Last month, the Albuquerque Journal ran an article and an editorial about the relationship between the Judges and the County Jail. The specific issue is the jail’s position that unelected bureaucrats, as opposed to elected judges, should decide the character of an inmate’s incarceration. For example, the jail should decide if an inmate can be put on work release and not kept incarcerated as the judge ordered. 

            Actually, the issue is broader then the public understands. The official position of the State of New Mexico’s Corrections department is that after the department’s thirty day evaluation, the department is free to ignore the Judge’s Judgment and Sentence as long as the inmate is incarcerated or on parole. The Judge’s authority is only restored once an inmate is placed on probation.

            This position was first communicated to me by Ella Frank, the Executive Director of the New Mexico Parole Board, as she explained to me why the Department of Corrections was free to ignore the treatment Judge Murdoch ordered for Patricia. She stated this directly in a conversation with me in December 2005 and gave one of her typical bureaucratic responses in an attempt to avoid answering in an email she sent me on Dec 14^th, 2005.

            As you may recall, I went public in late 2005 in an effort to keep Patricia in prison in order for her to complete Therapeutic Communities, a program Judge Murdoch sentenced Patricia to and stated at her sentencing would take two years to complete.

            In a recent meeting with the DA, the ADA informed of a startling truth – The Department of Corrections had never even attempted to put Patricia in the Therapeutic Communities Program.

            After I got over my initial shock, it made sense in the weird Department of Corrections way I am now accustomed to.  When the department in processed Patricia, they anticipated her release in December 2005 based on ‘good time’. The Department of Corrections knew that the early release made it impossible for her to complete the Therapeutic Communities program, so they ignored the Judge’s order and never put her in the program.

            What the public needs to understand is that the judges craft these beautifully serious and deliberate sentences directed at protecting the community and rehabilitating felons. Why, Patricia’s had ten segments to include completing two other programs STEPS and Bridges. Judge Murdoch’s sentence provided comfort to me and the children. As I wrote at the time, finally, finally Patricia might get the treatment she needed.

            But is a sham, the moment the felon is handed over to the Department of Corrections the unelected bureaucrats are free to act as they wish.