By SHERRY ROBINSON
All She Wrote
©2025 New Mexico News Services
He was sprawled across the exit lane of a busy shopping center as I was trying to leave. I stopped my car and ran over to do something, but what? Two other good Samaritans joined me.
We dragged him out of traffic and called 911. He told me he was having a seizure, but it seemed more likely that he was wasting away from years of substance abuse. The fire department arrived in minutes, and the senior officer greeted the man by name.
“We see this guy ALL the time,” the firefighter said.
I knew the police have to contend repeatedly with the same folks and their mental demons and addictions, but until that moment I didn’t know fire departments were frustrated too. Which is why both testified in favor of a bill to expand involuntary mental health treatment.
Senate Bill 3 changes two definitions used to decide if people can be ordered into mental health treatment against their will, a legal process called involuntary civil commitment. The goal is to treat and provide services to more people and clarify current laws, Sen. Moe Maestas, D-Albuquerque, explained on Feb. 4 to the House Judiciary Committee. “It’s a wonderful first step in assisting practitioners and courts in getting people treatment.”
For years mentally ill people have been in and out of courts, jails and hospitals. Current law requires them to actively commit to getting well and getting sober, but they may be incapable of taking that step, so nothing happens and they continue downhill until they’re in imminent danger. SB 3 allows earlier intervention.
SB 3 asks the court to look at behavior in the recent past. Does the person have the “decisional capacity” to care for themselves – to make decisions about food, medical treatment, shelter and safety? Has the person recently tried to hurt someone and are they likely to do it again? The bill would allow doctors, law enforcement and family members to petition the courts earlier for assisted outpatient treatment. It would not expand confinement or reduce due process.
The governor has been trying to get a law like this on the books for a couple of years, and SB 3 is one her priority bills.
In her final State of the State speech in January, the governor said: “Earlier this year, my office got a letter from Elizabeth, whose 42-year-old son is struggling with addiction and mental illness. She worries every day that he could critically injure himself or someone else. He’s living on the streets, sometimes beaten and bruised, and in and out of jail. She fears any day could be his last. And just as heartbreaking he could hurt somebody else.”
She said she’d heard such stories too often. “It’s the result of a system that confuses compassion with neglect. When someone is a danger to themselves or others because of mental illness, addiction — or far too often both — we need the legal tools to keep communities safe and get New Mexicans the help they need… We must take action, instead of just watching and waiting for tragedy to strike.”
Last year Maestas carried a similar bill that passed the Senate but died in the House on objections from disability and civil rights advocates who see potential for abuse in involuntary treatment.
To their credit, lawmakers in 2025 passed and the governor signed bipartisan bills to improve behavioral health services in the state and reform criminal competency laws. And they made serious investments in the behavioral healthcare system by creating a behavioral health trust fund to provide long-term financing.
With those building blocks, the bipartisan SB 3 has glided through the process so far, passing the two committees unanimously and the Senate by 37 to 3. At this writing it’s scheduled for a House floor vote.
Cops like the bill, saying it gives them better, clearer choices. One officer said he had arrested one woman more than 200 times, and all he could do was take her to jail. Another said it would “remove uncertainty for officers in the field.”
A firefighter testified, “Our only choice is to take them to the hospital, but that floods the healthcare system, and then they’re back on the street. This allows first responders to remain first responders.”
Disability advocates and the ACLU still don’t like the idea of involuntary treatment.
Given our recent abuses of guardianships, they’re not wrong. Maestas believes SB 3 has protections built in, but on Facebook he worries about “our liberal friends who emphasize civil liberties.”
For months now, at a nearby intersection a man paces in his stocking feet, talking to the voices in his head. I know how this ends. I would ask the advocates, is it his right to die on the street?