Metro Court program offers new treatment options

New Mexico Supreme Court Justice Briana Zamora recalled Tuesday that the criminal cases she found most haunting during her years as a trial court judge were those involving defendants found incompetent to stand trial because of mental illness.

Zamora and other court officials on Tuesday launched a new state-funded program at Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court intended to divert people with serious mental illness into treatment as an alternative to prosecution for minor and nonviolent crimes.

Zamora told nearly 100 people in attendance that, over time, she observed a decline in the well-being of criminal defendants who returned to her courtroom time and again.

"At the beginning, especially here at Metro Court, they would come with their family members, their relatives, their friends," she said. "After about 20 or 30 cases, or a few years later, they came alone. They were unhoused and they had no support."

Families often asked Zamora to order treatment and services for a struggling family member. "And within the constraints of the law, I was unable to do so," she said.

State lawmakers appropriated $293,000 a year for the Bernalillo County program, which will pay for a program coordinator and two case managers, or navigators, to direct people to appropriate mental health and substance-abuse treatment and basic services such as housing. The funding also will pay for the program's behavioral health service provider, Albuquerque-based A New Awakening.

The criminal competency diversion court is aimed at people who previously had criminal charges dismissed because they were found incompetent to stand trial. Candidates are people charged with misdemeanors and nonviolent felonies, but not drunken driving charges.

The program provides an alternative for a judge who otherwise would have little choice but to dismiss the charges.

A person assigned to the competency diversion program will not go through a competency evaluation process and is instead assigned to trained navigators who can refer them to appropriate services.

Bernalillo County Metro Court Judge Nina Safier, the program's presiding judge, said the criminal competency diversion program is intended to restore services to people caught up for years in the criminal justice system.

"By the time you end up in jail, you have fallen through many cracks," Safier said. "We have to reconnect people with the services that got pulled from underneath them, because the criminal justice system and jail is not going to help."

A key element of the program is trained staff who can help obtain treatment and services for people who otherwise have difficulty navigating the system, Safier said. Staff members also can bump people to the head of the line for needed services, she said.

The criminal competency diversion court will be the fifth such program statewide but the first in the state's largest county. According to a Bernalillo County jail population dashboard, just over 7,000 people were booked on misdemeanor charges in 2025.

The program comes at a time when encampment sweeps in Albuquerque have led to an increase in misdemeanor charges such as unlawful camping and blocking the sidewalk. Those charges can lead to missed court appearances and jail sentences.

"I think the need is very high here," Zamora said after the event. She recommends that Metro Court keep the program relatively small at first, with no more than 30 to 45 people enrolled during the first six months to a year.

Zamora said she expects that the biggest challenge facing the program in Bernalillo County is homelessness, which can make it difficult for case managers to keep track of people enrolled in the program. Unhoused people have proved difficult in Doña Ana County, where a criminal diversion court was launched in mid-2024.

"Those are the individuals who generally are not succeeding in this program and that's the challenge we're trying to tackle," she said.

Olivier Uyttebrouck covers the court system. You can reach him at olivier@abqjournal.com.