Two compete in Democratic major for lawyer basic | Native Information

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 change into acquainted to voters throughout their careers — however their backgrounds and imaginative and prescient for the workplace are vastly completely different.

Colón, 52, stated he grew up in Part 8 housing in Los Lunas and famous in a latest 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 an adolescent 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 faculty.

“I used to be dwelling my father’s dream although he handed away proper after I acquired to school,” he stated. “It wasn’t simple. I struggled.”

He labored his approach by faculty through a collection of strange 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 regulation 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 Celebration from 2007 to 2009. Up 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 yr later, he was elected to go the state Auditor’s Workplace.

His authorized profession has been dedicated to the follow of civil regulation — most prominently as a companion within the Robles, Rael and Anaya agency, the place Colón stated he centered totally on private harm and wrongful dying circumstances.

The agency secured a number of contracts from the Lawyer Normal’s Workplace, headed by its present occupant, Hector Balderas. That has drawn scrutiny from critics who query the position the private relationship between Marcus Rael Jr. and Balderas — each Colón’s classmates at UNM Regulation College — performed within the allocation of these contracts.

The follow of contracting with exterior 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 concerning the race offered to The New Mexican, he wrote: “Balderas has been a mannequin for Attorneys Normal all through the nation.”

Requested what he’d do in a different 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 throughout 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 companies to deal with these people,” he stated.

“We have now to be practical. The lawyer basic doesn’t get a cape, however what the lawyer basic 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 chief.”

Torrez, 45, was born and raised in Albuquerque — his mom, Mary Butler, was a trainer; his father, Presiliano Torrez, is a federal prosecutor, who’s about to retire after 45 years with the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace.

Each mother and father, he stated, helped him perceive the causes and penalties of crime — classes which have stayed with him by his profession.

“The largest long-term driver of … most crime however particularly violent crime, is the terribly excessive charge of antagonistic experiences in early childhood,” Torrez stated. “When folks ask me for my analysis of our public security applications and what we have to do, in a whole lot of methods [my] mother’s work within the classroom and [my] dad’s work in courtroom are form of bookends in the identical story.”

He attended tony Sandia Preparatory College earlier than leaving New Mexico for a couple of 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 regulation, nevertheless, he began from scratch, doing stints as an assistant district lawyer in Valencia County, an assistant state lawyer basic and as a prosecutor within the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace earlier than opening his personal follow in 2013.

He was elected district lawyer for Bernalillo County’s Second Judicial District — which has the best quantity of felony circumstances within the state — in 2016 and once more in 2020, when he was unopposed.

Requested to guage the present Lawyer Normal’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 acquired marketing campaign donations from out-of-state regulation companies.

Torrez stated his prosecutorial profession has been marked by what he’s seen in lots of New Mexico properties, the place poverty and violence have collided, usually with horrible outcomes.

Whereas diversion and enforcement can have short-term results on the crime charge, he stated, “The long-term resolution to the general public security problem lies in a heavy, heavy funding in traumatized youngsters and destabilized households.”

Torrez stated he’d change into extra concerned in shaping crime coverage in New Mexico — taking an energetic position in ongoing debates over pretrial detention reform and analyzing alternate options to incarceration. Each are hot-button points.

The thorny difficulty of bail reform, a controversial topic on each ends of the law-and-order debate in New Mexico, looms for the subsequent lawyer basic, and maybe, politicians all through the state.

Torrez has been outspoken concerning the state’s pretrial detention system, contending it wants additional tweaking. It was altered a number of years in the past to eradicate cash bonds for low-level criminals with out the means to put up bail. It additionally ended the follow of permitting judges to carry harmful defendants indefinitely, no matter their capacity to put up bail.

“Based mostly on my evaluate of the information, 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 felony protection bar, who level to a 2021 UNM research which confirmed solely 15 p.c 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 may have adopted a technique used federally and elsewhere, through which defendants accused of sure crimes could be routinely held with out bond except their lawyer can show they aren’t 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 might shield the neighborhood from them.

Torrez stated if a system akin to the federal methodology is applied, he would assist guidelines requiring circumstances involving defendants held with out bond to be resolved inside particular timeframes, as is the case in federal courts.

“If the Legislature doesn’t imagine that’s an acceptable resolution, I’m prepared and keen to interact with them on what could be a extra acceptable resolution,” 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 suppose there had been a sturdy sufficient dialogue about all of the variables.

“Once you speak about shifting folks’s burdens and affecting civil rights and never ensuring they’re protected within the system — notably communities of colour and communities within the margin economically — I feel you’ve acquired to pump the breaks and be sure 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 yr.

Based on 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 regulation companies. Torrez contributors — who additionally included some out-of-state donors — donated in smaller quantities. It’s unclear the place nearly all of his cash has been spent, the majority of it’s categorized as “different” on the web site.