The chief judge of New Mexico’s First Judicial District (covering Santa Fe, Rio Arriba, and Los Alamos Counties) has proposed a case management order (CMO) aimed at speeding up the processing of criminal cases within the district. The order was intended to go into effect no later than January, but concerted pushback from attorneys and police and delaying implementation.
The need for faster case processing is evident: the average criminal case in the First Judicial District takes almost 300 days to reach a resolution, as compared to 224 days in the Second District (covering Albuquerque) and under 200 days in some rural districts. But prosecutors and defense attorneys jointly asserted that the real problem is a lack of resources, which no CMO can fix. They also complained that the proposed CMO imposed rules that were inconsistent with procedures in other parts of the state.
Both sides may be right about the challenges, but both should also continue working toward finding creative and viable solutions to reducing the average time to case resolution.
The Interdependent Third Branch 