In the aftermath of the failed special legislative session on public safety one of our Roundhouse observers, offering reasons for the ongoing crime wave, opines that that the state judiciary is now "very liberal on crime."
That brought a response from ABQ criminal defense attorney Steven Forsberg. He works with the state Public Defender's Office but stresses that these opinions are his own and not from the Office.
From the July 31 blog:
Now a rebuttal from the Roundhouse: "On competency, yes, we need to find a solution to criminals simply released time after time. The legislature write laws but ultimately the discretion will belong to judges." ....The bench now is very liberal and progressive on crime."
It amazes me how many people who are so upset by problems with criminal competency don't bother to learn the first thing about how the process works. The Judges are required to follow the laws that are in place.
According to the law (not just "liberal judges"), a person convicted of a misdemeanor or non-violent felony who is found incompetent to stand trial (after an evaluation by a licensed professional who almost always works for the state) must have their charges dismissed.
However, if a person is found legally "dangerous" after being found incompetent, they can be sent to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute (BMHI) "forensic wing" for as long as their sentence.
Additionally, District Attorneys are free to try and "civilly commit" people who may be a danger to themselves or others. The underlying problem is a lack of mental health resources. For example, DAs generally think civil commitment is a waste of time and don't do it because even when a person is civilly committed, they are often released in a matter of weeks by BMHI.
One reason for this is that BMHI doesn't have the beds/resources to adequately deal with the population of New Mexico. With all due respect to the BMHI staff's professionalism, quick releases are just a realpolitik reflection of lack of resources.
Additionally, most of the people who are arrested dozens or more times a year are not arrested for violent or dangerous offenses. Rather, they are "quality of life" violators who pick up charges like trespass, disorderly, or maybe petty shoplifting or possession.
Politicians like to crow about "danger to our children" and such, but what they really want is to disappear that dude standing in front of the Allsups talking to himself. These people can repeatedly offend precisely because their charges are not "serious" enough to warrant commitment to NMBHI (which doesn't have space for them anyway), and there aren't many alternatives to NMBHI.
The politicians want "feel good/sounds good" quick solutions, but don't want to put a dime towards strengthening the underlying health infrastructure that is trying to cope with mental health and addiction issues, often in the same people.
If you want people "off the street" you need a place to put them, and for all the pols protestations of good intention, the path of least resistance is just to warehouse them in jails and prisons because even if it costs more, it seems to make voters happy.
This is similar to the situation with the ABQ Metro Detention Center. The pols scream and shout that more people should be sent to jail – and the jail administrators are begging that this doesn't happen because they can't even handle the current numbers.
The Governor could have worked with stakeholders to develop a reasonable/pragmatic/doable improvement to competency issues and procedures (but a "fix" would take money-and time). She didn't. She just got the politico's version of ChatGPT to spew out some language that polls well.
This is the Home of New Mexico Politics.
