New Mexico
N.M. Stat. Ann. § 32A-4-3 — New Mexico mandatory-reporting statute
- Clergy named as mandatory reporter?
- Yes
- Confessional exemption?
- Yes
- Statute
- N.M. Stat. Ann. § 32A-4-3
- Clergy named
- Expressly
- Pending
- —
New Mexico law names clergy as mandated reporters of child abuse and neglect, but only when the information is not privileged as a matter of law. The statute itself does not define what counts as privileged. That definition lives in Rule 11-506 NMRA, the clergy-penitent privilege adopted by the New Mexico Supreme Court as part of the Rules of Evidence. The result is a two-move dodge: the legislature names clergy in § 32A-4-3(A), then defers the operative limit on the duty to a court rule the legislature cannot unilaterally amend. The New Mexico Constitution reserves the rules of evidence to the Supreme Court, so the legislature cannot rewrite that limit on its own (Ammerman v. Hubbard Broadcasting, 1976); the Court read the reporting duty itself as universal in State v. Strauch (2015), and an unpublished Court of Appeals decision, State v. Pritchett (2021), held the reporting statute does not by itself override the clergy-penitent privilege. A 2025 statutory amendment that touched neighboring subsections left the clergy language and the privilege qualifier untouched. Reform here means moving two pieces, a statute and a court rule, at once.