The defendant

Carlos Fierro, 36, graduated from Santa Fe High School in 1991. Afterward, he attended the New Mexico Military Institute in Roswell, where he was commissioned a 2nd lieutenant. He graduated from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in 1996 with degrees in political science and Spanish, then graduated from The University of New Mexico law school three years later.

Fierro portrayed Don Diego de Vargas in the 1997 Fiesta de Santa Fe court. His uncle, Art Gurule, portrayed de Vargas in 1984.

After law school, Fierro served as legislative analyst for the New Mexico state House majority leadership and caucus before being named then-Rep. Tom Udall's legislative assistant in Washington, D.C., in February 2000. By June of the same year, the Northern New Mexico Democrat named Fierro legislative counsel, which included managing legislative affairs and staff for the 3rd Congressional District.

At 28, Fierro was appointed senior counsel to U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., on the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee. Fierro later guided negotiations between the Jicarilla Apache Nation and the Rio Arriba County Commission on long-standing land, tax, jurisdictional and natural-resource management issues. That led New Mexico House Speaker Ben Luján to write a letter nominating Fierro for the 2007 Outstanding Young Lawyer of the Year award, in which Luján said the outcome of the negotiations would have been "disastrous had someone other than Fierro been in charge of the negotiations." Fierro won the award.

In 2004, Fierro briefly declared his intentions to run for a seat on the state Public Regulation Commission, a position won by the House speaker's son, Ben Ray Luján.

Fierro, a single father of a 9-year-old girl, was part of an effort to develop closer ties between the 19 New Mexico pueblos and Spain.

In September 2007, Fierro told The New Mexican he was in the process of setting up offices specializing in public law in Santa Fe and Washington, D.C. At the time of the crash, Fierro was listed in the New Mexico Bench and Bar Directory as a lawyer in Washington for the Avanza Group, a financial advisory business, according to corporateinformation.com.

He told a Santa Fe County magistrate at his arraignment in November that he had just moved back to New Mexico from Washington and had planned to rent an apartment in Albuquerque because his daughter went to school there.


The victim

William Tenorio, 46, was a member of the San Felipe Pueblo and the father of three children — daughters Dianna and Adrianne, both in their early 20s, and son James, 16. All three children — as well as several other Tenorio family members — have been present at nearly all court hearings involving Fierro.

At a news conference a few days after Tenorio's death, family members described Tenorio as a large man with a gentle, kind spirit. Tenorio was a community leader and youth sports coach at San Felipe Pueblo and the Santa Fe Indian School, where his son is a student.

Tenorio was nearing a degree in accounting from The University of New Mexico. He also taught catechism at church and frequently volunteered his services as a professional disc jockey at fundraisers. His sister said Tenorio had recently become politically active in hopes of improving tribal life.

Stephanie Poston, a local publicist who is close to the family and has acted as their spokeswoman, described Tenorio as a social person who made friends easily.

"The difference between Mr. Fierro and my father is that my dad owned up to his mistakes," Dianna Tenorio said in December. "He used his experiences to guide others in the right direction. He always put others before himself, and he was very generous."

Tenorio's blood alcohol content at the time of the crash was .14, police have said.


The passenger

Alfred Lovato, 38, was sitting in the passenger seat of Fierro's 2004 BMW 530i when Tenorio was struck. Fierro and Lovato had been drinking together at two downtown bars — the Rio Chama Steakhouse and the now-defunct WilLee's Blues Club — in the hours before the crash, which occurred just before 2 a.m.

Lovato, a state police sergeant, was an off-duty member of Gov. Bill Richardson's security detail at the time of the crash. Lovato asserted his right against self-incrimination in declining to answer questions at Fierro's preliminary hearing, though Lovato did talk to city police investigators after the crash.

District Attorney Angela "Spence" Pacheco later asked an attorney who works for the Administrative Office of the District Attorneys to review the evidence against Lovato. That prosecutor, Donna Bevacqua-Young, later charged Lovato with the same charges Fierro faces. Lovato has pleaded not guilty.

He joined the New Mexico State Police in December 1991. He served on the governor's security detail from May 1998 to August 2004, which included stints protecting Gov. Gary Johnson and Richardson. He transferred back to the governor's detail in March 2006, and accompanied Richardson to Sudan in September 2007 when the governor helped retrieve U.S. journalist Paul Salopek from jail there.


The prosecutor

The Fierro prosecution is the first big case for Santa Fe District Attorney Angela "Spence" Pacheco, who was elected in November.

She is the first woman ever to serve as the 1st Judicial District's top prosecutor.

Pacheco had worked as a prosecutor under former District Attorney Henry Valdez, who held the top job for a record 16 years, and ran against him unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination as district attorney in 2000.

Pacheco also worked in the Santa Fe City Attorney's Office and served as city attorney for the city of Española before taking over the District Attorney's Office in January.

Pacheco will be assisted in the prosecution by Assistant District Attorney Juan Valencia, a former defense attorney before Pacheco hired him.


The defense team

Though four lawyers have worked or are working on Fierro's defense, the team is led by Jason Bowles and Robert Gorence, both Albuquerque attorneys. Bowles is a former assistant U.S. attorney who made a name for himself representing (along with Sam Bregman) former New Mexico Treasurer Robert Vigil on corruption charges. Vigil was convicted of one count of attempted extortion and acquitted of 23 other charges, including racketeering and extortion.

Bowles also represented the family of one of two couples killed in January 2002 when a drunk Bureau of Indian Affairs employee drove the wrong way on Interstate 40 west of Albuquerque and hit them.

Santa Fe residents might remember his name because he represented former Santa Fe Police Department Detective Danny Ramirez, who was charged by the U.S. Attorney's Office with stealing from drug dealers. Ramirez pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft in April 2008 in a plea deal that saw the other 18 counts against him dismissed.

Gorence was chief deputy to U.S. Attorney John Kelly before Kelly resigned in January 2000, leaving Gorence as acting U.S. attorney briefly. Gorence later served as lead prosecutor in the Wen Ho Lee espionage case until he was removed for an undisclosed personal indiscretion. Since then, Gorence has represented former Insurance Superintendent Eric Serna and race car driver Bobby Unser, and a co-defendant of Manny Aragon's in the Bernalillo County Courthouse scandal.

Gorence is former New Mexico Sen. Pete Domenici's former son-in-law.


The detective

Santa Fe police Detective Tony Trujillo led the Santa Fe Police Department's investigation into the Fierro crash.

He has worked for the department for more than 20 years and is the agency's most experienced violent crimes detective.


The jury

Lawyers agreed Sept. 11 to a jury panel of eight men and eight women, which includes four alternates.

The jury was chosen after potential members filled out questionnaires asking how much they knew about the Fierro case and whether they had formed any concrete opinions. Many prospective jurors were dismissed after lawyers digested those answers.

Some information about the jurors was available in court and voter-registration records.

Ages weren't available for all. However, at least two of the jurors are in their early 70s, one is in her mid-60s, three are in their mid-50s, two are in their early 50s, four are in their mid-40s and one is in her late 30s.

Seven are registered as Democrats, two are Republicans, one is a Green Party member and one declined to state a party.