Homicide victim's family lobbying to change New Mexico statute of limitations law
Posted at: 01/26/2012 7:53 PM
| Updated at: 01/26/2012 8:07 PM
By: Stuart Dyson, KOB Eyewitness News 4
 Ellen Snyder admitted to killing her husband, but she was able to accept a plea deal due to the statute of limitations. |
Sisters of an Albuquerque man murdered by his wife and buried beneath his garage for eight years, testified today before a state senate committee considering a bill that would remove all kinds of homicide from the statute of limitations.
Michael Snyder's sisters don't like the lightweight sentence his wife got and they want to change the state law that let it happen.
Ellen Snyder is doing 11 years on a voluntary manslaughter plea bargain.
She admitted killing Michael back in 2002 and burying his body.
To police and prosecutors it looked like a slam-dunk for a second degree murder conviction, but the statute of limitations ran out for that charge.
First degree murder is the only kind with no limitation, and prosecutors felt they didn't have enough evidence to convict her. Hence, she received a plea bargain and an 11 year sentence.
"Knowing that she got away with it, or what we feel she got away with, we thought the law and the legal system would be on our side," said Laura Bowman, Michael's sister. "We found that it wasn't, and we're just trying to keep somebody else from having to go through that."
"We think it's a complete travesty," said Teri Johnson about the conviction of her brother's killer. "We don't feel that it's fair or just and we think that our brother's life deserved more than 11 years."
Senator Bill Payne, an Albuquerque Republican, is sponsoring the bill that removes all kinds of homicide from the statute of limitations.
He argues that the law needs to keep up with modern science, especially DNA evidence.
"If forensics can prove that a person committed a homicide but it's later than our current statute of limitations, there should be no prohibition in the law from charging that individual,” he said.
The Senate Public Affairs Committee amended the bill to remove only second degree murder from the statute of limitations, leaving lesser homicide charges with the current limits.
The bill is now scheduled to go to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
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