GENERAL
Roswell Daily Record
Dow
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sumer level in July was the highest since March. •Sales of previously occupied homes fell in July for the third time in four months. •Manufacturing has sharply weakened in the mid-Atlantic states, according to a report from the Federal Reserve. Wall Street and other financial markets have wrestled for several weeks with fears that a new recession might be in the offing. Morgan Stanley economists
Movie
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may be in Roswell, but the real-life studios are in Artesia. PVB encompasses KSVP, La Gran D KPZE, KZ93, and 106.5 Jack-FM. KZ93 and KSVP are based in Artesia, with offices in Roswell and Carlsbad to accommodate Jack-FM and La Gran D, respectively. Filming in Artesia
Permit
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tions; and providing financial insurance. The Denver-based wind developer company Compass Wind Projects LLC, which wants to build a wind farm near Highway 172 in Chaves County, will next seek to secure funding
Repeal
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about the statute that governs the interpretation of laws after they’ve been amended. That issue was brought up by the justices in their order. Mitchell said he was pleased by the court’s order.
Vega
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the defense, Dr. Samuel Rolls, gave his assessment of Vega’s mental status. He reported that his evaluation came from interviews and a battery of psychological tests, including the Rorschach or inkblot test, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory and the Weshsler Adult Intelligence Scale. According to Rolls, the tests revealed that Vega had sustained organic damage to the left side of the brain as a result of an accident he had in 2007. Rolls called Vega borderline retarded, with overall IQ of 87. In ter ms of memory loss he referred to Vega as retarded.
said in a report Thursday that the U.S. and Europe are “dangerously close to recession.” Worries about European debt also hang over the market. A default by any country would hurt the European banks that hold its bonds, plus American banks that have lent to their European counterparts. Renewing the fears, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that U.S. regulators are looking at the U.S. arms of big European banks to make sure they have enough money for day-to-day operations. Asian markets started
Thursday’s drop. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index fell 1.3 percent. The main stock indexes in South Korea and India each dropped a little more, then Europe more than that — 4.5 percent in Britain and 5.8 percent in Germany. In the United States, the Dow fell 419.63 points, or 3.7 percent, to 10,990.58. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index fell 53.24, or 4.5 percent, to 1,140.65. The Nasdaq composite fell 131.05, or 5.2 percent, to 2,380.43. The Dow is down 13.6 percent since stocks began falling July 21. The selling Thursday was immediate. The Dow
plunged from the opening bell and was down 528 points about a half-hour into trading. It essentially moved sideways for the next six hours. York Stock New Exchange volume was 6.2 billion shares — busy for a summer day, but not as busy as during the worst of the selling earlier this month, when volume sometimes hit 9 billion. Last week was one of the wildest in Wall Street history. The Dow moved more than 400 points on four straight days for the first time. But stocks had been relatively stable this week because investors were
“When they’re shooting, everyone has to be very, very quiet,” Dow said. He said the Artesia PVB facility is 5,000 square feet, and is all on one floor. Despite the large building, Dow said having a film crew stirring things up has presented a challenge. “We’re not used to having 60 people at our building,” he said. “We’ve had to co-exist with the movie
crew.” Dow said this is the first time the building has been filmed. “We’re very honored,” Dow said of having the PVB building chosen as a filming locale. “It’s been an interesting experience watching (the film crew) make a movie at our building.” Carl Lucas, a producer for Roswell FM, is a former
fiscal year 2011-2012: (1) two general obligation bonds grant agreements from the New Mexico Aging & Long-ter m Services Department for Chaves County J.O.Y. Center projects, totaling $252,600, and (2) budget adjustments for the Chaves County volunteer fire departments. The fire fund distribution for all eight volunteer fire
departments totaled about $1 million. The county finance department will submit the changes to the budget to the state Department of Finance Administration for review and approval. In other business, the war memorial dedication scheduled for Sept. 10 has been cancelled because there has been a delay in
penalty repeal to be considered as a mitigating factor by the jury in deciding whether to sentence his client to death. He also wants to present evidence of Astorga’s innocence of the killing. “The United States Supreme Court says once you evolve to a higher standard that’s the stan-
dard that sets what constitutes cruel and unusual punishment. Once you set that, of course, you can’t violate it anymore. The death penalty is now cruel and unusual punishment in New Mexico,” said Mitchel. “So how can you have a death penalty?” There’s no guarantee the Supreme Court will rule
ability to distinguish right from wrong, Rolls said Vega did not qualify for the legal definition of insane. He also said that Vega understood the difference between right and wrong. Rolls explained the often repeated phrase “they’ll never take me alive” as “an adolescent fantasy rather than adult reasoning thought.” Dr. Clinton Rhyne, forensic psychologist, took a different view. “In talking to the defendant and reviewing the report, I see no evidence of psychosis.” About Vega’s distortion of reality as noted by the results of the inkblot test, Rhyme said that he placed little faith in the test. “The scoring system is complicated and given to error. The system is not 100 per-
