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Albuquerque, NM (KKOB) –The state Supreme Court has vacated the second-degree murder and evidence tampering convictions of a Valencia County man for a killing that occurred in 2014 when he was a teenager. Brandon Villalobos, who has an intellectual disability, was convicted in 2020 of second-degree murder and evidence tampering in the death of his 12-year old friend. He was sentenced in 2021 to 18 years in prison with a credit for nearly seven and a half years he had already spent in jail before his sentencing. The state Supreme Court unanimously concluded that Villalobos was denied his constitutional right to a speedy trial. In it’s decision the court stated it took more than three years to resolve questions of whether Villalobos was competent to stand trial and the Court attributed much of that delay to the neglect of assigned defense counsel. The Court also found a “contributory failure on the part of the prosecution to monitor the progress of it’s case.”
