On Tuesday, August 13, New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Briana Zamora testified before the New Mexico Legislature’s Courts, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee on the state’s mental health competency laws as they relate to criminal defendants. The Committee is one of the most influential committees of the legislature and consists of 32 House and Senate members and meets year-round and vets proposed legislation.
Justice Zamora is the chairperson of a court-affiliated working group responsible for proposed legislation that would give judges more options in cases where criminal defendants are deemed incompetent to stand trial. The working group was created 2 years ago. It is made up of various city officials, law enforcement officers, mental health advocates and attorneys.
Justice Zamora presented a bill drafted by the working group that could be debated by lawmakers during the 60-day legislative session that starts on January 21 and ends on March 22, 2025. The bill takes a different approach to criminal competency than the bills backed by Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham that would have required temporarily detaining of criminal defendants who are deemed to be incompetent to stand trial in certain felony cases, so that mandatory treatment orders could be prepared. The Governor’s bills were introduced during the July 18 Special Session she called on public safety, but lawmakers refused to take up and debate any of the proposals during the special session.
The new legislation crafted by the working group would allow judges to assign non-violent criminal defendants to outpatient or residential diversion programs, where they could get treatment and counseling for mental health issues or substance abuse treatment. While few such programs exist or are being implemented, a larger-scale effort would require new programs be established in a state already struggling to fill vacant social work and counseling positions.
One problem identified with the proposed legislation is that the changes to the state’s competency laws being proposed will not, on their own, bring about a quick fix. Justice Zamora told the Courts, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee this:
“The statute alone will not be sufficient. …This [legislation] will lay the groundwork to create programs.”
Justice Zamora, who was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2021, acknowledged the complexity of the issue. She described the working group’s efforts as a “highlight of her career.” She also said she frequently dealt with repeat offenders with mental health issues during her time as a Metro Court Judge. Justice Zamora said this:
“I knew their names and their faces because they were in front of me so often. … And we were doing nothing.”
Justice Zamora told the committee that most states do have provisions for outpatient and residential competency restoration in their criminal laws.
LEGISLATOR’S HARSH REACTION TO PROPOSED CHANGES
During the August 13 Courts, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee hearing, Albuquerque area Democrat State Senator, Mimi Stewart, the president pro tempore of the Senate, said lawmakers need more time to address incompetency in New Mexico’s criminal statutes. Many consider criminal competency a major loophole in the criminal justice system allowing for the release of criminals without standing trial. Lawmakers discussed an “off-ramp” to the governor’s proposal of requiring the temporary detention of criminal defendants who are deemed incompetent in certain felony cases, which a working group is calling “outpatient competency restoration.”
Senate President Pro Temp Mimi Stewart, D-Albuquerque, had this scathing assessment of the idea of expanding diversion programs:
“We’re all struggling to understand this and come up with solutions. … What does an outpatient competency restoration look like, and are they really doing this in other states? … It sounds good, but I can’t imagine what it looks like. … We don’t have a good behavioral health system already. … We don’t have enough assisted outpatient treatment, so instead we’re going to focus on an outpatient competency restoration? … It just sort of screams immediately to me that these are people who need treatment. They need treatment, they need housing, they need to pull themselves out of poverty … It just seems backwards and crazy making to think that that’s what we’re going to focus on.”
Clovis Republican State Representative Andrea Reeb, a former prosecutor, expressed concern about dangerous criminal defendants who are determined to be incompetent to stand trial. Under the current system, when a defendant is found by a court evaluator to not be competent, there are essentially two options for prosecutors: dismiss the charges or seek to have the defendant sent to the state Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas.
Karl Swanson, the Deputy District Attorney for the Bernalillo County District Attorney’s Office told the committee that criminal defendants are determined to be incompetent in about 5% of the total number of felony cases. He said competency cases can sometimes take years to play out, frustrating some who are victims and frustrating even parents who call the police when one of their children is experiencing a mental health episode. Swanson said this:
“All they want is treatment for this individual.”
Lawmakers did not vote during Tuesday’s meeting of the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee on whether to endorse the competency legislation proposed by Justice Zamora. They are expected to further study the proposal during meetings over the next several months.