cent objective.” He told the court that an IQ of 87 is not retardation rather it is on the low side of normal with scores of 70 to 79 considered borderline. Vega’s attor ney Jesse Cosby asked Rhyne, why he did not take the opportunity to review all the test scores. Rhyne replied that Dr. Rolls was esteemed in the field and he saw no reason to distrust the results. During his interview with Vega, Rhyne said, “He comes off as relatively anxious average Joe.” He did feel that Vega showed hostility toward the police. “The police are responsible for what happened, if they had just done their job.” Rolls retur ned to the stand to defend his use of the Rorschach test. He also
began last week. Gene Dow, general manager of PVB, said there are usually five or six people at PVB’s main of fice in Artesia at any given moment. With the film crew, there are now about 60 people in and around the building. Dow said that despite all the people and equipment, the place is kept quiet to avoid polluting the film with noise. for the project, possibly through industrial revenue bonds that the county government issues to provide abatements on property taxes on land, buildings and equipment. That issue will likely come before the county commissioners in the near future. Commissioners passed two resolutions that reflected budget increases to the “What it tells me is the Supreme Court has been looking at this issue. They did some research,” he said in a telephone interview. Mitchell had asked the justices to overturn a district court’s decision limiting what evidence he could present to the sentencing jury. He wants the death “He (Vega) showed deficiency in reality tests ... a severe impairment where he will misperceive an event which results in frequent failures to anticipate the consequences of his actions,” said Rolls. He cited infor mation from a note the police found on his back porch. Rolls referred to Vega’s mental status as a “psychotic degree of mental disturbance.... He had issues with the police that led to the belief that some people posing as the police were drug dealers.” Rolls did not believe that Vega deliberately set out to kill the police. “Nothing in his personality indicates that level of malevolence.” However, when asked by Judge Charles Currier about insanity and Vega’s
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their money in exchange for safety. The price of gold reached $1,829.70 per ounce. The price of oil fell $5.20 to $82.38 per barrel after the economic reports raised concer n among traders that demand for gasoline would fall. One survey this week found Americans have already cut back on gas 21 weeks in a row. And the average rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell to 4.15 percent, its lowest on record. The last time long-term rates were lower was in the 1950s, when 30year loans weren’t widely available.
calmed by strong earnings reports. The Dow fell 76 points Tuesday and rose four points Wednesday — the first time in nearly three weeks that the average rose or fell by less than 100 points on two straight days. That ended Thursday. And with stocks down big, money flooded into U.S. Treasurys and gold, both considered safer investments. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note briefly fell below 2 percent for the first time. It hit 1.98 percent before rising to 2.07 percent. Investors are willing to accept a lower return on PVB employee. Lucas and Dow discussed the building as a possible filming location; then Stephen Griffin, director of the film, checked it out for himself. “The director just fell in love with our radio station,” Dow said. “It fits the script. It has lots of room for the film crew.” Dow said he’s worked at PVB for about 20 years, and has never had any-
thing like this happen at the company before. “All the crew has been fantastic,” he said. “Everyone’s been very accommodating (and) very professional.” Dow said he looks forward to seeing how the PVB main office building looks in the finished film.
v.kahin@roswell-record.com
J.O.Y. Centers, the commissioners also re-appointed Dale Miller to the J.O.Y. Center board of directors since his two-year term will expire this month. Three members to the J.O.Y. Center board of directors are appointed by county commissioners.
construction of the memorial since lighting materials are on back order, county officials say. County Manager Stan Riggs says the memorial, to be built on the front lawn of the Chaves County Courthouse, will likely be complete in October. At the request of Charlie Phillips, the executive director of Chaves County on whether the death penalty can be imposed on Astorga. In 2009 — after the repeal legislation was signed but before Astorga went to trial — the court heard arguments on whether it should put a stop to death penalty prosecutions. Astorga’s lawyers argued then that New Mexico’s capital punish-
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emiller@roswell-record.com
ment law should be declared unconstitutional. But several months later the court declined to rule on the constitutional challenge and Astorga’s prosecution went ahead. New Mexico has executed one person since 1960, child killer Terry Clark in 2001. There are two men on death row.
pointed out that the Weshsler did not just provide an overall IQ score, but provided scores in different categories, such as memory, where Vega scored significantly lower. Jennifer Otto, forensic scientist for the state of New Mexico, testified that she had found DNA evidence on two of the weapons found in Vega’s backyard which were sent to Santa Fe. Otto said, “David Vega could not be eliminated.” She clarified that the odds of the DNA belonging to someone else was in range of 1 in 18 billion and 1 in 14 trillion. She said that she found no blood on the weapon from Vega, Christopher or Montgomery, and believed the DNA came from skin cells. Ballistics expert Stephen
Guerra confirmed that the shells found at 1007 Rancho Road and sent to his laboratory by the Roswell Police Department had been “cycled through” one of the two shotguns also found in the Vega’s backyard where the officers had been shot. Guerra explained that he could not say definitively if they had been “fired by” the shotgun since he had only been able to match the marks on the casings made by the extraction mechanism. However, he could confirm that the 9 mm casings had been fired by the Taurus, which New Mexico State Police located in the backyard where most of the gun battle between Vega and the police occurred.
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