The Truth or Consequences city commission, city staff and owner of the local newspaper successfully abolished the city’s judicial branch—the municipal court.
The New Mexico Supreme Court handed down an order on April 28 that approved the city commission’s ordinance to dissolve the court, which was passed during the January 11 city commission meeting.
Since Municipal Court Judge Beatrice Sanders is an elected official, chosen by the people, the court will close when her term ends Dec. 31. The magistrate court will handle city-code cases in the future.
The Truth or Consequences City Commission initiated the elimination of the municipal court nearly two years ago during budget talks. City commissioners and City Manager Bruce Swingle agreed that dissolving the court would save the city money, as did city commissioners Amanda Forrister, then- sitting commissioner Frances Luna (Sentinel owner), Rolf Hechler, Shelly Harrelson and Merry Jo Fahl,
In subsequent discussions, Swingle and then-Chief of Police Victor Rodriguez added more fodder to the argument for dissolution of the court, claiming the municipal court docket moved too slowly. Swingle also said “it is not unusual” for municipalities to do away with their courts to save money, which was picked up and repeated by city commissioners without verification.
The ability for towns the size of T or C to do away with their municipal court is new. In 2019 the state legislature amended state law 35-14-1 on municipal courts. The prior law stated only municipalities with populations of 1,500 or less could do it, the new law changing that number to 10,000. Probably realizing that this law gave a lot of power to “governing boards,” the legislative branch, to do away with the judicial branch, the state legislature added that a seven-member ad-hoc board to oversee the process be formed.
The law states the oversight board is to consist of:
(1) the mayor;
(2) a member of the governing body;
(3) a municipal judge;
(4) the chief of police; and
(5) three members of the public, each selected by the mayor, the governing body and the municipal judge.
In the order given above, the committee members were Amanda Forrister, Rolf Hechler, Beatrice Sanders and Victor Rodriguez. Except for Sanders, they were on record as stating they wanted to do away with the court. Mayor Forrister selected City Manager Bruce Swingle to represent the public, who was also on record for wanting to do away with the court. The T or C city commission selected Frances Luna to represent the public, no longer a member of the city commission, but on record when she was commissioner for wanting to do away with the court. Judge Sanders chose a teacher, Clarene Rich, to represent the public, who submitted a written statement in support of retaining the court but did not attend meetings.
Needless to say the rigged oversight committee conducted no oversight. Sanders’s voice was shut out. Her written dissenting opinion was not included in the final report and her verbal dissent was also shut down by Luna during the public hearing held by the oversight committee last September.
I spoke for my allotted five minutes during that public hearing. Fact finding I requested was ignored. I was cut off before I could ask that Judge Sanders’s alternative sentencing programs, such as “teen court,” be given a social-program value and what it would cost to replace those programs, which included student attendance issues, which Harrelson has reported is a problem during recent city commission meetings.
I also asked that the committee assess if the people or city may bear greater costs in hiring attorneys or public defenders by moving cases to magistrate court and if the cost of housing prisoners would go up. I assumed Swingle and the city commissioners were correct, that dissolving municipal courts was becoming common and such information was attainable.
That is not the case. The social and financial costs are not knowable and T or C is only the second municipality to do away with its municipal court. According to the NM Supreme Court’s public information officer, Barry Massey, Elephant Butte is the only other municipality in the state to dissolve its municipal court since the 2019 law was passed.
The only figures considered by the city commission and city staff were budget figures. The municipal court’s budget had risen to about $250,000 during covid. Required court protocols were so extensive, Sanders explained, that a part-time hire was needed. The city commission cut the court’s budget to $195,000 this fiscal year, which ends June 30. Yearly fines brought the city about $20,000 in revenue; therefore the cost of the court to citizens was about $175,000 a year.
That seems little enough to pay for the judicial branch of the city government, a check and balance on the governing board’s enormous powers to fire executive-branch employees, including chiefs of police, police personnel and city managers at will. Unlike the county’s sheriff, the chief of police is not elected and therefore subject to pressure from city commissioners and the city manager.
Unlike some newspapers, the Sentinel does not act as a check and balance on government. Luna had Chief of Police Rodriguez write the crime reports for her paper. Besides her own conflict of interest while she served as a city commissioner and county commissioner over a 12-year period, Luna had her fellow city commissioner, Randall Aragon, report on city news on her radio station. Luna regularly prints governmental entities’ public information officers’ reports, giving them a byline, making it impossible to tell they are not newspaper staff, further erasing the news medias’ duty to be a check and balance on local government.
The rigged process of doing away with the court demonstrates how badly the people need the municipal court’s check-and-balance function.
More details on that process can be found in past articles, links to which are included below.
https://sierracountycitizen.org/municipal-court-is-done-luna-says/
https://sierracountycitizen.org/like-jury-tampering-municipal-courts-dissolution-almost-guaranteed/