Whenever a case comes forward involving allegations that a police officer abused their position of authority or engaged in wrongdoing etc, the case is often seen as a conflict of interest when it gets handed to the district attorney in the region.

Why?

The district attorneys and the police officers are seemingly on the same side, both working for the state, and so you can see the potential conflict.

For this reason, those sorts of cases are known to be given to district attorneys from other districts, or given to the Attorney General's Office. This is supposed to decrease the chances of it becoming 'too close to home' and a potential conflict of interest between those who are involved.

In New Mexico, one lawmaker there is looking to introduce legislation that would seek to promote further transparency for these cases. Along with that transparency is the hope that it would fuel more accountability for officers in the region.

If passed, the new changes would mean that those cases would require concurrent jurisdiction for the district attorneys and AG's office.

It would become a collective effort working on the case, between organizations, from start to finish, and the hope is that more eyes on the case might increase the chances of justice truly being served.

But this would only work if those individuals working with those other agencies are also seeking justice and not looking to in any way obstruct it. We have seen failure from lawmakers and enforcers on multiple levels, we should assume that no organization is immune to corruption.

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