The top prosecutor in Southern New Mexico’s largest city wants lawmakers to help him eliminate a special rule requiring criminal cases in his jurisdiction to be resolved more quickly.
Third Judicial District Attorney Fernando Macias on Monday presented data to lawmakers at a meeting in Las Cruces showing high rates of judges in his area dismissing cases because his office missed the strict deadlines under a two-year-old special rule imposed by the New Mexico Supreme Court. Macias asked lawmakers to intervene.
According to Macias’ presentation to the Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee, trial court judges in his area have dismissed more than 700 cases due to missed deadlines under the high court’s “case management order” since it went into effect in July 2023.
“Under this order, cases get dismissed more frequently than what they should,” Macias told the committee. He said there should be a “review” of the case management order in his area “to rethink what it is that we’re trying to accomplish.”
Macias said the case management order is strict, has very little flexibility and prosecutors must meet an “exceedingly high bar” to deviate from it.
Macias joins other local prosecutors who told the committee this summer they want the orders either changed or lifted entirely. The most recent case management order, affecting the First Judicial District in Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Rio Arriba counties, will go into effect in January.
A spokesperson for the Administrative Office of the Courts, the state agency that runs the court system, was not available for comment on Monday.
The Law Offices of the Public Defender supports case management orders because without them, cases can languish for as long as a year, Chief Public Defender Bennet Baur told the committee.
“Lawyers are human beings, and human beings tend to put things off,” Baur said. “Case management orders don’t increase the number of cases, it just makes them move more expeditiously.”
He said it can be difficult for both prosecutors and public defenders to transition when a case management order first comes to an area, but once they do, “it’s swifter justice” for defendants and victims.
Committee Chair Sen. Joseph Cervantes (D-Las Cruces) said the Supreme Court imposes case management orders in some areas “because district attorneys are doing a poor job.”
“Sometimes these case management orders have been put in place because of some pretty strong disagreement between the judiciary and the prosecutors in certain districts, including this district in the past, and we should at least acknowledge that,” Cervantes said.
Rep. Dayan Hochman-Vigil (D-Albuquerque) said every judicial district court has the discretion whether to adopt a case management order, and asked Macias what he wants lawmakers to do. He responded by saying that they could pass a memorial or a resolution asking courts to reconsider case management orders.
“Certainly the Legislature has that prerogative to encourage the study or reassessment,” he said.
