There are a total of 5 measures Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has put forward for the July 18 Special Session she called on April 17. With just a few days remaining before the session, no consensus had been reached on any of the 5 measures the Governor wants passed. The ACLU of New Mexico and numerous advocates for the homeless and mental health experts are asking the Governor to call off the special legislative session. On July 10, the governor said that she doesn’t want to wait until next January’s 60-day legislative session to tackle the issues.
The Governor and her administration are now engaged in an aggressive public relations efforts to try and convince lawmakers, local public officials, judges and the public that her recommended legislative changes are vital, will work and can be approved during the July 18 special session on public safety.
SUMMATION OF PROPOSED LEGISLATION
On June 6, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s Office outlined to the Court, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee five public-safety measures she wants legislators to address during the July 18 special session of the New Mexico legislature. The 5 measures can be summarized as follows:
The first measure would make changes to the state’s criminal competency law. This bill involves involuntary civil commitment for defendants charged with a serious violent offense, a felony involving the use of a firearm, or those defendants who have been found incompetent two or more times in the prior 12 months. Judges would be required to order district attorneys to consider filing for involuntary commitment, giving judges the ability to detain a defendant for up to seven days for the petition to be initiated. The intent is to prevent mentally incapacitated individuals from harming themselves or the public.
Supporters say there are far too many suspects who are arrested, deemed incompetent to stand trial, and then released back on the streets only to commit more crimes. It’s a bill designed to address in part the so-called “revolving door” where defendants are arrested only to be found incompetent to stand trial and then released. The legislation is intended to strengthen a 2016 law and a program originally signed into law by former Governor Susana Martinez that allows district judges to order involuntary treatment for people with severe mental illness who have frequent brushes with law enforcement. It involves a program called the “Assisted Outpatient Treatment” (AOT).
The second measure would broaden the definitions of danger to oneself and danger to others in New Mexico’s involuntary commitment statute that mandates involuntary treatment for people with mental illness. The bill would allow a judge to mandate out-patient treatment,. It would allow individuals, whether first responders, family members or community members who work with mentally ill individuals on the streets to request involuntary out-patient treatment.
The third measure would increase the crime of felon in possession of a firearm from a fourth-degree felony to a second-degree, and would set a new mandatory minimum term of nine years for the offense. Current law provides for a sentence of “up to three years for an offender.” Serious violent felons in possession would face a mandatory 12 years in prison, an increase from the current nine-year term.
The fourth measure would prohibit pedestrians from occupying highway medians, on-ramps, and is ostensibly directed at prohibiting panhandling and the homeless from occupying medians and off ramps.
The fifth measure would require law enforcement agencies to report certain monthly crime incident reports and ballistic information to the state Department of Public Safety on crime incidents and ballistics information.
SUBSTITUTE BILL ANNOUNCED
On June 26 a substitute proposal was presented to the Court, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee interim legislative committee that would broaden eligibility for someone who could be ordered by a judge into involuntary mental health treatment. Representative Andrea Reeb, R-Clovis, responded that a shortage of behavioral health treatment options is an underlying problem that makes any changes in law difficult to enforce.
Reeb is a prosecutor in the 9th Judicial District. She recently had difficulty finding in-patient treatment for a serial arsonist in her district. Reeb said this after hearing the new proposal:
“We don’t really have any facilities in our area to treat anybody except as an outpatient. … You can divert people all you want to different things, but you don’t have places to send them”.
On June 27, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s office announced she has scrapped the proposal to expand court-supervised outpatient treatment for people with mental illness for debate during the July 18 Special Session. The bill the governor withdrew was intended to strengthen a 2016 law that allows district judges to order involuntary treatment for people with severe mental illness who have frequent brushes with law enforcement. It would have required each of the state’s 13 judicial districts to create a program called Assisted Outpatient Treatment overseen by a civil court judge.
Holly Agajanian, the governor’s chief general counsel, told lawmakers that the governor was responding to concerns from legislators that the AOT bill was a “big lift” for a special session. Agajanian told members of the interim Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee this:
“What we’ve decided instead to do is condense the goals here. [The substitute measure will take] small, necessary steps to help those people who are either a true danger to themselves or an extreme danger to others”
The Governor’s Office is proposing to broaden eligibility for involuntary commitment by tweaking definitions in existing law. The existing involuntary commitment law essentially limits commitment to people who are suicidal. The proposed change would broaden the definition of “harm to self” and “harm to others” to cover more people eligible for involuntary treatment.
Under the new definition, “harm to self” would include a person unable “to exercise self-control, judgment and discretion in the conduct of the person’s daily responsibilities and social relations” or “to satisfy the person’s need for nourishment, personal or medical care,” housing and personal safety.
