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This is Fronteras, a changing America.

I'm KC Counts.

Thank you for joining us.

The New Mexico legislature convenes Tuesday.

Algernon DAmmassa joins us to preview the upcoming 30 day session, which is primarily focused on budget.

KRWG Multimedia Journalist, Noah Raess, covers one issue.

State lawmakers are wrangling with, competency.

He'll speak with Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story and get perspective from those working to get individuals into treatment programs to address addiction and mental health issues.

First, we welcome back to KRWG TV, Algernon, thank you for joining us.

Hi KC.

Hi.

How are you?

I'm wonderful.

How are you doing?

How long have you been covering the New Mexico State Legislature?

Well, that's kind of off and on.

My reporting is primarily been down here in the Las Cruces area, and, on and off in Deming, but, I've been sent up there to cover issues specific to our part of the state.

So I've been there during 60 days sessions, I've been there during 30 day sessions, which are, which are really breakneck.

Yeah So that's the one that's coming up, is the 30 day session.

And let's talk about why we have a 30 day session or a 60 day session.

Right.

So we alternate.

So, in even numbered years, we have a 30 day session, an odd number of years, we have a 60-day session because New Mexico has this very unusual, singular, part time ,volunteer legislature.

We don't have a full time legislature.

And so everyone knows it's kind of unique in the nation, right?

Yes.

It is.

It's it's I think it might be the last one left actually.

Some state legislatures don't get much.

But New Mexico is the only truly unpaid.

Right.

And there's a debate ongoing about paying lawmakers, having longer sessions, having full time year round sessions.

and and that remains to be resolved and so we still have this, old frontier system of 60-day and 30-day sessions, because the original idea was these are citizen lawmakers, who leave the fields figuratively and literally, and go up to Santa Fe to pass law and then come home.

And so 30-day sessions, are supposed to be focused primarily on budget and financial matters, but can also include other things subject to the governor's call, which is her legislative agenda.

And lawmakers can make requests.

You know, there's a there's a there's discussion back and forth about that.

And so we'll get to some of those priorities in just a moment.

But let's first talk about the budget in terms of what we can expect.

Expanding, contracting.

It looks like that's where we're headed.

Yes.

I mean we're not in a bust cycle, but New Mexico is heavily dependent on the oil and gas industry for the revenue it uses to pay for its budget and pay for all these programs.

Interestingly, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham first took office in 2019, in the midst of a boom.

We've had robust oil prices, lots of production in the state, has had lots of money and that has led to initiatives like tuition free college and universal child daycare and all sorts of initiatives that we could afford because there was plenty of money coming in.

We recently have reporting that the projected revenue is less than was than what was expected even as recently as August.

And so, I mean, it's not a doomsday scenario because there is still revenue coming in and lawmakers expect to have about $105 million in what's called new money.

And that's the difference between the projected revenue and what we're currently spending.

And so they will have some money to work with, but it will be considerably less than what they had even during the last, legislative session to work with.

And certainly they are accustomed to the industry's ups and downs as they move forward.

Do we expect that some of the asks that they're going to be confronted with for the budget are going to be unmanageable, and they're getting more of those than ever before?

Yeah.

I mean, it might be a little tighter this year.

I mean, the Legislative Finance Committee which has been meeting in between sessions, has been asking a lot of questions of department heads who have been coming saying that they plan to ask for more money.

Certainly the universal child care, which is a first in the nation, program that the state opened up in November in terms of having that state subsidized child care for everybody, regardless of income.

the question is how to pay for it, especially when the revenue that we're looking to is less robust and it's a little bit more of a sober budget year that we're looking at.

Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham has been has been touting that very proud of it, obviously.

And was the first of her priorities that I wanted to touch on in our conversation because not only is it a question of paying for child care, but it's also a question of access to child care.

Having enough practitioners and places for kids to stay during the day.

What's the landscape there look like?

I'm not sure if you've reported on that specifically, but we know that there's some concerns.

Yes.

And from reporting from my, you know, my colleagues at the Albuquerque Journal.

Right.

There's, there's there's hiring that has to happen, capacity.

