Metro Court program aims to treat mentally ill defendants

A pilot program intended to redirect people with serious mental illness into treatment as an alternative to criminal prosecution is coming to New Mexico's busiest courthouse.

The Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court program is directed at people who previously have had criminal charges dismissed because they were found incompetent to stand trial.

The criminal competency diversion court will be the fifth such program statewide but the first in the state's largest county. The Administrative Office of the Courts announced the new pilot this week ahead of the official launch scheduled for Tuesday.

Candidates for the program are people charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, excluding those facing drunken-driving charges. The program comes at a time when encampment sweeps around Albuquerque have led to an increase in misdemeanor charges like unlawful camping and blocking the sidewalk.

In cases involving the unhoused or those with mental illness, misdemeanor citations often lead to jail stays down the line due to missed court hearings. According to a Bernalillo County jail population dashboard, just over 7,000 people were booked on misdemeanor charges in 2025.

The competency diversion program is intended to guide people with severe mental illness into services that may include housing, medical needs and appropriate mental health or substance-use treatment.

“We improve public safety by connecting people with a history of severe mental illness to the treatment and community-based support services they need for potential recovery,” said Justice Briana H. Zamora, the Supreme Court’s liaison to the Commission on Mental Health and Competency.

Bennett Baur, chief public defender for the New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender, said Wednesday he is uncertain how the program will work but applauded the effort to find alternatives to prosecution for people with severe mental illness.

"I think it's a really good thing for us to look at different ways to address serious behavioral health issues, rather than just depending upon prosecution, jail and prison, which clearly doesn't work for these folks," Baur said.

"I'm concerned that there may not be enough appropriate treatment, but let's give this a chance," he said.

The current competency examination process is expensive and time-consuming, Metropolitan Court Judge Nina Safier wrote in a Dec. 13 opinion column in the Albuquerque Journal. Safier, who will preside over the program in Bernalillo County, could not be reached for comment Wednesday.

"For decades, individuals experiencing mental illness who were charged with nonviolent crimes remained in limbo for extended periods of time while costly professional forensic evaluations were completed," Safier wrote.

A person assigned to the competency diversion program will not go through a competency evaluation process, Safier wrote. Instead, they are referred to the program and are assigned to trained staff, called navigators, who can refer them to services, she said.

Jails and courts weren't designed to provide care for people with mental illness, Safier wrote.

"We can and should try to make our communities safer and healthier by helping individuals connect with and receive the services they most need," she wrote.

The Administrative Office of the Courts has launched four competency diversion courts since mid-2024 — in the 3rd Judicial District in Las Cruces, the 4th Judicial District in Las Vegas, the 1st Judicial District in Santa Fe and the 12th Judicial District in Otero and Lincoln counties.