ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – A woman was caught on camera smashing windows and damaging nearly a dozen Albuquerque city and police vehicles.

It isn’t the first time she’s reportedly done something like this. So why, after spending less than 24 hours in custody, is she already out of jail?

Danielle Magee’s case highlights a major issue we’ve seen in thousands of cases in New Mexico. They’ve been dismissed because the suspects are deemed not competent to stand trial. 

KOB 4 has been digging into what lawmakers in Santa Fe did to try to address the issue and what more needs to be done. 

It’s a longstanding issue, the so-called revolving door in New Mexico’s justice system. Suspects arrested, deemed incompetent to stand trial, and then released back on the streets only to repeat the cycle over and over.

It’s one of the issues lawmakers addressed this session, but the question is how will it be implemented?

“We are tired of seeing the same people coming back into the system and not being able to do anything for them,” said Deputy Bernalillo County District Attorney, Steven Diamond. 

That is exactly what has happened to repeat offender, Danielle Magee. A security camera caught her smashing the windows of 21 city and police cars parked downtown. 

This is the latest chapter in a long story. She has been charged several times since 2022 for similar crimes:

• 2024: Damaging a police vehicle
• 2023: Damaging eight city vehicles and 32 personal vehicles in Civic Plaza

In the majority of those cases, she’s been found incompetent to stand trial.

“As annoying as her crimes are, as they create public safety concerns, they don’t rise to that level of dangerousness. So the law would say her case gets dismissed,” said Diamond. 

Since 2017, the governor’s office says 18,000 criminal charges in New Mexico have been dismissed because of competency issues. 

This past legislative session, lawmakers passed a crime package that creates access to behavioral health care across the state for these offenders. 

“We are now able to offer some help for some people who are found incompetent, when we otherwise wouldn’t be able to,” Diamond said. 

The issue now:

“Those services currently don’t exist. So we aren’t sure how that void is going to be filled,” said Tess Williams with the Law Offices of the Public Defender.

While the Legislature has put in place the groundwork to fix the competency revolving door, prosecutors and public defenders agree the issue isn’t going away immediately. 

“We have a serious need for long term and short term mental health treatment facilities,” Williams said. 

“Passing legislation is not the end of the process. Now we have to figure out how that legislation is implemented,” said Diamond. 

Magee was released from custody Tuesday and has a mental evaluation scheduled in April.