want to reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico.

Democrats, as always, have assigned the latest bill for capital punishment to a legislative graveyard. A House committee soon enough will give the measure an unceremonious burial.

Once the Republicans are back home and running for reelection, they will claim everyone would be safer if only the state could again execute New Mexico's worst criminals.

Justice was never that swift or simple when the state had capital punishment, even in cases of contract murder.

The shooting death 100 years ago of rancher Fred Halsey is the best example. He drove home from church one night, stopped to open his gate and probably never knew what hit him.

An assassin fired a shotgun blast that killed Halsey, who lived in the village of Hope in Eddy County.

Investigators heard rumblings of domestic trouble and soon pieced together their theory of a tawdry crime. They said Halsey's wife, Nannie, had a lover, Luther Foster. The two of them hired gunman Claude Archer to murder Fred Halsey.

A jury convicted all three defendants. Judge Charles Rufus Brice sentenced them to death by hanging, allowing no leniency based on gender.

Death sentences carry automatic appeals. Errors during the first proceeding gave Nannie Halsey a new trial.

Jurors convicted her a second time, and a judge again said she would be hanged.

That verdict also was overturned on appeal. An important witness, Zack Teel, had testified Nannie offered him money to murder her husband. But Teel couldn't be located for a third trial.

Legal deficiencies with his prior testimony meant it couldn't be read into the record at another trial, the state Supreme Court decided. Nannie walked free after five years of incarceration.

Her friend Foster spent nine years in the state penitentiary before a politician came to his aid. "Once under the shadow of a hangman's noose, [Foster] was granted Gov. Arthur Seligman's New Year's Day pardon," the Associated Press wrote as 1933 began.

That left only Archer in prison. The convicted triggerman's death sentence was commuted to life.

The Artesia Advocate, hometown newspaper of the victim and defendants, wrote of justice denied. "The two persons who are really responsible for the death of Fred Halsey will enjoy their freedom while the hired hand in the case will continue to pay the price until such time as he is pardoned. This case is a travesty on the New Mexico law of murder."

What began with death sentences ended with a reversal, a commutation and a reduced penalty.

Capital punishment in New Mexico was even less effective in the decades that followed the Halsey case.

Four members of a biker gang were wrongly convicted of murdering a university student in Bernalillo County. They spent about two years on death row in the 1970s before being exonerated.

Sheriff's deputies and prosecutors botched the investigation, but they bullied their way to trial anyway. The state obtained convictions with false testimony, and it celebrated the death sentences of innocent men.

The bikers were from Michigan. An investigation of their case by the Detroit News saved their lives.

New Mexico prosecutors continued to seek the death penalty for another 35 years. Sometimes they used it as a bargaining chip. Plead guilty, and you'll get life instead of death.

But mostly capital punishment continued to be an expensive and ineffective part of the legal system.

New Mexico executed only one prisoner in the last 49 years the state had the death penalty. And that only happened because the defendant, a murderer and child molester, stopped his appeals.

Democratic legislators and then-Gov. Bill Richardson abolished capital punishment in 2009. Life imprisonment for the worst criminals has been the law since.

Still, New Mexico cannot have a legislative session without Republicans recycling a bill to bring back capital punishment. They have turned the death penalty into a political football before and after Super Bowl week.

Republicans know wrongful convictions have occurred in New Mexico and many more states, but they downplay the possibility of executing innocent people. They claim the days of hangings, electrocutions and lethal injections were better for the public.

Mostly forgotten is the sad story of cattleman Fred Halsey.

Because of his murder in 1924, New Mexicans learned that death sentences are no guarantee of justice. And because of the bikers, they know capital punishment can make injustice permanent.

Ringside Seat is an opinion column about people, politics and news. Contact Milan Simonich at msimonich@sfnewmexican.com or 505-986-3080.