New Mexico watchdog sues Department of Public Safety, alleging records act violations

An Albuquerque-based watchdog group filed a lawsuit in Santa Fe District Court on Tuesday accusing the New Mexico Department of Public Safety of repeatedly violating a 47-year-old records law designed to ensure government transparency in the state.

Passed in 1978, the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act gives members of the media and the general public the right to access most public records held by state and local governments within 15 days.

The New Mexico Foundation for Open Government is arguing that the Department of Public Safety has demonstrated a “pattern and practice” of abusing a legal exception to extend that timeline, allowable only when records custodians deem requests overly broad or burdensome.

The department, which includes New Mexico State Police, regularly violates a 2020 New Mexico Supreme Court ruling barring records custodians from stating that a criminal investigation is “ongoing,” “open” or “active” to deny or delay requests, according to Tuesday’s complaint.

FOG referenced numerous information requests made by New Mexico media outlets that it says the Department of Public Safety has delayed or denied illegally this year.

“There’s been a repetitive and persistent failure to comply with IPRA’s time limits,” FOG Legal Director Amanda Lavin said. “That’s despite having multiple lawsuits brought against them, despite pushback from journalists from FOG and others, and despite a Supreme Court ruling telling them that they can’t withhold records just because there’s an ongoing law enforcement investigation.”

The lawsuit cites months of delays stemming from public information requests regarding allegations of an assault at a New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department office in Albuquerque, for example, and the death of Rio Arriba County Sheriff Billy Merrifield, whose fatal overdose in April remains the subject of a State Police investigation.

In April, a Rio Grande Sun journalist challenged the Department of Public Safety’s denial of a public information request on the basis of an ongoing investigation, citing a 2020 state Supreme Court case in which justices ruled that agencies may not use an investigation’s active status as a basis to withhold public records.

FOG also says the Department of Public Safety has been inconsistent in its responses to requestors, sometimes informing them certain records do not exist, only to release them at a later date.

Lavin said FOG will seek an injunction ordering the Department of Public Safety into compliance.

In response to a request for comment, Department of Public Safety Public Information Officer John Heil wrote in an email that the agency “has not yet been served and cannot comment on pending litigation.”

He did, however, note that records requests filed with the agency have increased in the last three fiscal years, rising from 12,206 in fiscal year 2023, to 13,611 in fiscal year 2024, to 13,955 in fiscal year 2025.

The agency currently has 10 full-time employees in its IPRA unit, he said, including a records custodian manager, IPRA supervisor, six IPRA coordinators and two IPRA accident coordinators.

Heil also referred the Journal to three news releases on the Department of Public Safety website describing the operations of its forensic laboratories, with one titled, ”Gatekeepers: How New Mexico’s Department of Public Safety Forensic Laboratory Evidence Unit safeguards case integrity.”