All Eyes

A dozen Santa Fe County residents, including eight men and four women, will decide whether the August 2020 gunshot that killed a well-known local basketball star was murder—or something else. Another two men and women will be on standby to serve as the four alternates.

Opening statements are expected today in one of Santa Fe’s most anticipated trials in years. Estevan Montoya was 16 when he shot 18-year-old Fedonta “JB” White at a high school drinking party in Chupadero. The trial is expected to last two weeks.

Prosecutors have charged Montoya, who is now 18, with first-degree murder and other crimes; they’re seeking adult penalties, even though Montoya was underage at the time of the killing, that could send him to prison for 30 years or more.

Montoya’s defense team, meanwhile, says he never intended to shoot White and that he was protecting himself.

First Judicial District Judge T. Glenn Ellington has been ruling on pretrial motions since the beginning of the case, largely in favor of prosecutors. He denied Marlowe’s request to have the trial moved out of Santa Fe, for example, and also prevented a defense witness from using a pathology report to explain the trajectory of the bullet.

Twenty-one months have passed since the night White died from a gunshot wound. He would be 20 years old and likely still playing ball for the University of New Mexico Lobos basketball squad. He had planned to skip his senior year at Santa Fe High and head to UNM.

Montoya maintains his innocence. His attorney, Dan Marlowe, says trauma from being near the shooting death of his friend, Ivan Perez, led to him carrying a firearm. He fired the gun in self defense, Marlowe contends, while attempting to leave the party.

The prosecution, however, says the evidence is strong. Labeling him a “violent, drug dealing gang member,” the First Judicial District Attorney’s Office says Montoya purposely shot White and showed a complete disregard for human life.

Montoya also faces charges of tampering with evidence, unlawful possession of a handgun by a person under 19 and negligent use of a deadly weapon, but if he’s convicted of murder he’s facing the possibility of life in prison with the opportunity for parole. Despite recent US Supreme Court rulings allowing for leniency in the sentencing of youths charged as adults, District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies told SFR last summer her office is pursuing the maximum punishment.

The DA’s office says it won’t be making any statements until a verdict is reached.

Montoya has been held at the Santa Fe County Adult Correctional Facility since April 19, jail records show. He’s been detained in different jails since his arrest. After learning he had been discussing a possible plea deal with fellow prisoners, Chief Deputy District Attorney Blake Nichols told the judge Tuesday: “We’re way beyond a plea deadline.”

The initial witness list sent out to potential jurors includes roughly 200 names. With a massive amount of physical evidence to sift through, Ellington warned the jury pool Monday that it could be two weeks until deliberations start.

“You can probably tell by the long list of names, although only a fraction of those are going to be called, that this is not going to be a short two- or three-day trial,” he said.

The case spotlights the confluence of several issues, including youth sentencing, gun violence and equitable justice. If Montoya is found not guilty, White’s death could pass without any substantial criminal charges. So, too, could Perez’s.

Perez was shot and killed in July of 2020 during a brawl between two groups of teenagers outside The Bluffs at Tierra Contenta. Citing a flawed police investigation, prosecutors last September dropped charges against the man who was suspected in the shooting.

Gun-related deaths have been on the rise in recent years. The rate of New Mexico residents who died from firearms was 55% higher in 2020 than it was a decade prior, according to the New Mexico Department of Health. Since the night White was shot, there have been seven other incidents involving teens wherein someone was injured or killed by a gunshot in Santa Fe, according to Gun Violence Archive.

If found guilty and sentenced as an adult, Montoya would face 30 years or more in prison. He would be among dozens of people in New Mexico serving life in prison for crimes committed when they were children—a situation that has lawmakers and the public questioning the state’s sentencing rules.

Denali Wilson, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, says: “We have to let go of the idea that justice is a zero-sum game” and points to brain science that shows adolescents are more impulsive and underestimate risks as reasons to reevaluate punishments.

“When we sentence children to life in prison, we forswear the possibility that they will ever change,” Wilson tells SFR. “We do that despite what adolescent brain science tells us about the heightened capacity for change that young people possess.”

On Monday and Tuesday, attorneys asked potential jurors about their feelings on the Second Amendment, the right to self defense, whether they would have a problem believing the word of someone under the influence of alcohol or drugs and whether age factors into witness credibility.

The panel will hear testimony from law enforcement and a group of minors—some now adults—who were at the party. It will be up to them to decide whether the prosecution’s argument holds up—that Montoya’s “lengthy history of gang affiliation, drug dealing, possessing weapons, violence… and subordination” is consistent with his shooting of White.

Marlowe says Southside Goons, with whom Montoya is affiliated, is a rap group; not a gang. He also says his client was suffering from PTSD after the death of his friend Perez. The incident has leaked into pretrial motions, and Ellington has approved the DA’s request to reject any attempts to link White to the death of Perez.

Marlowe says he never intended to try connecting White to Perez’s death.

“The only significance of Ivan Perez’s death is that Estevan heard rumors from everywhere that one of the Goons was next,” he says.

Nichols’ request to exclude challenges to the cause of death was granted, although the jury will hear testimony about what happened between the time White was shot and the time he was pronounced dead at the Christus St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

The judge also nixed any attempt to bring up White’s reputation on the basketball court. The prosecution says in court documents Marlowe is trying to “fit a narrative of the big bad basketball player-athlete against their poor, pitiful client. A twisted David and Goliath narrative, unsupported by law or facts.”