So you have to have the hires in place, and you also have to have the actual spaces where the child care can happen in a regulated and safe environment.

And so we have to build all that.

And what the price tag on that, will be, is, moving up even as the projected revenue is moving down.

And so, there was already a kind of a difficult hearing before the legislative finance committee last week.

And, I think that those conversations are going to be difficult moving forward.

And again, in the context of a 30-day session where you might have hundreds of bills trying to make their way through two or more committees and try to get to the floor for a vote.

Some of these things that are going to require more extended debate and more analysis are going to have a harder time getting through.

And there's a lot of things that are going to require extended debate and analysis.

Let's move on to the next one of those, that is health care in New Mexico.

Certainly access to health care, a huge concern, becoming a bigger issue all the time.

And there are some things unique, you know, in New Mexico that lawmakers, have done or have not done to make the situation worse.

Right?

Yes.

And you also have the federal environment.

There were just, cuts to Medicaid and, New Mexicans are heavily reliant on Medicaid.

And so there was a special session, one of the special sessions that was called during 2025, addressed specifically that as well as some other things related to, federal cuts, because the current administration has pursued, let's describe it as a rigorous schedule of cuts, to all kinds of budget items, especially public broadcasting, food assistance, Medicaid and other matters that just involve public safety and health.

Do you think we're going to see any movement in terms of New Mexico policy on health care during this 30-day session?

We may, it's going to depend.

the legislature is still controlled on both sides by the Democratic Party and the governor is a Democrat.

And so sometimes that can mean that things will move much more quickly because there is, party unity between the governor and lawmakers and Republicans have a minority.

That said, on some things, the lawmakers in Santa Fe, in the Senate and the House are not always in step with Governor Lujan Grisham, who is in her, we should say, second and final term.

And she's going into her last session, as governor, this last 30-day session as governor.

And so, there's a little dissonance there.

So we're going to have to see how, what matters.

they fall in step with each other.

And certainly within the last year or so, there has been some dissonance between, the Democrats in the legislature and the governor, especially when it comes to the topic of public safety.

So let's talk a little bit about kind of that history and where we think we might see some action in this session.

That's right.

During the second term, the governor has taken a hard turn towards concerns about public safety.

across the spectrum of, I mean, from gun legislation to sentencing to behavioral health supports, because a lot of people who lack access to behavioral health services end up in the criminal justice system.

There seems to be a problem with juveniles and firearm, related crime.

And so the Republicans in the meanwhile, have their own task force, and they have come up with, a raft of proposals, a lot of that having to do with sentencing, some of it having to do with behavioral health supports, competency, taking another look at bail reform and maybe making it a little bit easier to hold people, ahead of their trials if they're accused of dangerous crimes.

And the governor is not even always in step with the legislative Democrats on terms of, what approach is best to take.

Right.

One thing I want to touch on before we run out of time is kind of the ceremony involved in this 30-day session, not only are there hundreds of bills, but there seem to be hundreds of social engagements along the way as well.

How much do you think that gets in the way of business?

Well, time, I mean, everything is about time.

And so, during this 30 days, the lawmakers are not going to get a lot of sleep.

when they're not on the floor, they're going to be in the hallways or, occasionally in their offices, occasionally in restaurants and other establishments.

And it's just pretty much going to be talking lobbyists are going to be trying to approach them, various community advocates, other lawmakers.

And KRWG public media We're going to be trying to catch them as we can.

Journalists as well.

It gets very crowded up there.

Algernon DAmmassa, southern New Mexico correspondent for the Albuquerque Journal.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Always a pleasure.

KRWG Multimedia journalist Noah Raess talked about the competency issue with Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story and some working to address the issue with a diversion program offering treatment.

A U.S.

attorney contacted me and committed to working together to try and hold this dangerous criminal accountable.

In mid-November, Las Cruces Police Chief Jeremy Story, alongside officials from the United States Attorney's Office in New Mexico, posted a video on social media Saying that a long time criminal was now in federal custody.

According to Chief Story, this individual has been arrested more than 70 times in three years and has broken hundreds of windows and has sent peopleto the hospital.

