Public safety, competency bill a primary focus
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham stuck to an assertion she made April 17 — to call for a special legislative session to mull over public safety shortcomings and possibly pass bills that cover a range of issues from the competency of courtroom defendants to updates to the Racketeering act.
The special session kicked off July 18, with no clear ending in sight as of press time.
A sticking point for Lujan Grisham was the failure of Senate Bill 16 to make it to her desk during the 2024 regular session.
SB 16 went to the Senate Committees Committee, where they made some revisions. It was then sent to the Senate Health and Public Affairs Committee. That committee marked the bill as “Do Not Pass,” and it died that day.
The bill stated that when a defendant, aka the person who is charged with a crime, has their competency questioned by a judge, a competency test must be ordered. Or, if both parties agree, the defendant can be ordered to a treatment program. SB 16 also stated that competency restoration programs would require the state to pay for mental health examinations of defendants.
Lujan Grisham posted a statement on her website about the bill, explaining why she finds it appropriate.
“Under current laws, individuals found not competent largely have charges against them dismissed and are simply given information about services,” she stated. “This approach is not effective, especially for those in crisis who need additional assistance in accepting treatment.”
THE ISSUES WITH ‘COMPETENCY’
In a legal setting, competency is defined as a person’s ability to understand the nature of the charges and proceedings brought against them when they are charged/arrested for a crime.
One of the main talking points slated for the session is how the state defines competency. This is where the term “competency” can take on broad interpretations, such as correlating it directly with mental health issues .
And New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender Social Worker Unit Director K.C. Quirk wants the public to know how complex the issue of a defendant’s competency can be in the courtroom setting.
“The general public doesn’t spend their lives in mental health work. They hear the term competence, and they think mental health, when really the distinction for us is that competence is really about your ability to participate in court,” Quirk said. “Whether or not you can do that is not so much a matter of mental health as it is capacity, and your ability to function may or may not have anything to do with a mental health issue.”
Meanwhile, in Rep. Patty Lundstrom eyes, the wheels of justice move fast and don’t allow for a defendant’s competency to be measured. She worries about the funding and whether Gallup can support such a measure.
“There are definitions in state law now that dictate competency, and apparently what has happened is that if a judge decides that a person is not able to stand trial due to incompetence, they just go ahead and push the case out and it’s done,” Lundstrom said. “The problem with that of course is that there’s a big revolving door then with the same person coming through the system, and each time they come in front of a judge they’re deemed incompetent.”
McKinley County Sheriff James Maiorano III shared how a judge labeling a defendant incompetent can affect his line of work.
“Right now, Gallup Police Department has a few more cases than I do, but we’re both dealing with individuals who have 15 or 20 pending cases or cases where they’ve been declared incompetent to stand trial,” Maiorano said. “Then we can’t get restitution for victims, we can’t get prosecution, and the person’s not spending any time in jail. Therefore, that’s leading to repeat offenses for these individuals.”
Maiorano said he sees the possible changes as something that could relieve law enforcement when it comes to those repeat offenders.
A LANGUAGE BARRIER
Another problem that can affect a person’s ability to understand court proceedings comes into play when there’s a language barrier.
Lundstrom said the language in courts can be challenging to understand at times, even for a native English speaker, let alone someone who doesn’t speak the language.
“From my point of view, I don’t want to see people classified as incompetent when in fact they’re really not,” Lundstrom said. “It could be something as simple as a language issue. There’s a lot of time I sit in on hearings when these attorneys are going back and forth and I’m like ‘I don’t understand what you’re talking about.’ And I clearly don’t consider myself to be incompetent.”
In all, Lundstrom said competency should be more about whether someone knows the difference between right and wrong.
“Your John Q. Public Citizen knows the difference between right and wrong, but at what point do they get to stand up in front of a judge and say, ‘You know, I just don’t understand this?’” Lundstrom said.
NECESSARY SUPPORT SYSTEMS
When providing the proper care after someone is found incompetent, Lundstrom also worries that the small community of Gallup won’t be able to fulfill those needs.
“I really do believe that in Gallup we don’t have enough of what I call behavioral health support,” she said.
Lundstrom reflected on another time when incompetency was discussed at the state level, and the idea of putting the responsibility of labeling someone as incompetent or competent on local law enforcement was addressed.
“One time they said it’s going to be up to the police officers to determine if someone’s incompetent or not, and I was just swallowing hard thinking ‘Are you kidding me?’ What police officer is going to say ‘OK, this guy is obviously a schizophrenic, I’m going to take him here and let him be triaged?” Lundstrom said. “That’s not what they’re going to do, they’re going to take him to jail because that’s what they know, and they don’t have any other place to take them. And in a place like Gallup, where would we take them?”
Lundstrom said she hopes that if the bill surrounding competency is approved during the session, some time will be taken before it’s passed into law.
“I hope that these bills don’t go into effect immediately so that they can be looked at again in a 60-day session,” she said. “My fear is that the governor wants them approved now, and then she’ll sign them now, and then they’ll go into effect now, and is our system ready to start implementing them immediately?”
Lundstrom doesn’t think the Gallup area is ready for those changes.
“If we’re going to pass these kinds of laws, we need to make sure we have the support systems locally, and that’s going to mean there needs to be more money put into these support systems,” she said.
