A year and a half after 22-year-old Moses Martinez was fatally shot at a Chimayó house, the man who shot him had his entire 18-month sentence suspended after pleading no contest to involuntary manslaughter.
With this sentence Julio Gurule, 20, of Chimayó, will have spent a total of one night in jail for shooting Martinez at close range the afternoon of Feb. 22, 2008. He was sentenced July 9 in state District Court in Tierra Amarilla to 18 months of supervised probation as part of a plea agreement.
“He was out of jail before we buried my brother, and it seems like he ain’t gonna do no time,” Martinez’s sister Lorie Martinez said.
Defense lawyer Stephen Farber told the court Gurule agreed to the deal to keep the Martinez family from having to go through a traumatic trial.
Judge Sheri Raphaelson said the agreed-upon sentencing was fair because Gurule could have been acquitted if there had been a trial, and said she felt the District Attorney’s office was trying to ensure there was supervision for Gurule, who allegedly committed another crime as recently as July 4.
Gurule shot Martinez with a .30-.30 lever action rifle in front of four other people at a Rio Arriba County Road 95 home. He at first lied to police about how it happened, claiming Martinez shot himself accidentally on State Road 76. After other witnesses gave police a different explanation, police confronted Gurule. He eventually said the gun went off when he was looking at it, and Martinez tried to pull it away from him.
Martinez’s family has questioned Gurule’s version of events. The version of the story Lorie Martinez first heard was that her brother put a gun in his pocket and accidentally shot himself. Both that and the final version Gurule told where Martinez tried to grab the gun didn’t seem plausible to the family; they said Martinez was afraid of guns.
“There are so many different stories,” Martinez’s sister Shawnee Martinez said. “I wish (Gurule) would just be a man and take responsibility for his actions.”
The Martinez family also remains unconvinced that the shooting was accidental. His aunt Marlene Romero believes Martinez was killed in revenge against their family because she called police on an alleged drug dealer who lived at the house where Martinez was shot.
Assistant District Attorney Tim Hasson told the court that these lingering doubts were part of the reason for the long delay in prosecution of the case. However, the investigation turned up no evidence that Martinez had been murdered, he said.
Twenty-four grams of cocaine and 22 grams of heroin were found in another room of the same trailer where Martinez was shot, according to State Police. Hasson said no one would be charged in connection with the drugs because there was nothing directly linking anyone present to them. The trailer’s owner, Jenna Ortiz, gave police consent to search the house, according to a report, but the District Attorney’s office declined to charge Ortiz or her boyfriend, Mario Martinez.
Meanwhile, Gurule himself is no stranger to drug use, having being caught in Española Jail July 4 sucking heroin out of a syringe cap in the facility’s bathroom, according to a police report. He was there on a two-day sentence for failure to appear on a March shoplifting charge. Had this incident happened after the sentencing, it might have affected his probation, Hasson said. Hasson’s office is currently reviewing the case for possible charges.
Farber said Gurule, who did apologize to Martinez’s family at his sentencing, is deeply remorseful for Martinez’s death. Martinez’s family isn’t buying it.
“I think if he was very remorseful there should have been changes in his life to make a better person out of himself,” Lorie Martinez said.
This story required a correction: The story originally stated that Julio Gurule pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter. In fact, he pleaded no contest to that charge.