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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T
SPONSOR MJ Garcia
ORIGINAL DATE
LAST UPDATED
02/06/07
HB
SHORT TITLE Damage to Household Member’s Property
SB 619
ANALYST Hanika Ortiz
APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)
Appropriation
Recurring
or Non-Rec
Fund
Affected
FY07
FY08
NFI
(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)
SOURCES OF INFORMATION
LFC Files
Responses Received From
Public Defender Department (PDD)
Administrative Office of the Courts (AOC)
Corrections Department (CD)
SUMMARY
Synopsis of Bill
Senate Bill 619 adds a new Section of Chapter 30, Article 15 NMSA 1978 which creates a new
criminal offense of damage to a household member’s property without consent from all owners
of the property. Whoever commits this crime is guilty of a petty misdemeanor, except that when
the damage to the property amounts to more than one thousand dollars ($1,000) he is guilty of a
fourth degree felony. A household member is any spouse, former spouse or family member,
including a relative, parent, present or former stepparent, present or former in-law, co-parent of a
child or person with whom a person has had a continuing personal relationship. Cohabitation is
not necessary to be a household member.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS
Any fiscal impact on the judiciary would be proportional to the enforcement of this law and
commenced prosecutions. There may be an increase in the amount of work that needs to be done
by the courts, thus requiring additional resources to handle increase.
There will be a minimal administrative cost for statewide update, distribution and documentation
pg_0002
Senate Bill 619 – Page
2
of statutory changes. Any additional fiscal impact on the judiciary would be proportional to the
enforcement of this law and commenced prosecutions. New laws, amendments to existing laws
and new hearings have the potential to increase caseloads in the courts, thus requiring additional
resources to handle the increase.
SIGNIFICANT ISSUES
Under current law, criminal damage to property consists of intentionally damaging any real or
personal property of another without the consent of the owner of the property. The penalties are
the same as are in the bill.
The bill attempts to address the issue of whether a person can be guilty of criminal damage to
property that he owns with another. The current criminal damage to property statute already ap-
plies to household members when the property is not jointly owned by the alleged offender, be-
cause the property is “property of another". PDD reports that the problem with this new legisla-
tion is that it makes it possible for a household member with a 1% interest in property to have the
person with 99% ownership in the damaged property to be charged with a crime.
CONFLICT, DUPLICATION, COMPANIONSHIP, RELATIONSHIP
Duplicate of HB 446
OTHER SUBSTANTIVE ISSUES
This legislation is related to the Family Violence Protection Act, NMSA 1978, sections 40-13-1,
et seq. which is intended to prevent domestic abuse. Section 40-13-2(C)(6) defines "domestic
abuse" as any incident by a household member against another household member resulting in
criminal damage to property and allows the victim to obtain a protective order against the of-
fending household member.
AHO/nt