State Sen. Moe Maestas, an Albuquerque Democrat, wants civil commitment to “become a thing.”
“I want the average legal practitioner, the average person dealing with family members struggling with mental health issues, that they know it’s a thing,” Maestas said. “This is an option for families and for providers.”
Moe Maestas
New Mexico has two legal mechanisms — one civil, one criminal — that could result in court-mandated treatment or evaluation for people with severe mental illness. A process called civil commitment authorizes family members, health care providers, district attorneys or police officers to petition the court to mandate treatment when individuals pose a danger to themselves or others. Meanwhile, when the issue of competency is raised in a criminal case, it halts prosecution pending a forensic evaluation.
Both systems have been subject to heavy revisions by the Legislature in recent years, as lawmakers attempt to address the intersecting issues of homelessness, mental health and public safety.
The changes have received mixed reviews from advocates and family members of people with severe mental illness, but most agree there are wide gaps that render the systems insufficient: Providers are scarce and treatment is expensive. Some argue the new legislation relies too heavily on the legal system to manage behavioral health issues.
Public Defender Tess Williams cited a law change in recent years that would direct some defendants with mental illness to a community-based program: “However, no such program exists in New Mexico,” she said, “so it’s sort of an empty pathway.”
The new legislation also has sparked concerns from civil libertarians, who argue the reforms could infringe on New Mexicans’ freedoms.
But Maestas framed the Legislature’s changes in recent years as a “reasonable” reaction to the realities of today.
“We’re just recognizing problems that exist within a modern world and coming up with a modern legal structure to deal with those problems,” he said.
Civil commitment
Senate Bill 3, passed earlier this year as a piece of priority legislation from Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, provides a definition for “serious harm to self” and “serious harm to others” within New Mexico’s mental health laws, a change Maestas, the bill’s sponsor, said will ensure the law is applied consistently across the state.
The bill focused on reforming civil commitment — a process by which a court can mandate treatment — after a personal tragedy: A family member had died by suicide, despite efforts to help her stabilize her mental health.
“What it comes down to is, how do we get our loved ones the help they deserve?” Maestas said. “If your loved one has behavioral health issues and is suicidal, how do you prevent that person from ultimately committing suicide?”
He continued, “You either tell a judge to throw them in jail for a year, or you petition the court through this assisted outpatient treatment statute.”
SB 3 updates definitions in New Mexico’s mental health and disability law, as well as the state’s Assisted Outpatient Treatment Act, to clarify what it means for people to pose “serious harm” to themselves or others — including high likelihood of self-inflicted injury or death or lack of capacity to take care of themselves. Previous versions of the law did not specifically delineate the latter.
Signed by the governor in March, the bill will go into effect May 20.
SB 3 garnered broad bipartisan support, with Republican Sen. Crystal Brantley of Elephant Butte signing on as a key supporter of the legislation.
The bill was intended to confront a “hard truth,” she wrote in a message to The New Mexican.
“We’ve seen too many cases where dangerous behavior is identified, but the tools to intervene meaningfully aren’t used or aren’t clear,” Brantley wrote. “SB 3 was designed to close that gap and to ensure that when someone poses a risk to themselves or others, there is a path to act decisively while still protecting due process.”
But not everyone supported SB 3. Disability rights advocates voiced “grave concerns” the bill would take away constitutional freedoms and result in coerced treatment for people with disabilities.
Others say the state hasn’t allocated enough funding and developed an adequate network of care to ensure people ordered to assisted outpatient treatment have access to it, as well as intensive case management services to guide them through the treatment process.
The Legislature allocated $3 million in 2024 to fund seven pilot programs statewide for both competency diversion and assisted outpatient treatment. In the First Judicial District — which includes Santa Fe, Rio Arriba and Los Alamos counties — that money has paid for a program manager and just one court “navigator” to help connect defendants in the diversion program with services.
Stacy Boone, the senior statewide behavioral health manager for the New Mexico Administrative Office of the Courts, said a request for more funding is pending.
