One candidate, Raúl Torrez, is Bernalillo County’s district lawyer. His opponent says he’s a failed prosecutor.
The opposite candidate, Brian Colón, is New Mexico’s state auditor, however his rival derisively refers to him as a profession politician.
The Democratic major for lawyer common between Torrez and Colón is among the many most contentious on the June 7 election docket — a battle for a high-profile workplace that has 200 workers, a $35 million funds, and in a state the place crime is a large challenge, the bully pulpit.
The winner of the first will face Republican Jeremy Homosexual, who’s unopposed, subsequent month.
Torrez and Colón have some similarities — each are attorneys and grew up in New Mexico; each have grow to be acquainted to voters throughout their careers — however their backgrounds and imaginative and prescient for the workplace are vastly completely different.
Colón: Struggles and triumph
Colón, 52, stated he grew up in Los Lunas in Part 8 housing and famous in a current interview “it didn’t get a lot better from there.”
His father and mom, Rafael and Shelly Colón, moved the household to Florida when Colón was nonetheless a teen in hopes decrease altitude could be helpful for his father’s muscular dystrophy. However Colón stayed behind as a result of he’d already been accepted at New Mexico State College, the place he grew to become the primary in his household to attend school.
“I used to be residing my father’s dream regardless that he handed away proper after I bought to school,” he stated. “It wasn’t straightforward. I struggled.”
He labored his means by school by way of a sequence of wierd jobs, together with working at a automobile wash and promoting newspaper promoting. He typically slept on mates’ sofas, as soon as had his automobile repossessed and needed to take a number of breaks from college earlier than he was capable of full a bachelor’s diploma in finance in 1998.
After incomes a legislation diploma from the College of New Mexico in 2001, Colón was named Excellent Younger Lawyer of the 12 months by the State Bar of New Mexico in 2004 and served as chairman of the state Democratic Social gathering from 2007 to 2009. Prior to now decade plus, Colón’s quest for public workplace has been constant: he was an unsuccessful candidate for lieutenant governor in 2010 and ran unsuccessfully for mayor of Albuquerque in 2017. A 12 months later, he was elected to move the state Auditor’s Workplace.
His authorized profession has been dedicated to the observe of civil legislation — most prominently as a accomplice within the Robles, Rael and Anaya agency, the place Colón stated he centered totally on private damage and wrongful demise circumstances.
The agency secured a number of contracts from the Legal professional Common’s Workplace, headed by its present occupant, Hector Balderas.
That has drawn scrutiny from critics who query the function the private relationship between Marcus Rael Jr. and Balderas — each Colón’s classmates at UNM Legislation College — performed within the allocation of these contracts.
The observe of contracting with outdoors companies has centered scathing criticism on Balderas — and by extension, Colón, who makes no secret of his assist for the present AG. In a questionnaire in regards to the race offered to The New Mexican, he wrote: “Balderas has been a mannequin for Attorneys Common all through the nation.”
Requested what he’d do in another way, Colón stated he would reply to present crises associated to air, water and pure assets by devoting further assets to the AG’s Workplace’s environmental division and centering it inside the group, giving it “standalone capability.”
Colón stated he believes socioeconomic standing and substance abuse are the sources of violent crime.
“I feel medicine are a driver of violent crime, and the truth that we’ve communities which can be severely impacted by drug habit with none behavioral well being and psychological well being providers to deal with these people,” he stated.
“We’ve got to be reasonable. The lawyer common doesn’t get a cape, however what the lawyer common does get is alternative to have a bully pulpit to get these stakeholders to the desk to speak about what assets are required after which advance that agenda within the Legislature and with the manager.”
Torrez: Marked by ‘bookends’
Torrez, 45, was born and raised in Albuquerque — his mom, Mary Butler, was a instructor; his father, Presiliano Torrez, is a federal prosecutor, who’s about to retire after 45 years with the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace.
Each dad and mom, he stated, helped him perceive the causes and penalties of crime — classes which have stayed with him by his profession.
“The most important long-term driver of … most crime, however specifically violent crime, is the terribly excessive price of antagonistic experiences in early childhood,” Torrez stated. “When folks ask me for my analysis of our public security packages and what we have to do, in quite a lot of methods [my] mother’s work within the classroom and [my] dad’s work in courtroom are kind of bookends in the identical story.”
