Yet that’s what happens in New Mexico once a defendant has been found by the court to be mentally incompetent to stand trial. It’s a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for future crimes. That freedom from accountability has allowed a small number of offenders to act with increasing brazenness against both property owners and police.
While mental illness isn’t a crime, it’s also not a permission slip to excuse crimes.
Yet that’s what happens in New Mexico once a defendant has been found by the court to be mentally incompetent to stand trial. It’s a “Get Out of Jail Free” card for future crimes. That freedom from accountability has allowed a small number of offenders to act with increasing brazenness against both property owners and police. Randy Harris and Jack Turney explore some aspects of poetry. From considerations of the power of words carefully chosen, to how language is so integral to our communications, our emotions, our thinking, and the shaping of our ideas of reality. The conversation touches on different types of poetry, different authors, and different cultural ideas about poetry across time.
No piece of legislation in the last decade has had as much impact on the New Mexico Legislature as House Bill 51 in 2019, cosponsored by Rep. Joanne Ferrary of Las Cruces. It would have removed an old law still on the books criminalizing abortion that dated back to 1969, and was made unenforceable by the Supreme Court’s 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.
HB 51 passed 40-29 in the House, but was defeated 18-24 in the Senate, which at that time was much older and more conservative. Democrats Mary Kay Papen, John Arthur Smith, Pete Campos, Carlos Cisneros, Richard Martinez, Gabriel Ramos, George Munoz and Clemente Sanchez all voted against it. Everybody wants to start at the top.
And so, of course the deep-pocketed investors behind the attempt to build a centrist third party under the No Labels banner started with a presidential election. And not just any presidential election, but one in which the Republican nominee is a former president who is facing 88 felony indictments in four separate cases and is vowing vengeance if he wins. The capital outlay bill passed by the Legislature this year provides just under $290 million for 136 projects throughout the state, including $20 million for steam tunnel and electrical infrastructure upgrades at New Mexico State University.
NMSU will also get $10 million for facility construction in the Creative Media Institute and $1.575 million for road improvements on the Gadsden campus. Other local funding includes $3.083 million for construction of a new senior center on the East Mesa, $310,000 for the Munson Senior Center and $344,000 for the Anthony Senior Center. A film festival is a little bit like a film itself, in that the first thing to get our attention is usually the stars.
Ron Pearlman, who I remember for his role as the crusty but wiley leader of an outlaw biker gang in the series “Sons of Anarchy,” will be the star of the Las Cruces International Film Festival this year. He will be screening his movie “Hellboy.” The geographic political divisions in New Mexico have become so entrenched that both parties have just stopped trying in areas of the state where the other side has the advantage.
Of the 42 seats up for re-election in the state Senate this year, only 15 will be decided in the general election. Democrats will claim 17 seats, and Republicans will win 10 without posting a yard sign, shaking a hand, making a campaign promise or kissing a baby. Most Americans think we have the right to attend public meetings and let our elected officials know what we think about how they’re doing.
There is no such right in New Mexico. Our open meetings law requires that accommodations be made for the public to attend and listen to meetings of the City Council, County Commission and other government boards and commissions. But, there’s nothing that says we have the right to speak at those meetings. After having her Bernalillo County gun ban overturned by the court, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham tried to do it the right way, putting together an impressive public safety package of proposed legislation that addressed not only guns but also bail reform; sentencing; and police pay and recruitment.
If passed, it would have been a huge step toward addressing our state’s gun violence epidemic. New Mexico ranked seventh in the nation in gun deaths, according to a 2020 report by Johns Hopkins, which found that firearms were the leading cause of death for kids in our state (mostly suicides). In the days leading up to the primary election in New Hampshire, several voters received phone calls from a voice that sounded like and claimed to be President Joe Biden encouraging them to stay home on election day.
It was the first well-publicized use of artificial intelligence in a dirty tricks political campaign, but it undoubtedly will not be the last. |
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