While SB 3 didn’t change who is authorized to petition the court for civil commitment — family members, police and health care providers can all do it, Maestas said — members of the House Judiciary Committee did attempt to specify that a “qualified mental health professional” would be required to make the initial call that somebody is a danger to themself or others because of mental illness.
They later dropped the amendment on the House floor after law enforcement leaders voiced worries it would make the bill “unworkable.”
Maestas framed the bill’s proposal as a sensible way to encourage behavioral health treatment.
“It’s giving a modern society the tools to nudge people into behavioral health treatment, to overcome their current situation,” he said.
Criminal competency
House Bill 8, an omnibus public safety bill passed in 2025, made major reforms to the criminal competency process in response to concerns the system didn’t provide “sufficient tools” to help criminal defendants with competency issues, said bill sponsor Rep. Christine Chandler, D-Los Alamos. It expanded options for court-ordered mental health treatment for people accused of misdemeanors and low-level felonies, rather than release and dismissal.
The criminal competency reforms originated from a simple truth, Chandler said: “We see people suffering.”
“They have a serious mental illness,” she continued. “They may not be dangerous — and a large majority of people are not who have serious mental illnesses, let’s underscore that — but they aren’t capable of making decisions that advance their welfare.”
When a defendant’s competency — or their ability to participate in their own defense — is raised in a criminal case, it triggers a mental health evaluation by a forensic evaluator.
There are two possible outcomes for defendants determined to be mentally incompetent by the court: Either their case is dismissed, or the prosecutor requests a dangerousness hearing. A defendant found to be dangerous is committed to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute in Las Vegas for treatment.
But that system leaves people who are not dangerous and not charged with a serious crime without any options for treatment.
“Unless they’re charged with a serious crime and there’s a concern about dangerousness, there’s no mechanism to either restore those individuals or get them treatment in a formal way,” Chandler said.
HB 8 was intended to provide “additional pathways” toward treatment, she said, by expanding the list of crimes that would qualify a defendant as dangerous, allowing for outpatient and community-based competency restoration programs, and creating an avenue for district attorneys to refer defendants to outpatient treatment.
Since she first proposed reforms to the state’s criminal competency statute, Chandler has acknowledged that will require additional infrastructure for mental health treatment.
HB 8 was signed into law in conjunction with a major state investments in behavioral health and a regionalized approach to expanding access to care. But advocates say the state is far from achieving adequate access.
“This is going to be a work in progress,” Chandler said. “And if tweaks need to be made — as with all things — let’s do that.”
Local members of the National Alliance on Mental Illness — a grassroots organization that aims to improve the lives of those with mental illness — echo the need for more and better treatment options families can access themselves, and a more integrated system of care.
NAMI Santa Fe board President Betty Sisneros Shover noted the uncertainty for families who call 911 to address a loved one’s mental health crisis — the call could result in a response by social workers in the city of Santa Fe’s Alternative Response Unit, or it could lead to a law enforcement response, potentially sending their loved one into the criminal justice system.
“Do I call or do I try to defuse it myself and hope tomorrow is better?” she said. “Because you don’t know what the outcome will be after you call.”
Meanwhile she said, La Sala, Santa Fe County’s crisis triage center, is only open during business hours, “and of course that’s not when all these crises happen,” she said.
Tom Stark, vice president of the local NAMI board, said care systems are “all siloed badly and frequently work counter to one another.”
“There are some really bright spots in the system, but they could connect much, much better,” he said.
Staff writers Phaedra Haywood and Nicholas Gilmore contributed to this report.
Margaret O’Hara reports on issues affecting healthy communities in New Mexico. Her work is funded by a grant from Anchorum Health Foundation. Anchorum will not have any role in editorial decisions. The New Mexican and its Public Service Journalism Fund retain full editorial control. Philanthropically funded stories by The New Mexican are made available to all readers without a paywall.