Grand jury petitions

SANTA FE, N.M. — Citizen-initiated grand jury petitions seeking an investigation into New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic are invalid because they “describe only lawful, noncriminal activity” the state’s Supreme Court ruled.

The court also referred the matter to a judicial committee to determine whether there should be rule changes that would give targets of citizen grand jury petitions notice and an opportunity to intervene, and “explicitly require the district court to rule on the legal validity of a citizen grand jury petition.”