Sunland Park Mayor Elect Taking Fight To Supreme Court

Time is running out for controversy-ridden Sunland Park’s mayor elect, Daniel Salinas. According to state law, Salinas has until April 5 to get sworn in as mayor before he loses his position.

Salinas’s attorney Joshua Spencer requested to change his client’s release conditions in the Third Judicial District Court in Las Cruces on Monday. Judge Jacinto Palomino denied that request.

Now Salinas is taking his appeal to the New Mexico Supreme Court. Spencer filed an emergency petition to take Salinas off house arrest and allow him to step foot on city property. Spencer said the conditions infringe on Salinas’s right to hold public office.

“We believe that the conditions that were imposed by the district court are unconstitutional,” Spencer told ABC-7. “You have a city that has elected their mayor, and the district attorney’s office’s argument to the court is putting the city in danger because they’re interfering with that election process.”

District Attorney Amy Orlando said keeping Salinas off city property and away from city employees is vital to the ongoing criminal investigations surrounding Salinas. Salinas has been arrested twice on extortion and bribery charges surrounding the recent municipal election.

“I understand the hurdles that Mr. Salinas has to get over to get sworn in as mayor,” Orlando said, “but he committed the crimes and he’s the one that was arrested for those crimes so he put himself in that situation.”

Orlando said the mounting evidence against Salinas gives her office the right to fight the mayor elect’s requests. Spencer said his client is being mistreated.

“It is a deviation of what the norm is, and I think he’s being a target and it’s not right. It’s not right. He’s being treated unfairly,” Spencer said.

But Orlando said it’s not unheard of for a person accused of a crime to lose some of their rights temporarily while the investigation is under way.

“It’s really not an unusual request that we have people stay away from other parties that might be being investigated or might be witnesses to further crimes or crimes that have already been charged,” Orlando said.

The supreme court will hear Salinas’s case in Santa Fe on Tuesday afternoon. Spencer said this is their last chance to get Salinas’s release conditions changed so he can be sworn in before the state deadline.