By Leslie Linthicum
Albuquerque Journal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- How is it possible that Michael Guzman, a convicted murderer and rapist who was once on New Mexico’s death row, has married repeatedly and fathered four children while in prison?
Any prison inmate may marry with the permission of the warden, according to Department of Corrections spokesman Shannon McReynolds. Most marriage requests are granted unless there is a reason related to criminal rehabilitation or prison management to deny it. As an example, McReynolds said, an inmate would not be allowed to marry his victim.
Thanks to a state law passed in 1983, some prison inmates are allowed “family visits.” Those visits are granted to inmates in minimum- or mediumsecurity confinement who have not been cited for misconduct. Visitors can include a legal spouse, parents, children and other relatives as spelled out in the statute.
These are commonly known as “conjugal visits” and include overnight visitation in private quarters at the prison.
Guzman is a medium-security inmate at the Guadalupe County Correctional Facility and has been and is now eligible for family visits, McReynolds said. He would not have been before his death sentence was commuted by then-Gov. Toney Anaya in 1986, because death row inmates were held in a maximum-security prison and therefore denied family visits.
Guzman, McReynolds said, “has maintained clear conduct since July 2000. He has not received any disciplinary misconduct reports.”
Guzman resides in the honor pod, takes part in the Success for Offenders After Release program and works daily at a prison job cleaning grease traps in the kitchen.
Court records show Guzman has had three prison marriages dissolved through divorce or annulment. He is currently married, McReynolds said.
Anaya commuted the death sentences of five inmates before he left office in 1986. In addition to Guzman they were:
William Wayne Gilbert, a four-time murderer. He escaped from prison several months after Anaya’s commutation, shooting a guard with a smuggled-in gun and, with a group of escapees, abducting a family in Arizona. He was captured in California and died in prison in New Mexico of liver complications in 2002. He was 52.
Ricky Reynaldo Garcia is serving time in California and was denied parole in 2008 and again this March. He has not begun serving two life sentences for killing an inmate and a corrections officer in the Santa Fe prison riot in 1980.
Eddie Lee Adams, who robbed, raped and killed an elderly Clovis woman in 1981, is in medium-security custody at the Guadalupe County prison. He will be eligible for parole in 2029. If he were paroled, he would still have a 102-year sentence to serve.
Joel Lee Compton, who fatally shot Albuquerque police officer Gerald Cline in 1983, is serving his life sentence at the Lea County Correctional Facility. He will be eligible for parole in February 2013 when he is 59. If he were paroled, he would still have an 18-month sentence to serve for aggravated assault.
Copyright 2011 Albuquerque Journal