The ABQ public safety tax that voters started paying last July to hire more ABQ cops may or may not have the intended result. Here's a worrisome take from the head of the police union on the recent decision to temporarily deploy state police officers on crime-ridden streets of the city:

“God bless the state police,” said Shaun Willoughby, president of the Albuquerque Police Officers’ Association. “Part of the problem with Albuquerque's crime is because the Albuquerque Police Department is handcuffed."

The public safety tax will raise over $50 million a year with the goal of eventually having a 1,200 member APD. But if the cops feel they are "handcuffed" by the DOJ consent decree they must operate under how is that increased presence going to result in crime reduction?

Then there is the prosecutorial end. A spirited debate (an esoteric one for the general public) has broken out among the city's legal elites regarding the use of grand juries to bring indictments against the bad guys vs. preliminary hearings.

The hearings are often what you saw (and still see) on Perry Mason. A judge hears evidence from both sides and decides if a defendant should be sent to trial for his alleged crime. The grand jury is a panel of citizen who hear from the prosecutor on whether to bring an indictment.

Obviously, the BernCO DA (and Mayor Keller) would like to keep the grand jury system while district court judges argue its time is past. Here's reader and ABQ attorney Alan Wagman taking a dive into this angle of the city's crime spree:

For 6 years I was in the Albuquerque Public Defender office. I represented scores of grand jury defendants and also represented hundreds of defendants in preliminary hearings.

First, I was struck by the claim from BernCo District Attorney Raul Torrez and Mayor Tim Keller in their letter to NM Supreme Court Chief Justice Judith Nakamura that police officers scheduled to testify at grand jury hearings could be given an exact time at which to arrive for testimony and be done within 35 minutes. While sometimes true, the claim is balderdash. I often waited hours before the hearing actually take place. Police officers who arrived on time had the same wait. The claim that grand jury hearings run like clockwork is wishful thinking from a District Attorney and a mayor who have clearly never gotten their hands into the day-to-day grind of how the criminal justice system here actually operates.

Second, preliminary hearings can prevent gross miscarriages of justice. To cite one example,  I defended individuals charged with possession with intent to distribute marijuana. When these individuals are charged via grand jury, the arresting officer will tell the grand jury that the accused person had multiple sealed baggies of marijuana--perhaps 2 inches by 2 inches in size. The officer would testify that this was evidence of intent to sell the marijuana. 

I have defended individuals on the same charge in a preliminary hearing where I was able to question the officer. The officer had to admit that perhaps the accused had purchased what was a very small quantity of marijuana for personal use, and it just happened that he purchased it in the packaging--much the same as a person buying two packs of cigarettes. In the case heard by a grand jury, the accused would be charged with a felony and go to a wasteful trial, where the conviction--if any--would be for a petty misdemeanor. In the case heard by preliminary examination, the accused would be charged with a petty misdemeanor and the case would likely be quickly resolved by plea.

So, I ask, which method produces justice? And which method produces waste?

Meanwhile, the Governor has established a crime advisory group chaired by veteran trial attorney and former NM Dem Party Chairman Sam Bregman. What this group can possibly add to the discussion, which has been going on ad nauseam for years, remains to be seen. But with Bregman holding the microphone there's never a shortage of words.

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(c)NM POLITICS WITH JOE MONAHAN 2019