Links to quoted and relied upon news sources are here:
REVISITING THE GOVERNOR’S SPECIAL SESSION MEAUSRES ON PUBLIC SAFETY
There were 5 measures Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham asked the legislature to enact during the Special Session. All 5 of the measures were not given a hearing and all 5 failed. Those measures can be summarized as follows:
The first measure would have made changes to the state’s criminal competency law. This bill involved involuntary civil commitment for criminal 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 have been required to order district attorneys to consider filing “involuntary commitment” proceedings and giving judges the ability to detain a defendant for up to seven days for the petition to be initiated and then mandate long term mental health care. The intent was to prevent mentally incapacitated individuals from harming themselves or the public and simply being released.
Supporters say there are far too many suspects who are arrested, deemed incompetent to stand trial, and then simply 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 and who never go on trial for criminal charges. The legislation was 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 have broadened 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 9 years for the offense. Current law provides for a sentence of “up to three years for an offender.” Serious violent felons in possession of a firearm would face a mandatory 12 years in prison, an increase from the current nine-year term. The New Mexico legislature has already increased criminal penalties 6 times since Governor Lujan Grisham has taken office. It is highly uncertain what impact the legislation would really have, if any, when it comes to reducing violent crime.
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. Albuquerque already has such an ordinance and the first version of it was declared unconstitutional after the ACLU challenged it. It is more likely than not the State’s version would also be challenge as unconstitutional. The offense is classified as a nonviolent misdemeanor and the Albuquerque Police Department is under a federal court approved settlement agreement in a decades long civil rights case involving jail overcrowding where APD has agreed not to make arrests for such misdemeanors in order to prevent jail overcrowding.
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. It is unclear what impact, if any, this legislation would have on reducing crime. It’s a measure that could just as easily be accomplished by executive orders and memorandums of understanding between law enforcement agencies.
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 the 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 was 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 of the Governors measures. The analysis was not completed and was unavailable 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 that fueled 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:
“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”.
HOUSE SPEAKER PUBLICLY CHASTISES GOVERNOR AND ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL
House Speaker Javier Martínez is not a member of the Courts, Corrections & Justice Committee. Notwithstanding, he has appointed many to the committee and monitors the committee deliberations.
On August 13, Speaker Martinez made a rare appearance before the committee and summed up Democrats reasons for rejecting all of the Governor’s proposed public safety measures during the July Special Session called by the Governor. While he was at it, he blasted both Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the Albuquerque Journal.
Speaker Martinez told the committee this:
“This is the first opportunity I get to address some of the misconceptions and misinformation that took place post-special session. … These are complicated issues and not only are we trying our best, we are doing a damn good job of addressing these issues.”
Speaker Martínez was clearly offended or at least angered by the Albuquerque Journal’s July 21 editorial entitled “NM Dems appear to care more about criminals than their victims” to the point that the Speaker read excerpts of the Journal editorial to the Courts, Corrections & Justice Committee. You can read the entire Albuquerque Journal unedited editorial here:
Speaker Martinez told the committee this:
“[The Journal Editorial] goes on to say ‘How hard is it to require court-ordered behavioral health treatment for repeat offenders accused of a serious violent offense? … Clearly it is very difficult! This is the kind of process, madame chair, that quite frankly should have been invested in, time-wise, by the executive, and it just was not. This is the kind of process that it takes to really get to a point where you can have a substantive proposal that we can all debate, and that we can all amend, and that we can all work collaboratively on to get across the finish line. This is how much work it takes, and this is just one group. There have been several processes playing out throughout the state, through a number of different agencies, working their way through whatever process gets set forth.
“It goes on to say, back to the [Journal] editorial, ‘How hard is it to pass a law prohibiting loitering on a median no wider than 36 inches?’ … Very hard! I was in Silver City this weekend and I saw a group of kids from Silver High fund-raising, and I looked at the median … and that’s probably about 18 inches. That would have been made illegal [by one of the governor’s proposals] and I’m wondering would local police departments have been enforcing that? I seriously doubt it, because as they always tell me, they have bigger fish to fry.”
Speaker Martínez [also] directed his jeremiad at former Republican governor Susana Martinez, who has been out of office for six years.
“We had a governor in 2014 that dissolved what little behavioral system we had he said. And yes, it’s been 10 years, and yes it’s been a struggle to rebuild that system, a real struggle.”
