Special session will focus on mental health treatment

Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham will ask lawmakers to pass five public-safety measures at next month’s special session, including a bill intended to expand a program that allows involuntary treatment for people with mental illness.

The measure is intended to strengthen a 2016 law that allows district judges to order involuntary treatment for people with severe mental illness who have frequent brushes with law enforcement.

The program, called Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), dominated discussion Thursday when members of Lujan Grisham’s staff offered the bills to a legislative committee.

Holly Agajanian, chief general counsel for the Governor’s Office, told lawmakers Thursday that the program needs to be extended statewide and have broader eligibility.

“The question then becomes, ‘How do we do this?’” Agajanian told members of the House Courts, Corrections and Justice Committee. “How do we have AOT everywhere? Because that’s what we need. And that’s what this bill has.”

Some lawmakers questioned the need for a special session to make changes to a program originally signed into law by former Gov. Susana Martinez in 2016.

“Why do we need this immediately if the AOT is already on the books and jurisdictions can implement that today?” Rep. Alan Martinez, R-Bernalillo, asked Thursday.

“When we can come back in the 60-day (session, in 2025) we can take care of whatever changes to the law we need to do.”

Agajanian said changes to the law proposed by Lujan Grisham will mandate implementation of the program.

“Even though jurisdictions are already statutorily allowed to implement these programs, they aren’t doing it,” Agajanian said.

The bill as proposed would require all of New Mexico’s 13 judicial districts to institute AOT by July 1, 2026.

“This is something that is going to take so long to implement,” Agajanian said. By waiting until next year, “we will lose time and we will lose the lives of New Mexicans.”

In addition, the proposed bill will expand the number of people eligible for the program.

“I think you’re going to end up being able to provide services for more folks than you had before,” Agajanian said.

The governor’s spokeswoman, Jodi McGinnis Porter, released a “discussion draft” of four of the bills and said the governor would “welcome input” from legislators.

The bills would:

• Strengthen penalties for a felon convicted of possessing a firearm, making the crime a second-degree felony, punishable by a minimum of nine years in prison.
• Prohibit pedestrians from occupying highway medians, on-ramps and exit ramps.
• Require law enforcement agencies to report certain monthly crime incident reports and ballistic information.
• Make changes to the state’s criminal competency law. A draft of that bill was not available by the Journal’s press time on Thursday.

“These five legislative proposals are designed to address the pressing public safety issues that our communities face every day, reducing danger and risk for all New Mexicans,” McGinnis Porter said in the statement.

The court-supervised Assisted Outpatient Treatment program is intended for people who have a history of arrests and hospitalizations and are unlikely to voluntarily adhere to prescribed treatments.

The version of the law passed in 2016 allowed state district judges to order people into mandatory treatment programs, which could include medication, therapy or drug testing.

Participants would have to be at least 18 years old, have a mental illness diagnosis and have a history of not following through with treatment.

Under the original law, cities and counties would have to opt into the program to participate.

To date, only the 3rd Judicial District in Doña Ana County has a functioning AOT program, which was initiated in 2016 under a federal grant, said Jamie Michael, the county’s Health and Human Services director. The program serves about 40 people a year, she estimated.

The 2nd Judicial District in Bernalillo County also launched a pilot AOT program in November 2017. Leaders with the city, county, courts and University of New Mexico Hospital announced the program that year.

Witnesses told lawmakers this week that the Bernalillo County program is no longer in effect.

“I think maybe we should try to get the Bernalillo County people in for the next meeting, because I want to know why it fell apart in Bernalillo County,” said Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos.