Today, I speak with Bennet Baur, the Chief Public Defender of New Mexico.

With the power of the people behind them, Ben Baur and the New Mexico Public Defenders were able to find independence and fight for desperately needed reforms. 

Yet a decade after gaining independence, the Law Offices of the Public Defender can handle only one-third of the cases they carry.

This week, join us as we uncover what is going right, what is going wrong, and how our community is put in danger because of a lack of public defense funding. 

Bennet Baur is a wonderful example of what happens when a public defender cares about personal freedom. 

Key Topics and Takeaways:

• Bennet’s role and how his office came to be [3:49]
• Important public policy issues in new Mexico public defense [8:10]
• The 2007 caseload report that was done on New Mexico public defense [11:19]
• Why public defense should be the baseline on how cases are charged [12:52]
• The problems with a flat fee system [22:56]
• What happens when a client is waiting for representation [35:29]
• Problem with probations and how they are moving into a harm reduction model [41:12]
• Representation of migrants [47:52]

Guests:

Bennet Baur, Chief Public Defender at New Mexico Law Offices of the Public Defender

Resources:

American Bar Association New Mexico Project

2007 Caseload Study 

2021 Caseload Study 

New Mexico Public Defender Website 

New Mexico Safe 

Memorable Quotes:

“It’s also policy, you know not just advocating for our clients, but advocating for what we think is good public policy.” (7:32, Ben)

“Because I work in the system, I believe that over-incarceration, that just putting people in jail, isn’t going to solve the problem.” (10:05, Ben)

“When those mistakes interact with a human being’s life, liberty, and their ability to make a living, those are mistakes that can’t happen.” ( 20:32, Hunter)

“The system is based upon is lawyers doing a lot of work for free for the state. And that's not the way that this should work. It shouldn’t be up to a lawyer to do work for free, which is what happens to provide ethical representation.” (28:11, Ben)

“Give us more money or give us fewer cases.” (33:49, Ben)

“I’ll say it again. We missed the point of these bail reforms. There are certain individuals who, because of poverty, are not a threat to the community and are in jail.” (38:01, Hunter)

“I hate that we as a society always have an overreaction to everything that happens, whether it’s on the left or right, or something bad happens that we don’t like. And then we over-correct, so we make it just as bad. And we can't get that pendulum to just sit right in the middle where it works ” (39:11, Hunter)

“You shouldn’t fund government services on poor people.” (40:13, Ben)