Why are we called Fix the Six NM?

According to state legislative evaluation reports, New Mexico consistently ranks near the top 6th in the nation for repeat child maltreatment. Our state’s child abuse recurrence rate sits at nearly 15%-almost double the national average. We launched this campaign because a system that ranks near the bottom for child safety cannot afford a court loophole that treats chronic, repeat predators the same as first-time suspects. We are here to Fix the Six.

THE REPEAT OFFENDER ACCOUNTABILITY ACT: A MANIFESTO FOR NEW MEXICO’S CHILDREN

I. Our Core Belief

We believe that the primary duty of the New Mexico justice system is the protection of its most vulnerable citizens-our children. Every child has a fundamental right to grow up safe from proven, chronic abusers. While we firmly uphold the constitutional principle of due process and the presumption of innocence for those facing a first-time accusation, we believe the state must draw a hard, uncompromising line against individuals with a documented history of violence and child exploitation.

II. The Current Breakdown

Under the state’s current pretrial release framework established 2016, judges routinely release high-risk, repeat offenders back into our communities on non-monetary release ($0 bail) while they await trial. This happens because the understaffed prosecutors are forced to meet an exceptionally high legal bar to prove immediate dangerousness within a restrictive 48-hour window. This system treats a chronic, repeat offender the exact same way it treats a first-time suspect. This is a bureaucratic loophole that actively endangers families. 

III. The Surgical Compromise 

We demand a sweeping overhaul of how New Mexico’s pretrial system handles chronic, repeat predators. The current framework of automatic release and non-monetary bonds for career criminals is a systemic failure. Because over 90% of criminal cases in our state are resolved through plea bargains, dangerous individuals routinely have violent felony charges pleaded down to lesser offenses behind closed doors. This creates a massive loophole. We propose a narrow, powerful reform: Presumptive Detention strictly for repeat career criminals. 

Under this proposed constitutional amendment, an individual's status as a "repeat career criminal" is established strictly by proven guilt, defined as a person facing a subsequent felony charge against a minor who holds a documented legal record of at least one of the following:

1. Prior Felony Convictions: The individual has two or more separate, court-verified felony convictions where guilt was fully proven in a court of law.

2. The Plea-Bargain Factor: The individual has a prior court-verified conviction for a lesser offense resulting from a formal plea agreement where they legally admitted guilt to resolve an original charge of felony violence, domestic abuse, or child exploitation.

3. Chronic Conviction Recidivism: The individual has a persistent, court-documented pattern of multiple prior felony convictions within a consecutive five-year period, establishing a proven history of chronic offenses.

If an individual with this record of proven guilt faces a subsequent felony accusation against a minor, the law will automatically presume they are a threat to public safety. The burden of proof shifts from the state to the defense. The defendant must prove they are safe to be released; otherwise, they will remain detained until trial.

IV. Disarming the Opposing Arguments: Equity, Economics, and the Bench

• Protecting Marginalized & Low-Income Communities: Critics argue that expanded pretrial detention harms vulnerable populations. However, data shows that repeat violent offenders overwhelmingly commit crimes within their own immediate neighborhoods. When the court system releases a chronic predator on $0 bail, that threat is sent straight back into a working-class community. Furthermore, because our law is triggered strictly by prior court convictions-never by mere police arrests-we completely insulate the process from potential law enforcement bias. 
  
  
• A Standard of Equity, Not Wealth: Unlike the old, broken cash bail system where a wealthy predator could buy their freedom while an innocent poor person stayed jailed, our proposal ignores wealth entirely. A rich repeat offender and a poor repeat offender face the exact same standard: their liberty is dictated by their past violent behavior, not the size of their bank account. 
  
  
• Fiscal Responsibility for Taxpayers: Re-arresting the same individuals 20, 30, or 41 times drains millions of New Mexico taxpayer dollars in repeated police hours, booking paperwork, and administrative court costs. Safely detaining a proven, high-risk repeat threat once until trial is a massive cost-saving measure for county budgets. 
  
  
• Empowering Judges: This amendment does not strip discretion from the bench; it restores common sense. It removes the rigid Supreme Court procedural handcuffs that force understaffed prosecutors to clear impossible evidentiary hurdles in 48 hours, empowering judges to place community safety first when dealing with chronic records. 
  