Speaker Martínez turned his ire directly at Governor Lujan Grisham and said this:
“Had we rubber-stamped those proposals during the special, first of all, I guarantee you there would be lawsuits left and right, so these things wouldn’t have actually been implemented for a while. … And even if they were implemented, the unintended consequences of depriving someone of their constitutional liberties, simply because a member of government drove past an intersection and saw somebody smoking fentanyl and their sensibilities were so impacted that they cast such a wide net is, is, would be a tragedy.”
Speaker Martínez announced he was canceling his Albuquerque Journal subscription.
ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL RESPONDS
On Sunday, August 18, not to allow House Speaker Javier Martínez remarks to go unchallenged, the Albuquerque Journal did a follow up editorial that said in pertinent part:
“Excuses, excuses, excuses. If excuses for inaction on crime are good campaign issues, Democratic candidates for the Statehouse are poised for another landslide victory in November.
The excuses for not taking action during July’s special legislative session on any of Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s public safety proposals were flying like Frisbees at last week’s meetings of the Courts, Corrections & Justice Committee — an interim bicameral committee of 32 state lawmakers that meets between legislative sessions.
Lawmakers [said they] need more time, more research into the unintended consequences of crime proposals, more expert testimony, more discussion, more doughnuts and coffee from the nearby table that sustained them throughout the day-long hearings Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, and for which they automatically receive a daily per diem of $231, plus mileage.
…
Comparing a group of students raising money in the median in Silver City for an hour or two on a weekend to the daily sight of people standing in the medians of Albuquerque shows how much the speaker and other Democratic leaders are flailing in the wake of the failed special session.
…
… House and Senate Democrats did not give any of the governor’s proposed bills a single committee hearing during the special session. … What is factual is that 3,217 defendants charged with 16,045 crimes since 2017 have had their cases dismissed after being found incompetent to stand trial. What is not complicated is that U.S. News & World Report ranks New Mexico the most dangerous state in America based on violent and property crime rates.
Listening to state lawmakers talk about crime can be dismaying. Progressive Democrats have become as soft on crime as the jelly-filled doughnuts that sustain them throughout their day-long jeremiad lamentations about why they can’t really do anything about crime.
Fortunately, there’s an election on the horizon and all 112 legislative seats are up for grabs, even in Albuquerque’s House District 11, where Speaker Martínez is being challenged by Republican Bart Kinney.
Voters have a clear choice in November: More excuses and the status quo with the defund-the-police special interest groups running the state, or fundamental change on public safety.
We’re rooting for fundamental change.”
The link to the full unedited editorial is here:
EDITORIAL HEADLINE: If excuses solved crime, Albuquerque would be safest city in America
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS
New Mexico Speaker of the House Javier Martinez has emerged as one of the most effective leaders in recent memory. Speaker Martinez is more than capable of dealing with complex and divisive issues. The best example of this was his work on the legalization of marijuana. Rather than publicly taking issue with the Governor and the Albuquerque Journal, Speaker Martinez should buckle down and huddle with the Senate Leadership of Senators Peter Wirth and Joe Cervantes and address the festering issue of mental health competency and sponsor legislation for the 2025 session.
The blunt truth is that way too many excuses are being given by both the Governor as well as the legislature for their failure to address the festering criminal competency problem. It’s not just an Albuquerque problem as legislators are now fond of saying. More than enough time has elapsed to come up with viable solutions and compromise legislation, but the legislature and the stakeholders have failed to do so wanting to maintain the status quo and simply do nothing.
It was on April 17 that Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham announced she was calling state legislators into a Special Session on July 18 to focus on addressing public safety proposals. During the 3 months before the session, the Court, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee conducted a number of extensive day long hearings on the legislation with the Governor’s Office making presentations and stake holders offering research and analysis. At one point the Governor actually withdrew legislation and offered substitute legislation.
Members of the Court, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee made it clear repeatedly that the changes to the mental health commitment laws were way too complicated for a Special Session and there was a need for more time and research on the proposals. The Governor rejected the arguments made and refused to listen and pushed forward.
Some of the presentations made by the Governor’s representatives, including the Governor’s general legal counsel, were woefully inadequate reflecting a misunderstanding of the civil judicial mental health commitment process and the resources that will be needed for the courts to carry out changes to the mental health commitment process. It not surprising that the legislature rejected all of the Governor’s proposals. What also is not surprising is the legislature itself has failed to come up with legislation itself to deal with the competency issue and instead gives excuses.
