New Mexico Governor signs executive order on abortion access

Amid the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade and ending federal protections on the right to an abortion, New Mexico’s Governor signed an executive order Monday related to abortion access in the state. The order addresses issues several outstanding issues as they related to New Mexico’s willingness to help other states that now have different laws on the books related to abortion.

The order comes as New Mexico lawmakers consider more definitions surrounding abortion following the state’s 2021 law, repealing a 1969 abortion ban in New Mexico. The governor was joined at Monday’s press conference by lawmakers and reproductive rights advocates, including Senate Majority Whip Linda Lopez (D-Albuquerque), and representatives of Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains and the ACLU of New Mexico.

“We will not further imperil the rights and access points of anyone in the state of New Mexico,” Governor Lujan Grisham said. “As long as I’m Governor, everyone in the state of New Mexico will be protected, out of state residents seeking access will be protected, providers will be protected, and abortion is, and will continue to be legal, safe and accessible.”

The order can be broken down into three elements. The first surrounds assistance from New Mexico state agencies to other states. It directs all New Mexico state employees, appointees, officers or any others acting on behalf of the state to not provide assistance to any “investigation or proceeding initiated in or by another State that seeks to impose civil or criminal liability or professional sanction upon a person or entity” for various choices related to reproductive health care services that are legal in New Mexico.

The second elements seeks to define protection of health care and other professionals licensed in New Mexico. It directs New Mexico’s Superintendent of Regulation and Licensing to work with boards to develop policies ensuring “no person shall be disqualified from licensure or subject to discipline by a New Mexico board of professional licensure” for providing reproductive health care services otherwise legal in New Mexico, but illegal in another state.

The third element outlines limits on interstate extradition related to states that have outlined criminal statutes related to abortion. The order states the “Office of the Governor shall decline any request received from the executive authority of any other State to issue a warrant for the arrest or surrender of any person charged with a criminals violation of a law” as they relate to legal practices surrounding reproductive health care in New Mexico.

More at: https://www.krqe.com/news/new-mexico/new-mexico-governor-to-sign-executive-order-on-abortion-access/

Appeals court reinstates civil rights lawsuits of dozens of bikers arrested in 2015 Twin Peaks shootout

WACO, Texas (KWTX) - The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the lawsuits – at least temporarily – of about 90 bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout whose civil rights cases were thrown out last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright.

A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court reversed Albright’s previous ruling that a grand jury’s indictment of the 90 bikers “served to break the chain of causation” for their false arrest claims and sent the cases back to Albright for further consideration in light of the court’s ruling.

The panel’s complex, 17-page opinion puts the civil rights cases of about 90 bikers back in play and instructs Albright to determine if each defendant has alleged adequate claims that they were falsely arrested after the melee that left nine dead and 20 injured.

By dismissing the suits of the indicted bikers, Albright did so through “a legal erroneous application” of the independent intermediary doctrine, the panel ruled. The doctrine, as interpreted by the 5th Circuit, states that even if an officer makes a false arrest and violates the detainee’s Fourth Amendment rights, the officer will not be liable if the facts supporting the arrest are put before an impartial intermediary, such as a magistrate or a grand jury, and the intermediary finds probable cause.

“Because the district court concluded that the independent intermediary doctrine applied, it did not discuss the merits of the plaintiffs’ false arrest claims,” the opinion states. “But the nature of the plaintiffs’ false arrest claims is relevant to our inquiry here because they argue, in essence, that the independent intermediary doctrine should not apply to the grand jury’s indictment because the grand jury was misled in the very same way as the magistrate who issued the arrest warrants.”

More at: https://www.kwtx.com/2022/04/29/appeals-court-reinstates-civil-rights-lawsuits-dozens-bikers-arrested-2015-twin-peaks-shootout/