Judicial district among fastest in finding competency

CLOVIS — When it comes to finding a defendant competent or not competent to stand trial, the local Ninth Judicial District is one of the state’s fastest.

The New Mexico Sentencing Commission released its findings Friday following a study of all 13 judicial districts in the state, plus the Metro district in light of court rules changed in 2018 to expedite the competency hearing process.

A total of 1,418 individuals who had taken 1,528 competency evaluations in the 2018-19 fiscal year. For those who had multiple evaluations during the time period, only their first evaluation was included in the data.

Findings included the following:

• The Ninth Judicial District, which includes Curry and Roosevelt counties, had a median of 42.5 days between an order for competency evaluation to a competency report.

Not counting the Metro district (28 days), the Ninth is fourth behind the 10th (37), 12th (40) and Seventh (41.5). The highest median number 81 days in the Eighth district.

• For defendants in custody in the Ninth, the median was 38.5 days for those found competent and 33 days for those found not competent.

• For defendants not in custody in the Ninth, the median was 65.5 days for those found competent and 56 days for those found not competent.

• The district had 41 competency cases during the evaluation period, the fourth-lowest behind the 10th (15), 12th (38) and Sixth (33). The Second District had 408, followed by Metro at 229.

• The Ninth was one of four districts where the majority of defendants (21 of 41, 51.2%) were found to be competent, along with the Eighth (53.3%), 10th (66.7%) and 12th (57.9%) districts. Statewide, 851 of 1,416 defendants (60.1%) were found not competent.