Courts committee identifies priorities

Among items interim legislative group will address in preparation for next session are overcrowding in jails, parolee reincarceration

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham cited a lack of participation from district attorneys as one of the reasons she vetoed a bill in 2019 that would have made massive changes to the way the state handles cases in which parolees are reincarcerated on technical violations, such as missing a meeting with a parole officer.

The Legislative Finance Committee has estimated such inmates cost the state tens of millions of dollars per year.

Lujan Grisham also vetoed probation and parole reforms this year.

Still, the issue has not gone away. Several lawmakers on the interim Legislative Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee said at a meeting Monday they’d like to tackle it again in preparation for next year’s legislative session.

Other topics committee members plan to take up before the next session:

◆ New Mexico’s quasi-electoral system for selecting judges.

◆ Methadone clinics in rural areas.

◆ Jail overcrowding.

◆ Deaths of children in the custody of the state Children, Youth and Families Department.

◆ Intergovernmental policing agreements with tribes.

◆ Gun safety in the context of what has and hasn’t worked in other places.

State Sen. Bill O’Neill, D-Albuquerque, said probation and parole reform is important, in part because a substantial number of state prisoners — about 20% — are people with technical parole violations.

Noting the governor’s vetoes, O’Neill said the next attempt to address the problem must include more input from district attorneys.

“It’s frustrating to me because throughout this process we were trying to get the DAs involved in our presentations, and they never really responded, and then at the end they said they weren’t involved,” said O’Neill, who co-sponsored one of the vetoed bills. “So I don’t even want to waste time with this whole bill unless the DAs are actually represented.”

Sen. Antonio “Moe” Maestas, D-Albuquerque, told the committee chairman, Democratic

Sen. Joe Cervantes, D-Las Cruces, he also would like the commission to reexamine the issue.

“I think it would be good to do like a probation reform ‘light’ that the Governor’s Office is comfortable with,” Maestas said. “At the very least, codify the definition of ‘technical violations’ and ‘standard violation.’ I mean, that would seem trivial to most, but we’ve just got to move forward on that issue.”

Sen. Daniel Ivey-Soto, D-Albuquerque, said one of his top priorities for the interim committee is to look at data sharing and integration among judicial partners. He noted the prison system, prosecutors and the courts seem to operate in “silos,” using systems that don’t communicate with one another.

Monday’s meeting included a brief discussion on ethics in the New Mexico Judiciary. State Supreme Court Justice David Thomson briefed the committee on regulations in place to govern judicial behavior — including the Judicial Code of Conduct and financial disclosure requirements — and noted some conduct rules even apply to the spouses of judges.

Cervantes said two of his law partners are from Texas, where, he said “it’s a free for all.”

“There are no spending limits,” he said “... and as you might well imagine, there’s a great deal of money exchanged and raised to elect judges in Texas. And so we should be proud of what we do have here in terms of our ethical standards.”

Cervantes said he thinks New Mexico’s landscape is far different.

“We have some very strict ethical rules in here in New Mexico, and I think they are well enforced,” he said.

“I don’t know anybody who is getting a yacht, cruises and homes bought for their family members and paying their kids’ tuition,” he said. “I mean, I think in New Mexico we would find that abhorrent behavior and I think you’ve heard today we have a lot of people looking at conduct to make sure something like that could never happen here.”