DA’s policy deserves scrutiny and partners’ input

There’s plenty of disconcerting — if not outright frightening — information in reporter Phaedra Haywood’s illuminating story about District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies’ new policy regarding DWI dismissals and refilings (“DA under fire over policy on dropping DWI cases,” Nov. 21).

But of all the many things to give us pause, perhaps the biggest was the inability of the district attorney, Santa Fe County’s magistrate judges and law enforcement agencies to even meet to discuss the policy.

The public deserves better: a criminal justice system that operates in concert — not as independent players who sometimes act as rivals.

First, the basics: Concerned about her office’s DWI conviction rate, Carmack-Altwies, even before taking office Jan. 1, devised a policy that basically creates a new way of prosecuting the crime. Why? The District Attorney’s Office was losing an estimated 40 percent of its DWI cases.

“The cops aren’t happy and the judges aren’t happy,” Carmack-Altwies said of the new method of operation, “but that’s because it’s new and people don’t like new stuff.”

Frustrated by an inability to obtain evidence from law enforcement in the 45-day discovery period prosecutors have before they must turn over the facts to defense counsel, she’s ordered her prosecutors to drop hundreds of DWI cases, thus allowing officers and prosecutors more time to get what they need. Once that’s accomplished, she says prosecutors can refile the cases in both district and magistrate courts — and presumably, go to trial with enough ammunition to win a conviction.

But it’s obvious the district’s magistrate judges and some others in the system don’t care for the practice. There are legitimate worries it puts many cases and hard work at risk. Worse, critics say, not all the cases are refiled, which means some who’ve been accused of DWI — and could easily reoffend — will be back behind the wheel.

“My concern is that rather than solve the issue of the low conviction rate, we have exacerbated the problem,” Santa Fe Community Services Department Director Rachel O’Connor told The New Mexican’s Haywood. “My second concern is that both the community and the offenders don’t get the benefit of swift and sure consequences to their behavior, and it reinforces the notion that you can get away with drunk driving in Santa Fe County.”

Clearly, no one wants that. But if the goal of the legal system — cops, prosecutors, judges, even defense attorneys — is to create a just and fair way to deal with crime, then it’s the responsibility of every piece of the system to make that happen. That didn’t happen here. Carmack-Altwies said she tried to discuss the issue with magistrate Judges David Segura and John Rysanek, who have the authority to set discovery deadlines. When it was suggested police and public defenders would be well-served to be in the meeting (eureka!), the judges canceled the meeting.

Would a discussion have automatically created a better system — one with buy-in and refinements from all parties? Perhaps not. But it would have offered the public the sense this problem wasn’t merely about turf or statistics or influence or ego.

Carmack-Altwies said she believes the policy, given time, will show results. But early numbers are worthy of concern. Segura, a former cop, provided a spreadsheet that showed only 112 of the 553 DWI cases dismissed by the District Attorney’s Office since August 2020 had been refiled — though Carmack-Altwies cautioned the policy did not fully go into effect until November 2020. Her numbers: the District Attorney’s Office has dismissed about 410 cases and has so far refiled 105, with the others still being screened for viability.

Statistics, however, are mere numerals. What’s at stake here are lives. DWI remains a chronic scourge in Northern New Mexico. It kills and injures people. It ruins families. It stains all of us. And in some cases, the crime is committed by those who have offended in the past and may slip through the cracks in the policy.

Carmack-Altwies’ idea deserves a fair tryout period. But it also requires scrutiny — and well-intentioned, reasonable input. The result likely won’t be perfect, but it would end the finger-pointing that almost certainly will come when another life is lost to DWI on the streets and roads of Santa Fe County.