New Mexico launches its first competency-diversion program
New Mexico's legislature appropriated roughly $3 million to fund the state's first misdemeanor competency-diversion pilot, which launched in Doña Ana County in June 2024 before a special legislative session funded its expansion to three more judicial districts. The program connects defendants unlikely to ever be restored to treatment and housing rather than simply dismissing their cases with no services at all.
The pilot addresses a gap identified in several other states in this backfill — Georgia's civil-commitment intersection and Ohio's restoration-length debate both touch on the same underlying question of what happens to defendants who cannot be restored.
Source: Inside New Mexico’s first diversion program for people who aren’t competent to stand trial — KUNM, by Ted Alcorn, New Mexico In Depth
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