After Nearly Two Years Behind Bars, Jury Acquits New Mexico Man of Murder Charges

There’s no disputing that Francisco Javier Grado-Flores shot and killed his then-girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend in June, 2023. For nearly two years the question has been whether Grado-Flores was justified in doing so. Ever since he was taken into custody shortly after the death of Raul Rene Montejano Jr, the defendant maintained he was acting to protect himself from harm, and almost two years after he was first charged with murder a jury of his peers agreed; putting an end to his time behind bars and allowing him to start a new chapter of his life as a free man. 

Jurors in state District Court returned verdicts of not guilty for either first-degree murder, second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter with respect to Montejano’s killing as well as for counts of aggravated battery with a deadly weapon.

Grado-Flores’ attorney, public defender Jennifer Burrill, said Thursday Grado-Flores was glad to be out of jail.

“It’s unfortunate that he was in custody for two years on a case that was clearly self-defense,” Burrill said. 

First Judicial District Attorney’s Office spokesperson Catherine Lynch said the district attorney “respects the jury’s decision and appreciates the jury’s time and attention to the facts and evidence presented.”

“The requirement for a unanimous guilty verdict in a criminal case is a foundational principle of our justice system, and this case was one that the FJDA had long maintained required a jury to examine and determine the facts,” Lynch wrote.

That’s some serious spin on the part of the prosecutors, and frankly, if that’s the official position then Lynch would have been better off saying nothing at all. The District Attorney’s office didn’t present this case to jurors as some sort of open-ended investigation into what happened between Grado-Flores and Montejano. No, they declared that he murdered his girlfriend’s ex in cold blood, and argued in favor of convicting Grado-Flores on a variety of charges including first-degree murder. Grado-Flores, on the other hand, maintained that Montejano Jr., who had been previously been arrested multiple times for allegedly abusing his ex-girlfriend, bashed him over the head with a bat. Only then did Grado-Flores fire the shot that took Montejano’s life. 

There hasn’t been a lot of media coverage of Grado-Flores’ case over the past two years, but a report on his arrest claimed that he had “a head injury after being hit with a baseball bat by Montejano”, which bolsters his argument that he shot Montejano only after he feared for his safety. 

From the outset there seem to have been serious issues with charging Grado-Flores, but things got even worse when prosecutors failed to produce evidence to Grado-Flores’ public defender in a timely manner, which resulted in his murder trial being delayed for several months. As the Santa Fe New Mexican reported last October:

Grado-Flores’ attorney, public defender Jennifer Burrill, placed blame for the evidence delay at the feet of the Santa Fe Police Department. She said the agency waited nearly eight months after collecting the phones in June 2023 to send them to a forensics laboratory for data extraction, despite the fact Grado-Flores is being detained while awaiting trial.

“Santa Fe Police have a pattern of failing to follow through on major investigations,” Burrill wrote in an email after a hearing on the matter Thursday.

She added, “There have been no consequences for the Santa Fe Police Department, and nothing will change until there are.”

Not only did police delay processing the evidence, Burrill told the court — they also sat on the data eventually pulled from the phones from Sept. 10 to Oct. 18 before turning it over to the District Attorney’s Office, even though the case was scheduled to go to trial Oct. 30.

When the Public Defender’s Office tried to view the voluminous data extracted from the phones, Burrill said, it was unable to do so because of formatting issues and still has not been able to view the evidence. She said she believes the data includes evidence that could support the defense theory that Grado-Flores shot Montejano in self-defense or in defense of another person.

Burrill asked Santa Fe police Detective Jill Feaster during the hearing why she hadn’t sent the phones to be analyzed until February, despite collecting them immediately after the June 2023 shooting.

“I do not have an answer for that,” Feaster said.

That’s an un-freaking-believable and absolutely unacceptable answer, and I’d love to see Grado-Flores pursue a civil suit against the Santa Fe Police Department for its role in keeping him behind bars and denying him his right to a speedy trial.  

Francisco Javier Grado-Flores bears at least some responsibility as well, though. He screwed up by fleeing to Kansas after the shooting, which allowed prosecutors to plausibly argue that he should be held without bond because he was a flight risk. Even if he’d stuck around and cooperated with the on-scene investigators, though, there’s no guarantee that he would have been allowed or able to bond out until the conclusion of his trial. 

According to his attorney, Grado-Flores never should have been charged in the first place. I wasn’t in the courtroom, but based on what’s been reported, as well as the jury’s conclusions, I’d say she’s got a winning argument. Francisco Javier Grado-Flores is once again a free man, and I hope for his sake that remains the case for the remainder of his days.