LAS CRUCES – A judge has deferred sentencing for a Las Cruces man after he pleaded guilty to shooting a woman at a local gym in 2021.
The judge delayed Monday’s sentencing hearing, saying he needed a report from the New Mexico Department of Corrections before the hearing could continue. The judge said that as soon as he received the report, he would proceed to sentence 29-year-old Jose Daniel Chavez.
Court documents show Chavez pleaded guilty to one count of attempted first-degree murder and one count of tampering with evidence. Chavez has been in jail since police say he shot and killed a woman working the front desk at Planet Fitness on El Paseo Road on Aug. 3, 2021.
According to court documents, Chavez’s trial was scheduled for late 2023. Instead, he pleaded guilty to the charges on Dec. 23, 2022.
What happened on the day of the shooting?
Chavez had been a member of Planet Fitness since January 2020, according to an affidavit filed after the shooting. But gym officials described Chavez’s year-and-a-half membership as tough.
Managers at the gym told police that Planet Fitness canceled Chavez’s membership in June 2021 after repeated complaints about the clothes he wore to the gym. Managers also told police that Chavez threatened employees as a member.
Two months later, police said Chavez walked into El Paseo around 8 a.m. on Aug. 3 with a gun in his hand. When he entered, he threw his shoe at a woman working the front desk and fired his gun into her chest, according to police.
The gym’s security cameras recorded the shooting, according to the affidavit.
Investigators did not speculate on Chavez’s motives in the affidavit. However, prosecutors said in court documents that they believe the attack was unprovoked. The woman later told police she had never met Chavez before he shot her.
Police arrested Chavez minutes after the shooting. They said they found him wandering a few blocks away near the intersection of the main street, El Paseo Road. When Chavez was brought back to the police station for an interview, detectives said he wouldn’t recognize them and stared at the blank wall.
Matters of competence
Chavez’s behavior inspired his attorney, Jonathan Miller, to request a competency evaluation. Three months after the shooting, Judge Richard Jacquez received an evaluation that found Chavez competent to stand trial.
New Mexico state law states that competency in a legal context means that “the defendant understands the nature and significance of the proceeding, has a factual understanding of the charges, and is able to assist counsel in the defendant’s defense.”
Competence issues differ from insanity arguments, which concern the defendant’s mental state at the time of the alleged incident.
Lasting impact of random shooting
After finding Chavez competent to stand trial, prosecutors renewed their push to keep him in jail.
During a pretrial detention hearing in November 2021, the Planet Fitness employee testified that she would fear for her life if Chavez was released.
“I’m a whole new person, and it’s not a good new person,” she said.
The woman testified that she had worked at Planet Fitness for nine months before Chavez shot her.
When Chavez came to the establishment, she said she did not recognize him and had no previous encounters with him.
She told the court she believed Chavez was most likely a member of Planet Fitness on Telshor Boulevard.
After the shooting, the woman said she was hospitalized for a day. But the mental effects remain, she said.
How long can Chavez be in prison?
The maximum sentence the judge can impose is nine years on the attempted murder charge and three years on the tampering charge. That’s 12 years if the judge orders the sentences to run consecutively.
But because Chavez agreed to plead guilty rather than go to trial, his sentence could be less than 12 years. It was not clear from the plea and injunction agreement whether Chavez’s attorney and prosecutors had agreed to a sentence or whether they would argue for different outcomes at an upcoming hearing.
Regardless, Chavez’s final sentence will be reduced by about 18 months because he will be credited for time he has served in prison.
A new sentencing hearing has not yet been scheduled as of this writing, but will likely happen in the coming weeks.
Justin Garcia covers crime, the courts and public safety. You can contact him by email at [email protected].