Tai Chan’s attorney seeks evidence to prove client’s innocence
A Las Cruces judge has ordered prosecutors to preserve as evidence a white powder found in the wallet of a Santa Fe county deputy who was allegedly shot and killed by his partner in Las Cruces last year.
Police charged former deputy Tai Chan with capital murder for allegedly killing fellow deputy Jeremy Martin.
The powder in the victim’s wallet was listed as aspirin on an evidence sheet, but Chan’s lawyer John Day wants to test it independently. According to the motion filings obtained by ABC-7, the powdery residue was left untested until the defense brought it up. The filings also say the powder appeared packaged similar to street drugs. The state said initial tests proved it to be aspirin, but Day wasn’t convinced.
“When we raised the issue, it had not been tested yet,” Day said. “The district attorney had not sent that out to be tested, which at the time we said was very unusual. Its a strange situation when they have something they believe to be a drug and a narcotic, and they don’t send it out for testing. They only did that after we raised the issue, and I’m certainly concerned that now we’re seeing without any evidence, just simply the report of a telephone conversation with an analyst that, he thinks is aspirin. Its very different than what they were sating two months ago.”
The deputies were staying in Las Cruces last October after dropping off a prisoner in Arizona. Investigators have said the two got into a fight inside a Las Cruces hotel after a night of drinking. Chan is currently under house arrest while out on bond, and scheduled for trial in September.
Day is also asking for Martin’s employment records and said Martin was prone to violence and those records will prove his client acted in self defense. There was no immediate decision on that motion Wednesday. Both sides will have two weeks to file additional proceedings on the second motion, after which Judge Fernando Macias will make a decision.
