Former Magistrate Galvan sued over rape allegation

Posted 8/30/2006 07:21:00 AM

Former Doña Ana County Magistrate Judge Reuben Galvan is being sued by the woman whose accusations of rape and bribery ended his career.

The woman filed a federal lawsuit on Aug. 16 alleging civil rights violations based on claims of battery, false imprisonment and intentional infliction of emotional distress. She’s seeking compensatory and punitive damages, attorneys’ fees and whatever other relief the court deems “just and proper,” according to the complaint.

Galvan has not yet responded. He may be defended by the State of New Mexico, since he was a judge at the time of the incident in question and the allegations involve, to some degree, his position as a judge.

Galvan resigned in May 2005 amid allegations that he raped and solicited a bribe from the woman in August 2004. After two hung juries, prosecutors dropped the criminal charges.

Galvan admitted in a statement to police to actions that may violate the judicial code of conduct. While drinking and flirting in a bar, he discussed with the woman a pending battery case against her husband, though she was the alleged victim in that case. He had sex with the woman, though she and her husband had been married two months earlier by Galvan. He also took the woman for a ride in his Porsche, though he told police he had too much to drink before driving.

The New Mexico Supreme Court barred Galvan last month from ever again holding judicial office in New Mexico, but the court’s justices made clear they were not finding Galvan guilty of the judicial misconduct of which he was accused. The justices barred Galvan, a court spokeswoman said, because he didn’t bother to answer the Judicial Standards Commission’s request that he be permanently barred from holding a judicial office.

The court’s order states that the commission “failed to prove its case (against Galvan) by clear and convincing evidence.”

That doesn’t mean Galvan’s accuser doesn’t have a chance of winning a civil suit. Civil cases have the lowest standard for burden of proof – “preponderance of evidence” – which essentially means it’s more likely than not that the allegations are true.

There is a higher burden of proof with “clear and convincing evidence,” which is the standard used in situations that include child custody cases involving abuse allegations. The highest standard, used in criminal cases, is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

In the civil suit, Galvan’s accuser is represented by Las Cruces attorney Blaine Mynatt, who claims Galvan violated the woman’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment right “to be secure in her person against unreasonable seizures,” and her Fifth and Fourteenth Amendment right “not to be deprived of her liberty without due process of law.”

Though the word “rape” isn’t used in the complaint, Galvan, according to the complaint, “using force and coercion, falsely imprisoned and sexually battered” the woman. That, the complaint states, caused “severe emotional distress, psychological and physical trauma, humiliation and ridicule.”

As a result, the complaint states, the woman “suffered and continues to suffer emotional distress, including but not limited to depression, insomnia, guilt feelings, anxiety, tension and nightmares.”