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After a long battle that caused some long-time state lawmakers to lose their seats, the state Senate shifted left in 2020.
Long-time state Senators John Arthur Smith in SD 35; President Pro Tem Mary Kay Papen in SD 38; Clemente Sanchez in SD 30; Richard Martinez in SD 5 and incumbent Gabriel “Gabe” Ramos in SD 28 all lost their seats to progressive Democrats in the June primary election. Of the progressive Democrats who won the primary: Neomi Martinez-Para against Smith; Carrie Hamblen against Papen; Pam Cordova against Sanchez; Leo Jaramillo against Martinez; and Siah Correa Hemphill against Ramos, only Martinez-Parra and Cordova lost the general election to Republicans.
   In order to reduce the jail population in the Rio Arriba County Adult Detention Center, the County has been sending more people home with ankle monitoring bracelets.
   Jails have become hotbeds for the Coronavirus during the pandemic. The Council on Criminal Justice, in its December report found that 12 percent of persons in a prison had recovered from or were experiencing COVID-19. The non-prison population has experienced COVID-19 at roughly 3 percent. The Council also found the death rate from COVID-19 for inmates was almost double the national average.
   The monitoring program has been paid for through the CARES Act and has been costing the County anywhere from $12,000 to $15,000 a month and has just under 40 participants according to County Economic Development Director Chris Madrid.
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First, it was the botched investigation in the Victoria Martens murder. Then, a cynical public learned of serious problems in the Albuquerque Police Department’s investigation into the shooting death of Jacqueline Vigil. Both cases involved shoddy police work and false confessions.
Now, we learn in shocking detail how APD bungled its investigation into the shooting death of a man during an armed robbery – resulting in an 18-year-old girl who lived with her family and worked as an office assistant at Albuquerque High School being charged with murder and thrown in jail for a week, where she was strip-searched several times.
A new, local non-profit organization aiming to advocate for the civil rights of those incarcerated in New Mexico launched Thursday and announced a lawsuit against the New Mexico Corrections Department.
The New Mexico Prison and Jails Project announced that it filed a lawsuit on Wednesday, accusing the state Corrections Department of violating the state’s Inspection of Public Records Act (IPRA).
Steven Robert Allen, formerly a policy director with the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, is the project’s director. He said the group’s first lawsuit stemmed from an inquiry to find out more about how the Corrections Department procedurally handles records requests.
Nonprofit files records suit against New Mexico Corrections Department santafenewmexican.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from santafenewmexican.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.