{"id":22,"date":"2010-06-08T15:42:02","date_gmt":"2010-06-08T15:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.wordpress.com\/?p=22"},"modified":"2017-04-07T17:12:31","modified_gmt":"2017-04-07T17:12:31","slug":"municipal-and-magistrate-courts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/2010\/06\/08\/municipal-and-magistrate-courts\/","title":{"rendered":"Municipal and Magistrate Courts of \u2018no record\u2019 and non-attorney judges"},"content":{"rendered":"

By\u00a0Linda Atkinson
\nExecutive Director
\nDWI\u00a0Resource Center
\nlatkinson@dwirc.org<\/em><\/p>\n

(continued discussion on DWI multiple offenders)<\/p>\n

DWI is the most commonly committed crime (followed closely by domestic violence) in New Mexico and across the country. These crimes \u2013 for the most part \u2013 are charged as misdemeanors and filed in lower jurisdiction courts \u2013 in New Mexico that would be municipal court \u2013 or in state magistrate court. Metro Court in Albuquerque is also a lower jurisdiction court \u2013 with two vast differences from the other municipal and magistrate courts.<\/p>\n

The two major differences are;<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Metro is a court of record \u2013 the other municipal and magistrate courts are not.<\/strong><\/li>\n
  2. Metro Court requires the judges to be attorneys, the municipal and magistrate courts do not.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    In fact the requirement is that the magistrate judges have a high school diploma or GED, and that qualifies them to be a judge. Most municipal courts are the same unless there is a city ordinance that requires other qualifications.<\/p>\n

    The state has put literally millions of dollars into automating the courts with the intent to make the records easily accessible for the courts\/prosecutors around the state. The problem is \u2013 there are still many issues that make it difficult for prosecutors to access prior records of DWI offenders \u2013 so our multiple offenders can many times elude the correct charging of their DWI offense. Say rather than a DWI 3, it will only be charged as a DWI 1 \u2013 unless the prosecutor can stay on top of getting these records, and there are many who just don\u2019t try or don\u2019t make time.<\/p>\n

    In the end, the multiple offender is able to elude either full prosecution or appropriate sanctions for the true DWI offense it should be.<\/p>\n

    Wouldn\u2019t it make sense to have all courts that handle DWI courts\u2019 of record and require judges to be attorneys?<\/p>\n

    In coming blogs –<\/p>\n

    Leveling the playing field \u2013 what\u2019s in a plea deal
    \nPurchasing a vehicle without a valid drivers license
    \nLimited or lax oversight of the ignition interlock providers
    \nFollow the money<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The state has put literally millions of dollars into automating the courts with the intent to make the records easily accessible for the courts\/prosecutors around the state. The problem is \u2013 there are still many issues that make it difficult for prosecutors to access prior records of DWI offenders \u2013 so our multiple offenders can many times elude the correct charging of their DWI offense<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,35],"tags":[39],"class_list":["post-22","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archived-blogs","category-court-records","tag-court-records"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4014,"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22\/revisions\/4014"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dwiresourcecenter.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}