Los Alamos Reporter

District Attorney’s Office Files Dismissed Magistrate Court Charges In District Court Against Gabriel Wadt

BY MAIRE O’NEILL
maire@losalamosreporter.com

It appears that First Judicial District Judge Jason Lidyard will preside in a case against Gabriel Wadt which was dismissed in Los Alamos Magistrate Court and then filed in the District Court. Wadt was charged in August 2020 with driving under the influence of intoxicating liquor and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer. Wadt is slated for arraignment Thursday morning before Judge Lidyard.

Magistrate Judge Pat Casados dismissed the charges in February, just days before the case was to go to trial, because Asst. District Attorney Heather Smallwood had not provided full discovery to Wadt’s attorney Jerry Archuleta, specifically cell phone numbers for officers on the scene of the August incident, and that pre-trial interviews with officers had not been set up. Smallwood submitted a motion to have the dismissal order reconsidered but Judge Casados denied the motion to reconsider saying she had offered Smallwood more time at a December 4 status hearing to provide the requested information to Archuleta when she took over the case, but Smallwood had declined.

In a surprise move, Smallwood filed the two charges April 5 in the District Court. Then on April 16, she filed a request to excuse Judge Lidyard from the case. That request was denied however, the denial refers to the defendant instead of the prosecutor and notes that the request was not filed within the time limit.  

The Los Alamos Reporter reached out to District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies on filing of the two charges in District Court. She responded that it is an appeal of Judge Casados’s decision.

“Because magistrate cases are not on the record, any appeal we file is de novo which means it is a complete re-do, so it looks like we filed the case anew,” she said. We decided to appeal because we disagreed with her decision.”

The Reporter’s original story of Wadt’s arrest from last August may be read at https://losalamosreporter.com/2020/08/21/espanola-police-officer-gabriel-wadt-arrested-in-los-alamos-charged-with-dui-and-evading-police-officer/.