Justice Zamora’s working group of stakeholders have been working on solutions for at least 2 years. The legislature’s Courts, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee has been working on legislation since the Governor call for the Special Session on April 16, a full four months ago, and the committee will continue to work on legislation for another 5 months until January 16 when the regular 2025 session begins. In other words, almost 3 years will have been spent on coming up with viable solutions by stakeholders and there still is nothing.
None of the legislation the Governor advocated for with respect to mental health commitment provided for funding for the courts and mental health facilities. The Court, Corrections and Justice Interim Committee has also failed to come up with consensus legislation and to provide funding for the courts and mental health facilities. The only thing the committee has come up with so far are excuses that “it’s too complicated”.
The Governor, her administration and the legislative leadership must accept full responsibility for a failure of leadership and a failure to reach a consensus on any legislation that could and should be enacted. The Governor and the Legislative leadership need to regroup, set aside their differences and stop making excuses and come up with a consensus on a viable public safety package to deal with mental health commitment hearings to enact during the 2025 legislative session.
CONCENTRATE ON WHAT REALLY MATTERS
Warehousing the mentally ill, drug addicted or the unhoused who are mentally ill or drug addicted in jails for crimes committed is not the answer and does not address treatment. The court’s must be looked to as part of the solution. Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and the legislature should strengthen and expand the state’s mental health commitment laws coupled with full funding for mental health facilities and the courts. The District Attorney’s Office and the Public Defender’s Office need to be made a part of the solution with the expansion of the state mental health commitment laws with mandatory filing of civil mental health commitments that go beyond the 3-day, 7-day and 30-day commitments that are already allowed by state law.
The 2025 legislature should enact the Governor’s proposal for the involuntary civil commitment of criminal defendants charged with a serious violent offense, a felony involving the use of a firearm, and those defendants who have also been found incompetent to stand trial two or more times in the prior 12 months. Judges should be required to order district attorneys to file “involuntary commitment” proceedings against criminal defendants who are found incompetent to stand trial and who would be released without further criminal prosecution for crimes committed.
The 2025 legislature should also enact the Governor’s proposed bill that will 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 should mandate District Attorneys to initiate involuntary civil commitments and allow judge to mandate out-patient treatment. It should 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 legislature during the 2025 regular session should seek to create a 14th Judicial District Court and specialty “Mental Health Treatment Court” functioning as outreach and treatment court for the drug addicted and the mentally ill in a mandatory hospital or counseling settings and not involving jail incarceration. The creation of a new 14th Judicial District Court designated as a Mental Health Court should have 3 separate regional divisions: one located in Albuquerque, one in Las Cruces and one in Las Vegas, New Mexico with the creation of at least 3 District Court Judge positions with 6-year terms.
The Assisted Outpatient Treatment program should be consolidated with the Mental Health Court so as to achieve one singular court with statewide jurisdiction. The Administrative Offices of the Courts must play a pivotal role in setting up the new court process, including locating the new Mental Health Treatment Court in existing court houses in all 3 locations.
There is a major need for the construction and staffing of a mental health facilities or hospitals to provide the services needed to the mentally ill or drug addicted. As it stands now, there exists less than adequate facilities where patients can be referred to for civil mental health commitments and treatment.
In other words, there is nowhere for people to go or be placed to get the mental health and drug treatment needed. There is glaring need for a behavioral health hospital and drug rehabilitation treatment facilities. The Bernalillo County Behavioral Health Center and the Las Vegas Mental Health hospital could be expanded to accommodate court referrals and a new behavioral health facility could be constructed in Las Cruces to handle mental health commitments and treatment.
New Mexico is currently experiencing historical surplus revenues and this past legislative session the legislature had an astonishing $3.6 Billion in surplus revenue. Now is the time to create a statewide Mental Health Court and dedicate funding for the construction of behavioral health hospital and drug rehabilitation treatment facilities the courts can rely upon for referrals. Creation of a new court system must include funding for District Attorneys and Public Defenders with dedicated personnel resources for the filing and defending of civil mental health commitments as prescribed by law.
A statewide mental health court with mandatory civil commitments will get treatment to those who need it the most, help get the unhoused off the streets and help families with loved ones who resist any mental health treatment.
The link to a related blog article is here: