Opinion ID: 891567
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Drunk and Disorderly

Text: {7} From New Mexico's earliest days, drunkenness and disorderly conduct were closely intertwined, and some of the first laws on record for the Territory address drunkenness and alcoholism. In 1855, for example, a person could be adjudged an habitual drunkard based on the affirmation of six men, and upon such determination, the district court could appoint a guardian or a trustee to manage both the person and his estate. See 1856 N.M. Laws, ch. 11, §§ 1-6. In addition, the Territorial Legislature passed an Act Against Persons Who Disturb Good Order, defined as [e]very inhabitant within the limits of this Territory who shall appear drunk, or in their sound mind shall, within the plazas or streets, use, in loud voice, scandalous or obscene words, or may remain prostrate in the streets, or in any other public place, if they are not taken care of by some friend or relation who shall take them immediately to their houses, or prevent them from committing such scandal. Any person who shall commit such offences shall be immediately taken by any officer ... who, if in his judgment it should be necessary, may require the aid of the citizens, to place such delinquents in the county jail, from which they shall be set at liberty, for the first offense, the following day, having to pay the usual jail fees. [4] Id. § 1. {8} In 1891, our Territorial Legislature prohibited Drunkenness and Disorderly Conduct and declared that [i]t shall be unlawful for any person to become intoxicated or disorderly, and any person found in such state shall upon conviction thereof before a justice of the peace be fined in a sum of not less than five dollars and not more than twenty-five dollars. 1891 N.M. Laws, ch. 9, § 9. This enactment remained in force and without substantial change until 1963, [5] when the Legislature separated disorderly conduct from drunkenness as distinct offenses in the Criminal Code. See NMSA 1953, § 40A-20-1(A) (Vol. 6, 2d Repl.) (defining disorderly conduct as violent, abusive, indecent, profane, boisterous, unreasonably loud or otherwise disorderly conduct which tends to disturb the peace); NMSA 1953, § 40A-20-2 (Vol. 6, 2d Repl.) (Drunkenness consists of being so intoxicated in a public place that the person has become disorderly or is unable to care for his own safety. Whoever commits drunkenness is guilty of a petty misdemeanor.). Drunkenness remained a misdemeanor offense for an additional ten years when, in 1973, the Legislature repealed Section 40A-20-2 (being 1963 N.M. Laws, ch. 303, § 20-2), as part of the newly enacted Detoxification Act. See 1973 N.M. Laws, ch. 331, § 8.