But Story said that the state laws surrounding a defendant's competency in a courtroom have often kept him out of jail, leaving him to turn to the federal justice system to put the man behind bars.

That was just a frustration that he can game the system because he will tell us one thing that he's not incompetent, but he can play the system and they dismiss all cases.

Story says that competency laws in the state have long been a headache and the difference in results between the state and federal courts speak for themselves.

In a meeting organized by the Republican Party, he told lawmakers that every person who has gone to the federal system has been found competent.

Competency has been a big issue in New Mexico, and the requirements should be the same for both in New Mexico and federal, the federal system.

But the results are very different.

People that have repeatedly been found incompetent through New Mexico system have been found competent the first time in the federal system when they are charged.

and that's happening with both juveniles and adults.

Laws surrounding competency in a courtroom are in place to protect the defendant's right to participate in their own trial.

In New Mexico, if a question of competency is raised, a medical professional will evaluate the defendant.

Their evaluation then goes to the judge, who then makes the final call.

If found incompetent, the process moves to see if the defendant is dangerous, a process that Story also says has its flaws.

When the district attorney goes to the dangerousness hearing, they have to jump through hoops and orchestrate this perfect argument.

And even then, sometimes they're not found dangerous.

If the defendant is then found not dangerous, the charges can be dropped.

However, some say that there are safeguards in place to make sure people do not take advantage of the system.

Stacey Boone, the senior statewide Behavioral Health Program Manager for the Administrative office of the courts, says that the professionals doing the evaluations are well trained.

They receive pretty comprehensive training around how to spot folks that might be what they call malingering in the clinical sense, where they're trying to sway those results or those evaluations.

In terms of safeguards.

You know, the court and the parties involved in the court can always request a second opinion.

Boone also says that judges have to work within the rules set by the state, and that a competency hearing involves everyone, including the prosecution.

The judges ultimately make the finding in the ruling on those cases, but it's very much guided by and dictated by the New Mexico law and how it currently exists.

However, there are more programs gaining traction around the state to address the common concerns.

Dona Ana County is home to the first competency diversion pilot program in the state.

This program helps those who face mental health challenges and are charged with misdemeanors get treatment.

If complete, their charges can be dropped.

James Ketcherside, Program Manager for the Competency Diversion Program, says that they meet people who are in jail to get mental health treatment, but it is voluntary.

We've helped guide several individuals, the ones who have been successful.

We've had yet to see maybe about one come back, so we're very proud of that.

Ketcherside says that they have helped over 200 people in this program, but not all finished the whole six months.

He says he hopes to see the program grow in the future.

Building that bridge between the courts and the community is essential.

It's for building it now, and it's just getting started.

And I really, really in the future, with the courts, this behavioral health program that we have, I essentially, see it going public to help the public eventualy.

For KRWG Public Media, Im Noah Raess.

And Noah Raess, joins us now in the studio to further explore this issue.

Noah, first, welcome back to KRWG Public Media.

Thanks KC.

It's great to be back.

And I'm joined today by New Mexico State Senator from district 35, Crystal Brantley.

Thank you for joining us today.

Thanks.

Glad to be here.

Just to start off, there's been a lot of discussion around the state's competency laws in recent years.

I was wondering, what are your thoughts on the competency laws in the state?

You know, I have the honor of serving as the ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee.

And last year, we saw a great bipartisan effort come together to address competency.

We know that since 2016, when we changed bail reform here by state constitution, that it provided much more discretion for are judges.

And unfortunately, we saw is this extreme, shift to really being kind of not holding these criminals accountable.

And so we know that for many cases, what was happening is these repeat offenders were being declared incompetent and in their cases, completely dismissed without any form of treatment being offered or consequences served.

And so last year, there was a collaborative, bipartisan effort to come together to reform just a very small piece of that competency error, so that when a judge does declare, a person incompetent, that there has to be reforms put in place so that they either get some sort of meaningful treatment, that there are consequences what we're trying to do is to, to really push back against that repeat recidivism rate that continues.

We continue to see the same criminals in and out of our jail systems.

