{"id":15472,"date":"2025-11-28T15:08:49","date_gmt":"2025-11-28T22:08:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-municipal-court-judge-highlights-24-uptick-in-criminal-cases-discusses-teen-court-idea\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:48:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:48:09","slug":"cortez-municipal-court-judge-highlights-24-uptick-in-criminal-cases-discusses-teen-court-idea","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/cortez-municipal-court-judge-highlights-24-uptick-in-criminal-cases-discusses-teen-court-idea\/","title":{"rendered":"Cortez Municipal Court judge highlights 24% uptick in criminal cases, discusses teen court idea"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Now-retired
Now-retired Cortez City Clerk Linda Smith swears in Beth Padilla in as Cortez Municipal Court judge on Nov. 18, 2021. (Courtesy City of Cortez)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Municipal Court Judge Beth Padilla told Cortez City Council on Tuesday that the city saw a 24% increase in criminal filings over the past year.<\/p>\n

She also reported progress in handling juvenile cases. After a council-passed amendment, the court now handles more underage possession cases. Padilla is researching a teen court option for youths.<\/p>\n

Uptick fits with other trends<\/div>\n

Padilla said criminal citations last year totaled 386, compared with 509 this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can\u2019t necessarily explain why,\u201d Padilla said. \u201cI think that\u2019s a question for other people. But I do think it just speaks to the volume of cases that we\u2019re processing and how critical it is that we have a really smooth-running court.\u201d<\/p>\n

Padilla said the cause is not necessarily a rise in criminal activity, but may reflect officers filing cases in municipal court at their discretion.<\/p>\n

The recent uptick aligns with other reports this year. In August, municipal court cases<\/a> totaled 623 compared with 391 a year earlier, according to counts shared with The Journal<\/em> by Cortez public information officer Kelly Codner.<\/p>\n

Similar to what Padilla said Tuesday, causes for the rise remain unclear.<\/p>\n

At the level of the 22nd Judicial District, office manager Clarisa Osborn told the Montezuma County Board of County Commissioners earlier in November<\/a> that the severity of crimes in the region has risen, along with juvenile handgun possession cases.<\/p>\n

Osborn did not point to specific numbers, and DA Jeremy Reed said the increase in severity could be a \u201ccyclical\u201d matter.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ll have a stretch of more serious things, and then it\u2019ll hopefully calm down again,\u201d said Reed.<\/p>\n

Underage possession dealt with in municipal court<\/div>\n

Padilla said the court is handling cases resulting from a juvenile justice amendment passed by councilors<\/a>. That amendment requires youths caught with alcohol, cannabis or nicotine to appear in municipal court instead of district court.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have seen a significant increase in juveniles, which was what we wanted,\u201d Padilla said. \u201cThat is in part because the ordinance was modified this year to allow underage possession of alcohol and tobacco and marijuana in our system.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last year\u2019s municipal court addressed four tickets for possession. This year has seen 17, she said.<\/p>\n

Padilla said the shift benefits youths.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes if they\u2019re in district court, the dockets are bigger. They might be stuck there for a long period of time. We get them in (to municipal court) and out and back to school as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Padilla emphasized the age of some offenders: \u201cWe\u2019re seeing people as young as 12 in the courtroom,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey have a difficult time seeing over the podium; these are very young defendants charged with very low-level offenses. They\u2019re charged with having alcohol or marijuana at school, typically, is what we\u2019re seeing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Repeat offender youths could end up before district court, Padilla said.<\/p>\n

Judge and clerk research possibility of teen court<\/div>\n

With the assistance of court clerk Carla Odell, Padilla is researching a teen court for juvenile offenders, she told council.<\/p>\n

The specialized court can reduce recidivism, Padilla said.<\/p>\n

For instance, a North Carolina Department of Public Safety study reviewing three adjudication options across more than 6,500 youths offender cases found that teen court resulted the lowest rate of recidivism<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Under the unique system, courts use youths volunteers, Padilla said. The charged teen who pleads guilty receives a limited sentence, often including jury duty.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe youths typically receive the punishment better coming from their peers,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Padilla and Odell met with officials from Los Alamos County, New Mexico, teen court to learn more about the process, Padilla said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not familiar with any other municipal courts in our area that are doing this, but I think it would be a good opportunity for us to be a leader in that way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Padilla says court taking on more underage possession cases due to amendment made by City Council<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-15472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15472"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15472\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19675,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15472\/revisions\/19675"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15472"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=15472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}