Would a sober driver have hit Tenorio?

During jury selection, defense lawyer Robert Gorence said the defense would concede the following facts: Carlos Fierro had been drinking alcohol the night of the crash, he drove his car afterward, he hit William Tenorio, Tenorio died. Gorence told prospective jurors he was looking for people for whom the case did not end with those four facts, and who could also take into account other facts.

Other considerations, he said, were that Tenorio also had been drinking and was wearing dark clothing. In addition, lawyers have subpoenaed records about street lights in the area and hinted that they might not have been working.

One factor regarding the amount of light that night, however, is that Sol Bentley, the DJ who witnessed Tenorio being hit, said Fierro's headlights weren't on. The police officer who pulled Fierro over said he was first drawn to the BMW because of that.

Bentley also said he saw Tenorio walking backward across the street just before he was hit, and that he appeared to hold something up or wave at someone at WilLee's.

Finally, Tenorio apparently wasn't in a crosswalk at the time of the crash.

Why did Fierro flee the crash scene?

In an interview with a city police detective after the crash, Fierro said he and Lovato had left WilLee's Blues Club "because they were being threatened by some other patrons," according to police warrants.

After a trip to Allsup's for snacks, the two men drove past WilLee's again, and Fierro said "he noticed a number of people on the sidewalk yelling profanities at them," according to the warrant. "He thought that these people were possibly the people who had been threatening them earlier. He then heard a loud crashing noise and saw the windshield crack. He thought that one of the persons along the sidewalk had thrown a rock or some other object at his vehicle. ... He then decided to drive out of the area for their safety."

Bentley, the witness, testified at the preliminary hearing that after he saw the BMW hit Tenorio, he ran toward it yelling at the top of his lungs that the driver had just hit a person.

"Do you agree the state has to prove that Mr. Fierro knew he hit a human being?" Gorence asked prospective jurors during the selection process. Gorence said many potential jurors who filled out questionnaires said Fierro's fleeing the scene was "despicable" and "cowardly."

Was evidence properly gathered?

Evidence questions dominated pre-trial motions filed by the defense in the case. And while Judge Michael Vigil denied all the motions, defense attorneys will likely bring up the questions during trial to seed doubt in jurors' minds about whether proper procedures were followed and whether the evidence was tainted.

These questions include whether objects were properly collected from Fierro's BMW, whether a sample of his blood was properly collected by a nurse and whether police violated Fierro's constitutional rights.

The political factor

In a recent interview, Fierro's mother, Joyce Fierro, said she and others who know him feel her son has been unfairly misrepresented by the media as a high-powered, politically connected attorney. She said the real Carlos is, in fact, "a public servant" who especially helped underrepresented, Native American and rural communities.

"He is accomplished because he is a hardworking and honest person, a single father, who dedicated his life to caring for his child and helping others, not for self-promotion or individual wealth," Joyce Fierro said. He is far from the politically connected person portrayed by a media consultant and the press, she said.

However, his résumé, his brief run for public office and his friendship with Lovato suggest he was politically involved.

During jury selection, the issue of political influence arose when two potential jurors implied that the New Mexico justice system favors politically connected defendants.

Gov. Bill Richardson was among the people interviewed by city detectives investigating the Fierro case because he was at the Rio Chama Steakhouse at the same time as Fierro and Lovato. A spokesman for the governor has said Richardson smoked a cigar and drank a Perrier sparkling water that night at the Rio Chama, but never saw Fierro or Lovato.

Fair trial issues

Fierro's lawyers wanted the trial moved to Rio Arriba County, contending news coverage had made it difficult to find an impartial jury pool in Santa Fe County. However, Judge Vigil disagreed and declined to move it to the adjoining county.

A total of 25 out of 142 people who filled out jury questionnaires in the Fierro case said they had never heard of the case, according to courthouse sources. It's not publicly known how many of those people were picked for the jury.