Legislators promise bills to toughen crime laws

Democrats in the New Mexico House of Representatives announced months ago they planned to get tough on crime.

With start of the 2022 legislative session just weeks away, they now say they are ready to back up the boast with bills.

Republicans, who long have been calling for more stringent measures to boost crime-fighting efforts in a state with rising gun violence and increasing rates of other types of crime, are likely to join Democrats in what is expected to be a House-driven effort to toughen laws.

“I think the governor will be focusing on an all-hands-on-deck fighting crime package,” said Rep. Pamelya Herndon, D-Albuquerque, who is working on a bill addressing safe gun storage. It would impose penalties on parents or other adults if a child gets a hold of their gun and uses the weapon to make a threat or commit violence.

Crime has become one of the top issues in New Mexico, Herndon said. When walking in her own neighborhood, she added, she frequently encounters a constituent with a concern: “My car was broken into. What can we do about that?”

Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque, a retired police officer, has unsuccessfully pushed for years to toughen certain crime laws, including an effort to eliminate New Mexico’s statute of limitations on a charge of second-degree murder, now set at six years.

The public is crying out, “Hey, you’ve got to do something,” he said.

“Unfortunately, politicians have to respond to what constituents are saying,” Rehm said. “I say ‘unfortunately’ because I think it’s obvious we should have done something sooner. It’s now a crisis, and we have to fix it.”

He and Rep. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, plan to work together in the upcoming session on another proposal that would increase the statute of limitations in second-degree murder cases, he added.

Sen. Craig Brandt, R-Rio Rancho, said GOP senators likely will wait until they see what Democrats are proposing before filing any crime-related legislation.

Republicans are working on crafting bills to stem crime “while at the same time keeping peoples’ constitutional rights, which is important,” he said.

Brandt said thinks Democrats might be more concerned about “election season” results than actually fighting crime in New Mexico.

Noting many Democrats gave former Republican Gov. Susana Martinez and GOP lawmakers grief for being “tough on crime,” he said the fact that Democrats are “bringing all these crime bills kind of says we were right.”

Among the bills being considered by House Democrats: proposals to increase retention pay for police officers, impose more severe penalties for shoplifters and car thieves, and give judges more leeway to keep defendants jailed until trial if they pose a violent threat to the public.

Albuquerque lawmakers, in particular, have been under pressure to act as the city wrangles with one of the nation’s highest rates of violent crime. In 2021, Albuquerque saw homicides skyrocket; it matched its record of 81 slayings, set in 2019, by August and ended the year with at least 116, the Albuquerque Journal reported last week.

The shooting of four city police officers during a robbery and the fatal shooting of a student at a downtown middle school also led to calls from the public for officials to find a way to stop the violence.

The city and county of Santa Fe also saw violence spike, with 11 homicides in 2021 — not including the October shooting death of a renowned cinematographer on a movie set — as well as six shootings by police officers, four of them fatal.

In November, a state Legislative Finance Committee report said New Mexico’s violent crime rate had increased 30 percent between 2014 and 2020. The report also said the violent crime clearance rate — the rate at which such crimes are closed, usually through arrest — fell 25 percent in that same time period.

The committee also reported the number of law enforcement officers in the state remained stagnant during much of that time.

New Mexico State Police has a vacancy rate of about 11 percent, according to Officer Dusty Francisco, a spokesman for the agency. Santa Fe police interim Chief Paul Joye cited a vacancy rate of just over 20 percent in his department, with the investigations unit down by about a third of its officers.

Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham is calling for a $100 million investment to hire more police officers around the state. Her spokesman, Tripp Stelnicki, wrote in an email Wednesday that it likely wouldn’t involve its own legislation but instead would be an item included in her state budget proposal for fiscal year 2023.

Rep. Meredith Dixon, D-Albuquerque, said she is drafting a bill to provide 5 percent raises for officers in an effort to retain them. “We can’t continue to hire and recruit more officers without working to retain them,” she said, adding her bill also will call for an analysis of the incentive’s effectiveness.

Homicides and a lack of police presence are not the only law enforcement issues plaguing New Mexico. The state — especially Albuquerque — often falls among the top 10 states in the nation for its rate of auto thefts. Dixon and Rehm are both working on legislation to create tougher penalties for so-called chop shops, illegal operations that strip stolen vehicles for parts.

Chop shop operators are now prosecuted under state racketeering laws, which, Dixon said, are difficult to prosecute. Her bill proposes a third-degree felony charge against operators. She said the change would make it easier for law enforcement to pursue cases.

Another proposal favored by Lujan Grisham, one that might court controversy, is a bill to amend the state’s pretrial detention law. It would require a defendant accused of a violent crime to prove they have a right to be released from jail before their trial — rather than putting the onus on prosecutors to provide evidence the defendant poses too great a risk to the community to be released.

The debate over imposing stricter guidelines for pretrial release of such defendants, who are presumed innocent until they are found guilty at trial, has been a contentious one. Critics say the guidelines would disproportionately affect minorities, and they argue defendants could end up staying behind bars for months awaiting a trial date — time they cannot gain back if they are acquitted.