Police have talked a lot about, the differences between, the competency in the state system, as well as the federal system, are there also differences between the two, but also between different states in the United States?

There are one of the most powerful facts that was brought to us during during the interim is that for every specifically youth offender in New Mexico that was declared incompetent to stand trial when it was brought to the federal courts, they were actually declared competent.

We're failing not just our our citizens and keeping our streets safe, but we're failing those youth offenders because we're not providing alternative treatments.

We're not intervening early enough when the federal system can come in and have meaningful consequences.

But our state court system is failing these.

We're not keeping anyone safer.

We're doing really a disservice to everyone.

Yeah.

And kind of going back to the competency laws in the state, earlier you mentioned, judges, but also state law.

Where do you think the hiccups in the system are?

Do you think it's the judges, the state law?

Kind of where's that at?

We think it's a combination of everything.

And while we did make some meaningful reforms to competency laws last year, it did not address juvenile offenders.

And so as we go into this 30-day budget session, there has been a lot of pressure on both sides of the aisle, to address this, this rising crime rate within our, our juvenile population.

And most importantly, as we hope to address the juvenile competency laws that remain broken, we know that these, these youth offenders are getting just more brazen out there.

They have learned to master, manipulate the system.

They know that if they're instantly declared incompetent, that their case is going to be immediately dismissed.

And that's what's happened, is we continue to see these repeat juvenile offenders, their crimes get more dangerous.

They are headed towards a career of crime, even as adults.

We saw that very recently, just here in Las Cruces with the Young park shooting there were so many times that we could have interfered before those, those those shooters, those young, murderers came and killed other children.

They were repeat offenders that had a violent criminal history.

We're trying to be able to get in, to hold them accountable much earlier, to put them on a different course.

And you mentioned, repeat offenders and I was wondering, do you think that these capacity laws are being overused and do you think they're being overused because of the system, or do you think they're being overused in the way, that it's like a symptom of a larger mental health crisis across the state?

While I do think that we have a mental health crisis on the rise, and we need to put more of our resources to addressing that all over that, that that exceeds just criminal competency.

Right?

Mental health is is is something that we need to focus on.

just, just, as a holistic approach, everything from our schools to our workforces, everything.

I do think that what's happening specifically with these youth offenders is they are learning how to manipulate a system.

They have recognized the loopholes of how to get their cases dismissed.

The Las Cruces Police Department shared with legislators audiotape, jailhouse calls, of these young offenders on their bragging about how they knew how to get themselves declared incompetent, bragging to their friends on the other end of the line that they would soon be released.

And sure enough, as soon as they hit the streets, they're committing more violent crimes and they're escalating.

It's putting, you know, citizens at risk, and it's not allowing us to come in and intervene early enough.

Yeah.

And one of the reasons that competency laws are in place is because people have a right to participate in their own trial and be cognizant of what's going on in their own trial.

I was wondering how would you let's just say you could, how would you strike a balance between, that and then also addressing some of the concerns that you brought up?

You know, I hope to do with our juvenile offenders what we we did last year with our adult offenders.

And that is when an individual is declared incompetent That may be the case, but their case should not be immediately dismissed.

It is our job then to provide services as, to keep the public safe and also to provide them meaningful resources and provide them with the resources out there that they need for their mental health so that they can become productive citizens.

If we recognize that there is a competency concern and that there are repeat offenses coming in, we owe even that offender.

We owe them an opportunity to provide them the resources, to better themselves and to create a safer community.

And we've talked a lot about the issues surrounding competency.

And I was wondering, what is your kind of perfect competency system?

What does that look like?

Is there a system in the United States that you know of that you can point to, or what?

does a good competency system look like?

You know, I think that's pretty difficult to say.

I do think that judges need to have some discretion.

I think that the, the, the violence and the serious nature of each individual cases does need to be considered.

So while I still think that judges need to have flexibility, I think it's important for lawmakers to come in and provide, minimum sentences as we come in to provide more resources for those that are declared incompetent.

I think that there are much more resources that need to be offered when a judge does, correctly, decide that an individual is incompetent is to provide the resources that are needed to keep the communities overall safer.

