Suspect in murders won probation break

SANTA FE (KRQE) - Arthur Anaya's 54 years of life have been filled with violence.

More than 25 years ago--back in 1985--he was charged and later acquitted of attempted murder and aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

In the mid-1990s, he went on a crime spree that included armed robberies, battery on a police officer and assaults on family members.

Then in 2003, he was convicted of domestic violence and aggravated assault with a deadly weapon.

However, even with all of that history, News 13 has learned that New Mexico's criminal justice system may have cut Anaya a big break recently.

He was supposed to be on supervised probation Monday when he allegedly shot and killed two people in Santa Fe. But he wasn't because his probation term was inexplicably cut more than 3 1/2 years short in 2010.

After the crime spree in Santa Fe, Anaya spent 10 years at the state psychiatric hospital in Las Vegas because a traumatic brain injury he suffered in 1992 made him incompetent to stand trial, according to court records.

In 2005, he was deemed fit for trial and a jury convicted him of two counts of armed robbery, aggravated burglary, false imprisonment and other charges.

Santa Fe District Judge Michael Vigil sentenced Anaya to 40 years in prison, though he suspended 22 of them. Vigil told News 13 on Tuesday that he suspended more than half the sentence because reports from doctors indicated Anaya was responding well to treatment and medication.

Anaya received credit for the 10 years he spent confined to the psychiatric hospital, then served four of the remaining eight years in prison because he earned so-called "good time." He was paroled in March 2009.

Now here's where it gets weird.

Anaya was supposed to serve five years supervised probation when he got out of prison, according to court records. His probation was set to end in March 2014.

But less than a year later, Anaya's lawyer argued during a court hearing that he shouldn't have to spend any more time on probation, according to a recording of the hearing. Judge Vigil did not have access to the exact sentence document at the time, so he told defense lawyer Sydney West and prosecutor Wesley Jensen to look it up and ask for another hearing if Anaya still owed more probation time, according to the Aug. 27, 2010 recording.

He had recently tested positive for cocaine, which violated his probation.

On Sept. 17, 2010, Jensen filed a notice dismissing the cocaine probation violation and finding that "parties have determined that defendant has completed his term of probation." Vigil later signed an order from the Corrections Department making Anaya a free man, even though the order itself oddly cites a probation end date of March 4, 2014.

News 13 tried to find out why this happened.

District Attorney Angela "Spence" Pacheco said Tuesday she was researching records trying to find out what happened. Vigil declined to comment.

Corrections Department officials pointed to Jensen's dismissal.

So in the end, no one could explain why this violent man was put back on the streets unsupervised.