{"id":509181,"date":"2018-01-25T19:49:52","date_gmt":"2018-01-26T02:49:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=509181"},"modified":"2018-01-25T19:49:52","modified_gmt":"2018-01-26T02:49:52","slug":"no-surprise-here-house-dems-block-expansion-of-three-strikes-law","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2018\/01\/no-surprise-here-house-dems-block-expansion-of-three-strikes-law\/","title":{"rendered":"No surprise here: House Dems block expansion of three-strikes law"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_56542\"  class=\"wp-caption module image alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 771px;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-56542\" src=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg\" alt=\"A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.\" width=\"771\" height=\"504\" srcset=\"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-771x504.jpg 771w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-336x220.jpg 336w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-768x502.jpg 768w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse-1170x764.jpg 1170w, https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/Kids-at-Roundhouse.jpg 1500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 771px) 100vw, 771px\" \/><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Heath Haussamen \/ NMPolitics.net<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A statue outside the Roundhouse in Santa Fe.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The rift over how to stem New Mexico&#8217;s rising crime rates burst into the open\u00a0<span class=\"aBn\" data-term=\"goog_34830764\"><span class=\"aQJ\">Thursday<\/span><\/span>, with Democrats blocking a proposal to expand the state&#8217;s three-strikes law.<\/p>\n<p>The bill would have allowed prosecutors to seek life sentences for criminals convicted of three violent felonies. Republicans argue this would keep repeat offenders off the streets.<\/p>\n<p>Democrats and advocates for criminal justice reform contend the policy would do little to prevent crime but would raise the cost of the state prison system.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"module align-left half type-aside\">\n<h3>About this article<\/h3>\n<p>This article comes from\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.santafenewmexican.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Santa Fe New Mexican<\/a>. NMPolitics.net is paying for the rights to publish articles about the 2018 legislative session from the newspaper. Help us cover the cost by\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/donate\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">making a donation to NMPolitics.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>New Mexico already has a three-strikes law that covers a short list of violent crimes, such as first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping resulting in great bodily harm and armed robbery resulting in great bodily harm.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the New Mexico Sentencing Commission says it has no record of anyone having been sentenced under the policy.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Nate Gentry, R-Albuquerque, proposed to include various other crimes as &#8220;strikes,&#8221; including voluntary manslaughter, aggravated arson and aggravated assault on a peace officer.<\/p>\n<p>Gentry conceded that the measure might not prevent crime in the sense of offenders stopping to consider the consequences of a felony. But, he said, it would still keep criminals off the streets.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The deterrence here is that they&#8217;re in jail and they&#8217;re not able to go out and hold up that liquor store or commit battery on a peace officer,&#8221; he told the committee. &#8220;That&#8217;s the deterrence. Incarceration.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>A coalition of groups that includes the American Civil Liberties Union and the New Mexico Conference of Catholic Bishops has graded a slew of crime bills proposed by lawmakers this year. It gave Gentry&#8217;s proposal an F.<\/p>\n<p>There is no evidence that three-strikes laws deter violent crime, according to the group New Mexico SAFE. Instead, it says such bills are &#8220;the embodiment of a politically driven response to crime because they sound &#8216;tough on crime&#8217; and repeat offenders but in fact do nothing to reduce crime.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>An analysis by legislative aides described the law&#8217;s costs as &#8220;large,&#8221; with the price of incarcerating convicted felons growing $23.5 million during the next 15 years.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, the Law Offices of the Public Defender raised concerns that the wording of the law could sweep up some offenders convicted of nonviolent crimes.<\/p>\n<p>And the chairman of the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliseo Alcon, D-Milan, said expanding the law is not necessary because prosecutors are not using the existing three-strikes law.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We wouldn&#8217;t need this if we had prosecutors that would use what is in the books today,&#8221; said Alcon, a former magistrate judge.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What it&#8217;s been used for is a bargaining tool,&#8221; he added, arguing that prosecutors are more inclined to use the threat of a life sentence as a means of getting a plea deal.<\/p>\n<p>The committee voted 3-2 along party lines to table the bill and shot down another three-strikes sentencing law proposed by Rep. Bill Rehm, R-Albuquerque.<\/p>\n<p>But, in an unusual show of unity, the committee voted unanimously to approve a bill that would slap tougher sentences on felons caught in possession of a firearm.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/nmlegis.gov\/Legislation\/Legislation?Chamber=H&amp;LegType=B&amp;LegNo=19&amp;year=18\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">House Bill 19<\/a>, also sponsored by Gentry, would make it a third-degree felony for a felon convicted of a violent crime to be in possession of a firearm, potentially increasing the sentence from 18 months to three years.<\/p>\n<p>Some Democrats have touted the measure as a type of gun control. This led Democrats on the committee to join with GOP lawmakers in supporting the bill.<\/p>\n<p>The measure still faces two more committees before it can get a vote from the full 70-member House of Representatives.<\/p>\n<p>But Alcon cautioned that the bill would not do much address a bigger issue. It is already illegal for a felon to buy a gun. The challenge, Alcon said, is keeping guns off the black market.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re gonna pass 25 million bills like this,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And those guns will still be out there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p><em>Contact Andrew Oxford at (505) 986-3093 or\u00a0<a href=\"mailto:aoxford@sfnewmexican.com\">aoxford@sfnewmexican.com<\/a>. Follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/@andrewboxford\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">@andrewboxford<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Democrats and advocates for criminal justice reform contend the policy would do little to prevent crime but would raise the cost of the state prison system.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":56542,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[3634,142,107],"class_list":["post-509181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-analysis","tag-2018-legislative-session","tag-crime","tag-roundhouse"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=509181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/509181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=509181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=509181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=509181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}