Font ResizeSANTA FE - Justice is harder to achieve because New Mexico courts are understaffed and overworked, the state Supreme Court chief justice told legislators Tuesday.
In a conciliatory but downbeat speech, Chief Justice Charles Daniels said the bad economy and state-ordered cuts in the court system had left staffing at a point that could hurt taxpayers, as well as plaintiffs and defendants.
He said courts statewide are at 75 percent staffing capacity, or 30 judges below the number that are necessary.
Ten more judges are "critically needed," Daniels told both houses of the Legislature. But times are so tight that he asked lawmakers to fund only one more judgeship this year. It would go to the Taos, Raton and Clayton district, the most overworked judicial system in the state, he said.
Daniels also said some of the state's most effective courts, those that handle certain addicts and alcoholics, would be endangered if budget cutbacks continued.
A defendant in drug court costs taxpayers $7,500 a year. Sending that same person to state prison would run $40,000 annually, Daniels said.
District Court Judge Mannie Arrieta of Las Cruces presides over a drug court in addition to his other duties. He said drug courts are saving lives and money.
"A typical person in drug court might have gone through a terrible divorce, turned to alcohol or marijuana, then to burglary," he said in a telephone interview from his chambers. "We see first-offenders, women, college students and
Arrieta said these courts are among the most efficient in New Mexico because people who complete the sentence - typically about a year - remain employed and generally stay out of trouble.
About 12 percent of those who have been through drug court become repeat offenders. Of those sent to jail, more than half commit more crimes upon their release, he said.
Arrieta presides over two sections of a drug court. Each has 25 to 30 defendants.
If there were no drug court, he said, these people would go to prison. With it, they pay taxes while completing their sentence.
Typically, these defendants do not make much, so they pay about $2,000 a year in state and federal taxes. But, Arrieta said, they are not in a cell, costing taxpayers money.
Not everybody makes it to drug court. Defendants are screened with care, he said. They must submit to drug tests, undergo counseling, follow court orders and a 12-step program to help them become clean and productive.
More than a quarter of the defendants in drug court are women. Many have children. If they straighten out their lives, they often keep their kids, instead of seeing them to shuttled to relatives or foster homes. This also helps the taxpayer, Arrieta said.
His drug court had a budget of $260,000 last year. Cuts sought by then-Gov. Bill Richardson and the Legislature reduced court spending by about 3 percent, but his drug court lost almost 20 percent of its funding, he said.
Daniels said the courts had cut deeply, letting vacancies go unfilled, shuttering underused courthouses and renegotiating leases on others. One maneuver he wants to avoid is furloughing court employees.
When the workers return from furloughs, filings have piled up, cases have backlogged and justice has slowed, Daniels said.
Santa Fe Bureau Chief Milan Simonich can be reached at msimonich@tnmnp.com or (505) 820-6898. His blog is at http://elpasotimes.typepad.com/newmexico.
