Devin Munford should have stayed in jail. He was a repeat offender, arrested for shooting from a vehicle with a stolen gun. The prosecutor tried to keep him locked up, but the judge put Munford on pretrial release, and he left wearing a GPS ankle monitor.
Munford violated the conditions of his release over and over. That included firing a shotgun through an apartment door, killing a man, firing a shot over the head of a woman who asked him to move his car, and robbing a 7-Eleven at gunpoint. Last week he was sentenced to life plus 25 years in prison.
Munford is the reason Albuquerque city councilors support a change in the pretrial detention law, which is part of the governor’s package of crime bills. But Bernalillo County opposes the change, which could swamp the county detention center at a time it’s understaffed and struggling to fill positions.
If the state’s largest jail can’t handle an increase in prisoners, where does that leave the other 24 jails, nearly all badly understaffed and underfunded?
SB 121, by Republican Sens. Craig Brandt and Mark Moores, would make defendants prove they’re not a danger to the community. Currently, the prosecutor has to prove they are.
“That ankle monitor didn’t stop Munford from violating the conditions of his release 113 times. With no consequences. None.” This is from retired police officer and new Albuquerque City Councilor Dan Champine, writing in an op-ed. He believes SB 121 would “put a wedge in the revolving door of justice.”
The trouble is, the door of justice is sagging on its hinges.
I wrote recently that the 25 counties with detention centers spend a third to half of their budgets on these facilities. Guard vacancy rates in some are above 40%, and pay for a stressful, dangerous job is not competitive.
Last week, the online news source City Desk reported that the Bernalillo County Detention Facility Advisory Board will oppose SB 121. County Attorney and former House Speaker Ken Martinez said the bill “would mean a lot more people waiting” in jail. The board projects an inmate population increasing by 60% to 66%, which would bring the understaffed jail to the breaking point.
So far in this legislative session, the governor wants to give State Police a big raise and everybody else a small raise. Is anyone paying attention to jail guards or jails? Recently, the courts complained that proposed budgets would gut their ability to keep tabs on ankle monitors, although Munford’s case tells us they’re not doing a good job now.
Even with Munford’s alarming episode, there is some debate about the need for changes in pretrial detention. It boils down to how many Munfords are out there.
In 2022 the state Administrative Office of the Courts and UNM released a study of four judicial districts: the 11th (San Juan and McKinley counties), 13th (Cibola, Valencia and Sandoval counties), 5th (Hidalgo, Grant, and Luna counties), and 3rd (Doña Ana). Of 3,595 defendants held between Oct. 1, 2021, and June 30, 2022, and released under pretrial supervision, 468 were charged with committing a new crime and 180 were charged with committing a new violent crime.
Another study of Albuquerque defendants between 2017 and 2022 showed that nearly one quarter of people held under pretrial detention weren’t ultimately convicted of anything, according to the Public Defender Office.
If I were a victim of a criminal out on pretrial release, I’d want them to stay behind bars. If I were responsible for stretching too few county dollars over many demands, I’d take a harder look at the relatively few people who re-offend while they’re out on pretrial release.
Last year these same questions came up, and a similar bill died on issues of constitutionality and cost.
Cops and the public are aggravated by the “catch and release” system, but without some fine tuning and jail funding the fix-it bill will die again.