New Mexico judge quashes Timothy Busfield indictment over witness procedure

A New Mexico judge has quashed the grand jury indictment of actor and director Timothy Busfield because of how prosecutors handled requests to hear witnesses. The ruling concerns the way the indictment was obtained, not whether the allegations are true, and it leaves the state free to begin a new criminal case.

Judge Joseph Montaño of the Bernalillo County court issued the decision on 16 October. A grand jury had indicted Busfield on 5 February on four counts of sexual contact with a minor.

The judge found that the prosecutor had not acted fairly and impartially when explaining how jurors could call witnesses. He said the grand jury was given an incomplete account of the requirements, and that the procedure described to jurors had, in practice, prevented witnesses they requested from being heard. The ruling does not establish what those witnesses would have said.

The judge also accepted a point made by prosecutors: Busfield had not followed the required procedure to alert the grand jury in advance to potentially exculpatory evidence. But he found that this did not resolve the separate problem arising when jurors themselves asked to hear witnesses.

Busfield has denied the allegations, according to Nieuws.nl. [1] The court’s decision permits new criminal proceedings, though it does not establish whether prosecutors will bring them.