  

V. Our Explicit Demands

We, the citizens and future citizens of New Mexico, call upon the New Mexico Legislature-specifically the House and Senate Judiciary Committees-to stop blocking pretrial reform. We demand that lawmakers pass a Joint Resolution during the upcoming 60-day legislative session to place a Legislatively Referred Constitutional Amendment to amend Article II, Section 13 directly onto the ballot, allowing the voters of New Mexico to permanently close the repeat offender loophole at the ballot box. 

📊THE REVOLVING DOOR: RECENT REAL-WORLD CASE STUDIES

• The Farmington Child Exploitation Case (July 2026): A Farmington man with documented prior conviction for criminal sexual penetration was arrested and charged with three new severe child abuse felonies. Under current rules, local understaffed prosecutors had to immediately scramble against a frantic clock to file high-stakes detention motions and compile forensic data within hours, risking a situation where high-risk child predators walk free on $0 bail if a single bureaucratic deadline is missed. 
  
  
• The Failure of Operation Route 66 (Bernalillo County): During  a major multi-agency law enforcement crackdown, the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office exposed the true extent of the repeat offender crisis. An individual with 41 lifetime arrests (including kidnapping with intent to commit sexual offenses) was caught, charged, and released on non-monetary pretrial services four separate times. Another career criminal with 21 lifetime arrests was repeatedly released on $0 bail and skipped all his hearings. Out of 90 pending felony cases tracked during this operation, only 14 suspects remained in custody.
• The Tragic Escalation of Charles Taylor: A 22-year-old suspect named Charles Taylor was arrested and released under the state’s standard bail framework four separate times in a single year for property crimes and auto theft. Because the system continuously treated him with standard non-monetary release, he remained on the street. Just days after his fourth release, his criminal behavior escalated catastrophically when he broke into a home, tied up an innocent 59-year-old woman suffering from multiple sclerosis, and violently assaulted her.
• The Proven Data: A 5% Margin of Danger: A comprehensive data analysis conducted by the University of New Mexico Statistical Analysis Center tracked defendants released under the  state’s current bail framework. The study revealed that roughly 5% of all defendants released on pretrial services go on to commit a brand-new violent crime while awaiting trial. In a state with high crime volumes, that 5% represents hundreds of entirely preventable, violent victimization cases every single year. 
  
  

❓❓FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

• Q: Does this proposal violate the principle of “Innocent Until Proven Guilty”?
  • A: No. The court is not deciding if the defendant is guilty of the new crime; it is only assessing immediate community risk. Pretrial detention is a regulatory safety measure, not a punishment. When the actual trial begins, the burden shifts entirely back to the prosecution to prove guilt “beyond a reasonable doubt” to a jury. 
• Q: What about people who have been wrongfully arrested in the past?
  • A: Fix the Six NM protects innocent citizens. Our surgical amendment is not triggered by a history of multiple arrests or allegations. For the rebuttable presumption to apply, the suspect must have a prior, verified conviction for felony violence or child exploitation in a court of law. If a person has a clean record, or if their past charges  were dropped, dismissed, or resulted in an acquittal, they retain full, standard protections of the 2016 bail system. 
    
    
• Q: Doesn’t the 2016 law already allow judges to hold dangerous people?
  • A:  In theory, yes. In reality, the current framework forces understaffed local prosecutors to clear immense evidentiary hurdle within strict, frantic 48-hour window right after an arrest. If out-of-state records are delayed or a single administrative clock runs out, judges are constitutionally forced to release the suspect on $0 bail. Our amendment creates a permanent constitutional safety net for chronic histories so that public safety is the default setting while legal teams prepare for trial.

• Q: Will this proposal flood New Mexico’s county jails and cost taxpayers millions?
  • A: No. Because our proposal explicitly excludes first-time, non-violent, and low-level defendants, it will not impact jail capacities. It targets a very small, specific population: chronic, violent offenders who pose the highest statistical risk of reoffending. The cost of safely housing a known predator before trial is a fraction of the economic and human cost of investigating a brand-new crime.