The proposed definition of “harm to others” would cover a person who “has inflicted, attempted to inflict or threatened to inflict serious bodily harm on another” or has taken actions that create “a substantial risk of serious bodily harm to another.” Harm to others could also apply to someone who has engaged in “extreme destruction of property” in the recent past.
ANALYSIS OF COMPETENCY BILL
On June 26, an analysis of the number of people released back into the community after being found incompetent to stand trial was provided to the Court, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee which held all day hearings for 4 days to consider all 5 measures. The analysis was not completed and was unavailable yet when the competency bill legislation failed in the 2024 legislative session. Major findings of the analysis are as follows:
- More than 3,200 people charged with crimes since 2017 in New Mexico have been released back to the community after being found incompetent to stand trial, according to an analysis fueling Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s call for a special session.
- More than 5,350 of the 16,045 dismissed charges were felonies, according to the analysis. The dismissals included those charged with first-degree murder, trafficking controlled substances, kidnapping, and abuse of a child, according to data of the state Administrative Office of the Courts.
- Other defendants charged with lesser crimes have been repeat offenders caught in a cycle of being charged and released only to be arrested again, charged, and let go after court-ordered evaluations showed they cannot participate in their defense and a judge ruled they were mentally incompetent to stand trial.
After seeing the analysis, Lujan Grisham called the number of criminal case dismissals “frankly, shocking.” The Governor said this to the Albuquerque Journal:
“Some of these have been in court up to 40 times in a year. If we don’t interrupt that, the status quo that you see playing out in our communities every day will stay. … I’m trying to break that cycle [and] focus on the criminal competency loophole. … The notion that we would have 3,200-plus individuals reoffending for another year is more than I think any New Mexican should have to bear”.
NEED FOR CHANGES IN MENTAL HEALTH COMMITMENT LAWS
The Governor argues her proposed changes to the mental health commitment laws are needed immediately. She said her proposed changes benefit those who need support, whether it’s a drug user kicked out of his house by his family who turns to the streets and sells drugs for a living or a mentally ill person who ends up without a home and no after-care plan for treatment after being released from jail.
The Governor said this:
“We seem to have an underlying public safety or criminal aspect, in addition to some affordability issues, in addition to a significant mental health population. … [The current statute for commitment] is too narrow. Most people don’t qualify. That’s what the commitment changes will do.”
The Governor said the state is now better equipped to deal with those who need help. Since 2019, the behavioral health provider network in New Mexico has grown by 73% from nearly 3,200 providers to more than 5,500, according to her office. The Governor said this:
“We have 100-plus beds today [around the state] to serve people right now.”
The link to the quoted and relied upon news source is here:
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
It is extremely disappointing that since April 17 when Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham called for a special session, and with just a few days before the July 18 Special Session, that the Governor and the New Mexico legislature leadership have failed to come to any consensus whatsoever on substantive public safety legislation for quick enactment by the legislature on July 18. The failure is a reflection of failed leadership on both sides.
The Governor’s proposed changes to the state’s mental health laws have some merit. However, to be perfectly blunt, the measures fall very short on actually accomplishing much when it comes to public safety given the fact the state is seriously deficient when it comes to mental health care facilities and mental health professionals. The Governor’s mental health care proposals contain nothing with respect to funding. The mental health measures should be withdrawn and taken up during the 2025 regular 60 day session.
WITHDRAW OTHER 3 MEASURES ON SPECIAL SESSION AGENDA
There are 3 other measures that the Governor wants the Specials Session to enact apart from the mental health proposals. All three of those measures are leftovers from the 2024 legislative session. The 3 additional measures proposed by the Governor are ones that cannot be consider as a having a real sense of urgency and for that reason alone she should withdraw those measures. All 3 should be handled in the regular session for the following reasons:
The bill that would strengthen penalties for a felon convicted of possessing a firearm, making the crime a second-degree felony, punishable by a minimum of nine years in prison is one that standing alone will not make that much of a difference. During the Governors tenure, the legislature has in fact increased felony criminal penalties upwards of 6 times.
The bill to prohibit pedestrians from occupying highway medians, on-ramps and exit ramps is directed at the unhoused and panhandling in general and is an exercise in futility. Such laws are difficult to enforce and law enforcement needs to concentrate on far more serious crime. Albuquerque has enacted such an ordinance, as has other communities, and it goes unenforced as panhandlers and the unhoused continue to occupy medians and on ramps and as the ACLU is successfully challenge the laws in court as being unconstitutional.
The bill that would require law enforcement agencies to report certain monthly crime incident reports and ballistic information could likely be accomplished by executive orders and does not necessarily need legislation. Better cooperation between law enforcement is what is needed.
Without any consensus on any legislation, the July 18 Special Session will be a waste of time and taxpayer funding and for that matter somewhat of an embarrassment for both the Governor and the New Mexico Legislature. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham should concede to reality that the legislature is not at all interested in cooperating with her and cancel the July 18 Special Session.
The link to a related blog article is here: