CURRENT LITIGATION

McClendon, et al., v. City of Albuquerque, et al.

In March 2026, the Bazelon Center was appointed by a federal judge as counsel for a subclass of individuals with mental health disabilities in a longstanding case against Bernalillo County and the City of Albuquerque in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico about jail overcrowding and conditions, as well as illegal and discriminatory policing practices. When it began, this lawsuit was, at its core, about preventing overcrowding in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC). However, the Defendant County of Bernalillo alone does not control who is arrested and booked into the MDC; Defendant City of Albuquerque and the Albuquerque Police Department (APD) also do.

To this end, in June 2016, the district court approved a settlement agreement entered into by the parties to this lawsuit with respect to the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Detention Center (“MDC”), as well as two other later stipulated settlement agreements with the County, to remedy ongoing constitutional and statutory violations. These call for specific remedial actions and measures, including a requirement to develop a proposal to the State Human Services Department and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) to provide Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS) and supportive housing to people with mental health and development disabilities.

Similarly, in March 2017, the district court approved a settlement agreement with the City of Albuquerque to remedy ongoing constitutional and statutory violations. Specifically, in 2017, the City was accused of sweeping people with mental health disabilities and unhoused people from the City’s streets and taking them to jail, using policing practices that violated the U.S. Constitution, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and stipulated court orders. The parties bargained for specific terms and steps to be taken by the City to remedy these violations of the law and reduce jail overcrowding, including providing non-police responses to mental health emergencies, expanding and funding jail diversion programs, and providing supportive housing to people booked into the jail, including people with mental health disabilities.

The Bazelon Center joined as co-counsel in the case to help implement and address ongoing violations of these settlement agreements by the County of Bernalillo and City of Albuquerque, including unlawful stops, searches, seizures, and arrest practices by APD targeting the unhoused and those with mental health disabilities.

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