And we've got a legislative session that's coming up.

I wonder if you could kind of give us a preview of, you know, what might be discussed at the, legislative session around this issue?

You know, New Mexico's violent crime rate just continues to surge.

And So we're going into a budget session.

It's a 30-day session.

And in New Mexico, we know that our sessions alternate between a 60-day session that hears, policy and budget, and a 30-day session, which traditionally only hears a budget.

Although we can get messages from the governor, and that's called a call.

We have heard that the governor has priorities is prioritizing public safety.

As you may recall, she even called a special session of the legislator to specifically address public safety was four hours long because her own party, the majority Democrats, refused to hear any of the governor's bill.

I've been pretty hard on this, governor on a number of issues.

We don't agree on CYFD issues.

There are some issues surrounding education that we cannot find common ground on.

But I will say this in her defense.

When it comes to public safety, we cannot put the blame on the executive because it is the legislative body that is not even getting these crime bills to her desk to consider.

I do expect that she's going to give some calls to some public safety bills.

I do hope that my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are willing to team up with Republicans and get those bills at the governor's request, on to her desk.

We owe it to New Mexicans to make New Mexico safe again.

We are seeing a crime crisis.

Our law enforcement agencies have spent all interim asking and begging the legislative body to take action.

The time to take action is this 30-day session.

And speaking of legislation, you have co-sponsored some bills in the past that kinda taking aim at competency.

Can you tell me about those bills?

What do they do and where do they end up?

You know, I'm new to Senate Judiciary, just last year, I was honored to be appointed as their ranking member.

I came over from Senate Finance.

I'm not a lawyer.

And in fact, there are no lawyers in the Republican caucus.

But I have really enjoyed my time on Senate Finance.

I work very well with Chairman Joseph Cervantes, and while we may disagree on some areas, when it came to competency, I was happy to team up with him.

Also the chair of the House Judiciary Committee, on that very specific bill.

I think it's important that we put party politics aside and when we can find real, meaningful bills that may actually offer solutions to keep New Mexico's streets safer, we came together on that.

I'm hoping we can do the same thing when it comes to juvenile competency laws, because, as you know, it did not address the juvenile criminal population.

And so this legislative session, I'm hoping to work with my colleagues on, addressing juvenile competency.

There's a number of juvenile, bills that we need to I think that changing the definition of serious youth offender to expand the number of crimes that will constitute that, I would like to see the age lowered from 15 down to 14.

I am optimistic that we can work across the aisle into try to to make some laws that would keep New Mexico Street safer, that would allow us to intervene and really course correct change, change the direction of these violent offenders lives.

In last session, there's also an addition where, they increase the assisted, outpatient treatments for people who are found incompetent in court.

I was wondering, are those resources available in New Mexico and at what level and what kinda needs to be done?

That is an excellent question.

It's actually one of my greatest criticism in my time as as a lawmaker.

What I've seen is that we allocate resources, usually funding towards, in this case, mental health.

But in New Mexico it seems like that we work in silos.

And so although the legislative body may make these appropriations, we often walk away and don't recognize that we have an access problem.

Our constituents on the ground don't know about the resources, and they're having difficulties accessing those resources.

Specifically, when it comes to mental health dollars, there's nothing I hate more than to appropriate come together, appropriate those dollars, and then see that they're not moving, that they're not being spent.

That's a great not just in mental health, but that's a great problem that we're having.

Everything from our capital outlay investments to what we're allocating to education all over the board is we have an access issue in New Mexico.

And just one final question.

in my reporting, I've come across the comptency diversion pilot program, here in Doña Ana County.

I was wondering, what do you hope to see the future of programs like that across the state?

I hope to see it expanded.

I think that we need to recognize that we're going to have to really invest a lot more resources.

And having these out outpatient and inpatient programs, we're going to have to put far more investments into having the the mental health care professionals out there.

there's so many investments that we can have, but we do want to see programs like that expanded throughout the state.

Awesome.

State Senator Crystal Brantley, thank you so much for joining us today.

Happy to be here.

Thank you.

And thank you for watching Fronteras, A Changing America, here on KRWG Public Media.

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