New Mexico governor warns Utah officials of the perils of “Catch and Release”
Gov. Martinez urges Utah not to follow the path of her state
By Elliot Chang
New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez offered a strong, unsolicited warning to lawmakers and other officials in neighboring Utah as they work to overhaul criminal justice pretrial detention laws.
“I encourage those in Utah to be very skeptical of voices calling for misleading devices that would result in letting dangerous criminals back out on the street to terrorize communities,” Martinez said in a specially recorded video message sent last week to Utah lawmakers, judges, and prosecutors referencing rules that were put into place last year in her own state.
The governor described New Mexico’s struggles with a catch-and-release system of justice aggravated by “irresponsible interpretations and rules implemented by courts.” She directed particular ire towards the Arnold pretrial risk assessment tool, which she said her state implemented with “devastating results.”
Utah plans to roll out broad criminal justice release reforms May 1, which will include putting into effect the controversial Arnold risk assessment tool. The tool uses an algorithm to predict whether or not a defendant will commit another crime or re-offend. However, the underlying data and assumptions behind the conclusions it draws are, by their nature, subjective. This has led to concerns about its lack of inherent fairness and the potential to perpetuate racial bias rather than reduce it.
In 2016 through a bill in the state legislature, Utah’s judicial council attempted to delegate itself the authority to unilaterally implement sweeping reform powers without input from either the legislature or the public. That bill was ultimately voted down. This latest action by the judicial council is contrary to what the state’s lawmakers had already decided: that the power to make such decisions belongs to Utah’s legislature, not its courts.
Prior to being elected governor in 2010, Martinez served three terms as New Mexico’s District Attorney.
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