The case concerned a former employee who sued the New Mexico Department of Information Technology and several individual defendants after her termination, claiming violations of the Family and Medical Leave Act stemming from her request for leave due to pregnancy complications, along with due process allegations. The court ruled on multiple pending motions, granting defendants' motion for partial judgment on the pleadings, denying the plaintiff's motion for partial summary judgment on Count IV, denying summary judgment as to DoIT, and granting in part and denying in part summary judgment regarding the individual defendants. It concluded that the plaintiff was ineligible for FMLA protection because she was a probationary employee without a protected property interest in continued employment and had not demonstrated the elements required for estoppel or waiver claims. The court also found no evidence that the plaintiff had changed her position in reliance on any belief that her leave was FMLA-protected, as her absence resulted from an unforeseen medical emergency.
In United States v. Perez-Partida, the defendant moved to suppress evidence of his identity after police stopped his vehicle based on an anonymous tip about drug activity, obtained consent to search (communicated in broken Spanish), found drugs, and arrested him; at the city prisoner transport center, an ICE partnership policy led to fingerprinting that revealed his prior deportation and triggered federal charges for illegal reentry after an aggravated felony under 8 U.S.C. §§ 1326(a) & (b). The court granted the motion to suppress, holding that the identity evidence constituted fruit of the poisonous tree from the unlawful arrest and search. The core reasoning was that the fingerprints and A-file were obtained through deliberate exploitation of the illegal detention via the ICE screening policy rather than through any independent or attenuated means that would dissipate the taint under the Fourth Amendment.
This case involves Petitioner Carl Case's second or successive federal habeas corpus petition under 28 U.S.C. § 2254 challenging his 1982 New Mexico convictions for first-degree murder and first-degree criminal sexual penetration. After an evidentiary hearing, the district court found that Case met the strict requirements of 28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(2)(B) based on newly discovered evidence, including credible recantations by two trial witnesses who admitted fabricating their testimony, an undisclosed witness statement, and DNA results showing no male DNA on the victim. The court concluded that the state courts' rejection of Case's Brady claim and related arguments involved unreasonable factual determinations and applications of clearly established federal law. Accordingly, the court conditionally granted the habeas petition, denied the respondent's motion to dismiss, and denied Case's partial motion for reconsideration as moot.
In this case, defendant Franco-Lopez was indicted on charges of transporting illegal aliens, aiding and abetting, and conspiracy under 8 U.S.C. § 1324 after allegedly picking up undocumented individuals near the U.S.-Mexico border. Following a jury trial that resulted in guilty verdicts on the conspiracy count and one transportation count, the defendant renewed his motion for judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, arguing that the government failed to prove the transported individual had entered the United States or that there was interdependence among conspiracy members. The court denied the motion, holding that when viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the trial evidence—including testimony from a co-defendant, Border Patrol agents, and the transported individual—was sufficient for a rational jury to find the essential elements of both offenses beyond a reasonable doubt.
This case is a long-running federal adjudication of water rights in New Mexico's Pojoaque Basin, brought by the State Engineer against private landowners and with the United States and several Pueblos intervening as plaintiffs. The court addressed a motion by settling parties seeking court approval of procedures to review a proposed settlement agreement, enter a partial final decree, issue an interim administrative order, and ultimately enter a final decree. The court granted the motion in part, directing specific revisions to the proposed orders to clarify the magistrate judge's role in handling objections, remove unnecessary service requirements, and ensure that objectors must demonstrate a legally cognizable injury to have standing, consistent with Tenth Circuit precedent and New Mexico water statutes.
In this case, the court addressed a motion to determine the admissibility of three out-of-court statements by alleged co-conspirators in a federal drug trafficking prosecution arising from a border checkpoint stop where marijuana and firearms were found in the vehicles. After a James hearing, the court ruled that statements made by co-defendants Fuller and Johnson directly to Border Patrol Agent Meza were inadmissible because they were testimonial in nature and violated the Confrontation Clause under Crawford v. Washington. The court further ruled that a statement by co-conspirator "Felix" to another co-defendant was admissible as a non-testimonial statement under Federal Rule of Evidence 801(d)(2)(E). The core reasoning distinguished between testimonial statements, which require confrontation regardless of hearsay exceptions, and non-testimonial co-conspirator statements, which may be admitted under the rule without additional Sixth Amendment scrutiny.