Apr 28th, 2021 5 min read
COMMENTARY BY
Legal Fellow, Meese Center
GianCarlo is a Legal Fellow in the Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Justice Thomson’s admonition that the courts ought to be vigilant against executive overreach can be seen as hollow. FotografiaBasica / Getty Images
Key Takeaways
The New Mexico Supreme Court rejected a challenge to an executive order that closed indoor dining at restaurants and breweries in response to COVID-19.
The court concluded that the order did not disrupt the balance of powers because “New Mexico has not entered a ‘new normal.’”
The court has, perhaps inadvertently, potentially initiated a dramatic shift in state administrative law.
New Mexico court: Rape protections endure after death
Feb. 25, 2021
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SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) The New Mexico Supreme Court ruled Thursday that legal protections against rape extend to victims who are unable to express consent including the dead.
The high court upheld a rape conviction against a Clovis man accused of stabbing a woman and then raping her dead body.
Lorenzo Martinez was convicted of murder and rape in the 2017 stabbing death of a 57-year-old woman.
On appeal, attorneys for Martinez argued that New Mexico law requires that a rape victim be alive at the time of the crime for criminal statutes to apply.
New Mexico State Supreme Court
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Monday issued a written opinion that explained its reasoning behind a bench ruling regarding state emergency public health orders. The high court ruled last summer that the state and the governor are legally allowed to issue emergency health orders without a formal rulemaking process.
The court unanimously ruled that the state Department of Health and Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham are granted, by the Legislature, the ability to issue orders limiting certain business activities. In this case, businesses were ordered to cease indoor dining during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Last year a group of business owners challenged those orders, arguing that they were arbitrary and capricious and that the normal rulemaking process should be followed to implement such emergency orders.