He attended tony Sandia Preparatory College earlier than leaving New Mexico for a few decade to pursue his schooling at a number of the world’s prime universities: Harvard, the London College of Economics, Stanford.
When he returned to New Mexico and a profession within the legislation, nevertheless, he began from scratch, doing stints as an assistant district lawyer in Valencia County, an assistant state lawyer common and as a prosecutor within the U.S. Legal professional’s Workplace earlier than opening his personal observe in 2013.
He was elected district lawyer for Bernalillo County’s Second Judicial District — which has the best quantity of prison circumstances within the state — in 2016 and once more in 2020, when he was unopposed.
Requested to guage the present Legal professional Common’s Workplace and its effectiveness, Torrez wrote Balderas’ administration has been “too reluctant to assist native prosecutors within the analysis of officer concerned capturing and too prepared to outsource shopper safety circumstances to out-of-state-contributors,” noting Colón has obtained marketing campaign donations from out-of-state legislation companies.
Torrez stated his prosecutorial profession has been marked by what he’s seen in lots of New Mexico houses, the place poverty and violence have collided, typically with horrible outcomes.
Whereas diversion and enforcement can have short-term results on the crime price, he stated, “The long-term answer to the general public security problem lies in a heavy, heavy funding in traumatized kids and destabilized households.”
Torrez stated he’d grow to be extra concerned in shaping crime coverage in New Mexico — taking an lively function in ongoing debates over pretrial detention reform and inspecting options to incarceration. Each are hot-button points.
Coping with crime
The thorny challenge of bail reform, a controversial topic on each ends of the law-and-order debate in New Mexico, looms for the subsequent lawyer common, and maybe, politicians all through the state.
Torrez has been outspoken in regards to the state’s pretrial detention system, contending it wants additional tweaking. It was altered a number of years in the past to remove cash bonds for low-level criminals with out the means to submit bail. It additionally ended the observe of permitting judges to carry harmful defendants indefinitely, no matter their capability to submit bail.
“Based mostly on my evaluate of the info, there are too many violent repeat offenders which can be being launched again into the communities,” Torrez stated.
His conclusion is disputed by members of the prison protection bar, who level to a 2021 UNM examine which confirmed solely 15 % of defendants launched to await trial out of custody are charged with a brand new offense.
Torrez unsuccessfully pushed throughout the latest legislative session for a repair that will have adopted a way used federally and elsewhere, during which defendants accused of sure crimes could be mechanically held with out bond except their lawyer can show they don’t seem to be harmful to the neighborhood.
New Mexico’s present system requires prosecutors present by clear and convincing proof a defendant is so harmful no circumstances of launch may defend the neighborhood from them.
Torrez stated if a system akin to the federal technique is carried out, he would assist guidelines requiring circumstances involving defendants held with out bond to be resolved inside particular time frames, as is the case in federal courts.
“If the Legislature doesn’t consider that’s an applicable answer, I’m prepared and keen to have interaction with them on what could be a extra applicable answer,” Torrez stated. “What I don’t settle for is that the present system is working.”
Colón stated he additionally believes “it’s time to reevaluate and see what’s not working and make changes” to the pretrial detention system however stated he didn’t assist Torrez’s legislative push as a result of he didn’t assume there had been a sturdy sufficient dialogue about all of the variables.
“While you discuss shifting folks’s burdens and affecting civil rights and never ensuring they’re protected within the system — significantly communities of coloration and communities within the margin economically — I feel you’ve bought to pump the brakes and guarantee that we’re offering a system that works for everyone,” he stated. “Each [for those] which have energy and those who don’t.”
The battle for the nomination has been costly: Colón and Torrez have each raised greater than $1 million whereas campaigning for a job that pays $95,000 a 12 months.
In accordance with the Secretary of State’s web site, Colón has outraised Torrez, taking in about $1.4 million to his opponent’s $1 million. A lot of Colón’s cash has come from bigger contributions, some from out-of-state legislation companies. Torrez contributors — who additionally included some out-of-state donors — donated in smaller quantities. It’s unclear the place the vast majority of his cash has been spent, the majority of it’s categorized as “different” on the web site.
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