Evidence in the vehicular homicide case against Carlos Fierro was properly seized and his statement was legally obtained, according to motions filed last week by the District Attorney's Office.

The four motions were filed July 31 in state District Court in response to eight separate motions filed by Fierro's defense team in the last three weeks. Those motions allege that police illegally seized evidence, tried to coerce a confession from Fierro after he asked for a lawyer, and violated his constitutional rights. The three lawyers hired by Fierro also have alleged that he wasn't arraigned in a timely manner, that blood evidence was improperly obtained and handled, and that an emergency room nurse violated his constitutional rights.

A fourth Fierro lawyer filed a lawsuit against the city Tuesday, alleging that officials violated the state's Inspection of Public Records Act earlier this month by not releasing records about streetlight — not traffic signal — maintenance.

"Something like this, you've got to throw everything at it," Santa Fe City Attorney Frank Katz said Thursday of the defense team's tactics. "His whole career and life is at stake."

According to one of the motions filed by District Attorney Angela "Spence" Pacheco and prosecutor Juan Valencia, Fierro's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination was not violated when officers first stopped him minutes after the early-morning crash Nov. 26 that killed William Tenorio, 46, of San Felipe Pueblo.

His constitutional rights did not need to be read to him at that time because he was not under arrest yet, the motion says.

Consequently, any statements he made — including his immediate words to the officer who pulled him over that his car had been struck by a rock — are admissible evidence, the motion says. "By Mr. Fierro's reckoning, once any individual is stopped they should immediately be read their Miranda rights," the motion states.

Fierro's Sixth Amendment right to a lawyer also was not violated by city police detectives who investigated the case, the motion says. Fierro, who is also a lawyer, signed a consent form waiving his rights before making a formal statement to police, so that statement is admissible, the motion says. And while two detectives did visit him in jail on Thanksgiving Day for further interviews, they never questioned him or attempted to question him after he asked for a lawyer.

In fact, one of the detectives allowed Fierro to use the detective's cell phone to call his lawyer because jail officials wouldn't allow him to use the jail telephone at the time, the motion states.

Finally, the motion says a police chaplain did not try to coerce a statement from Fierro at the jail, as alleged in a defense motion.

Another motion filed by the DA states that Fierro wasn't arraigned until Dec. 1 after being arrested Nov. 26, because the Santa Fe County Magistrate Court was closed for the Thanksgiving holiday. A third motion states that emergency room nurse Heidi Schwalbe followed proper procedures in drawing Fierro's blood, and that the defense has offered no scientific evidence that the blood was improperly drawn or handled.

Finally, the fourth motion says that police properly seized evidence from Fierro's 2004 BMW and properly secured the car after Fierro was stopped so that no one had access to it. "The State has obviously not attempted to hide anything regarding which items have been seized and searched and the sequence in which items were seized and searched," the motion says. "How else would the Defendant know of their search and seizure?"

Two of the eight motions introduced so far by the defense were filed later than the first six. Pacheco said Thursday she will respond to those two motions, which ask to limit Schwalbe's testimony and throw out the blood-alcohol evidence because she allegedly didn't obtain it correctly, in due time.

State District Judge Michael Vigil is scheduled to hear all the motions Aug. 13.

Santa Fe police Capt. Gary Johnson said the motions by Fierro's lawyers mean they are "doing exactly what they're being paid to do.

"They're trying to shift the focus off of what actually occurred," he said. "That's why I think all of this is a smoke screen. When it comes down to it, the evidence will speak for itself."

He said he's confident that Detective Tony Trujillo, the department's most experienced investigator, oversaw a competent and thorough investigation.

A phone message left Thursday for Jason Bowles, one of Fierro's lawyers, was not returned.

Fierro's blood-alcohol content after the crash was .21, more than twice the legal driving limit. The politically connected lawyer had been drinking at two downtown bars for several hours prior to the crash, with former state police Sgt. Alfred Lovato, who was sitting next to him in the car when Tenorio was hit. Fierro and Lovato have both been charged with vehicular homicide and causing a fatal accident.

Tenorio's blood alcohol content was .14 and he was wearing dark clothes at the time of the crash, according to testimony at Fierro's preliminary hearing. One of Fierro's motions says that the "core issue" in the case is whether "this accident was avoidable by anyone, sober or drunk ..."

Katz said that when the city received attorney Colin Hunter's public-records request for the streetlight maintenance records, the clerk's office initially sent it to the Public Works Department, which for some reason didn't respond. He said the city's system for tracking public records requests will be "new and improved" as a result of the snafu.

He said he assumed PNM would have maintenance records for city streetlights because they maintain them. Fierro's lawyers asked for the records for three long streets in town — Paseo de Peralta, Guadalupe Street and Alameda Street, he said.

PNM spokeswoman Susan Sponar said Thursday that PNM maintains some streetlights in Santa Fe, though she wasn't sure which ones.

One witness who testified at Fierro's preliminary hearing said Fierro was driving without headlights when he struck Tenorio.

Contact Jason Auslander at 986-3076 or :jauslander@sfnewmexican.com