Given the nature of the COVID pandemic, this year's Legislature adopted unique rules for virtual proceedings to halt the continuing spread of the virus. Displeased with the rules, members of the Republican leadership sued Speaker Egolf and the Legislative Council asserting that the rules were un...
Rothstein Donatelli continues to push to hold institutions that harbor child predators accountable. In October of 2020, a judge for the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New Mexico ruled that the committee representing almost 400 child sexual abuse survivors could pursue lawsuits challenging the legality ...
Almost a year has gone by since New Mexico’s Criminal Record Expungement Act went into effect on January 1, 2020. Since then, the courts have had to deal with a number of challenges on top of the influx the new expungement cases. Today we are providing an update as to how the expungement cases are going and answering questions that may be on your mind:
Associate Glennas'ba Augborne Arents participated in election protection services with the Arizona Native Vote Election Protection Project (AZNVEP) on Election Day this year. Glennas'ba has been a long-time volunteer of Native Vote Election Protection and has led the Indian Legal Clinic's Electio...
Lawyer Mark Donatelli shares decades of service in ending the death penalty in our country and working toward the ending of prison cruelty and solitary confinement in our nation's prisons. Mark is a Upaya sangha member and a true Bodhisattva. A must watch!
Rothstein Partners Peter Schoenburg and April Olson provided pro bono representation of a water protector opposing the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) in a criminal trial in Mandan, South Dakota. Peter and April were able to get the demonstrator's conviction overturned by the North Dakota Supreme...
Associate Glenna'sba Augborne Arents was part of a panel discussion at Arizona State University Sandra Day O'Conner College of Law on Black Perspectives in Indian Law.
Associate Glennas’ba Augborne Arents joins a panel discussion at UC Berkley School of Law on race, multi-racial identities, tribal law and the intersection of Black Liberation and Indigenous Sovereignty. To listen in, click here.
Partner Mark Donatelli spoke with KSFR about conditions in jails and prisons state-wide and nation-wide, including the conditions surrounding Jeffrey Epstein's suicide in custody. To listen to this interview, click here.
This ruling allows survivors to challenge the legality of the sequestering of assets from the estate of the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. The Archdiocese incorporated parishes and created trusts in order to protect assets from claims made by the survivors of sexual abuse. Now the survivors have the ab...
Partner April Olson will present at an upcoming Webinar and CLE titled “ICWA in Action: Protecting Children and Families” on October 21, 2021. Ms. Olson will discuss procedural rules adopted by many states that govern admission of attorneys to practice pro hac vice in state courts in cases where...
On September 29, 2020, the Pueblos of Santa Ana, Jemez, and Zia secured a major victory from the Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Abousleman, No. 18-2164, which overturned the District Court's ruling that the Pueblos' aboriginal water rights in the Jemez River Basin had been com...
On September 25, 2020, the D.C. Circuit delivered a major victory to the Indian tribe plaintiffs in the case of Confederated Tribes of the Chehalis Reservation v. Mnuchin (Case No. 20-4205). (Rothstein Donatelli represents the Pueblo of Picuris and is co-counsel with the Navajo Nation Department ...
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit has reversed a decision by the U.S. District Court of New Mexico and ruled that the Estate of Ricardo J. Ortiz successfully stated a claim against both Santa Fe County and a corrections officer employed by the Santa Fe County Jail (ADF) who ignored ...
Rothstein Donatelli has a rich decades-long tradition of amplifying the voices of marginalized people and communities. We are proud to carry on this history today. This suit represents one man's demand for recognition of his dignity and the dignity of his community and we are proud to fight with ...
The Navajo Nation has sent a clemency petition to President Trump that once again reaffirms the Navajo Nation's opposition to the death penalty for Lezmond Mitchell and requests that Mitchell's sentence be commuted to life imprisonment. The petition from Navajo President Jonathan Nez and Vice Pr...
The United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”) has scheduled the execution of Lezmond Mitchell—a Navajo man who is the sole Native American on federal death row—for August 26, 2020. Over the past two decades, the DOJ has zealously pursued the execution of Mitchell despite the objections of th...
Rothstein Donatelli stands with survivors of priest sexual abuse in their fight to clean up the Catholic Church and to hold the institutions responsible for sheltering pedophiles and providing them access to the children of New Mexico accountable to the fullest extent. After decades of suffering ...
Investigative journalist Jeff Proctor reached out to Cammie Nichols to discuss the use of force by security guards to gain an understanding of whether they have any of the same privileges as law enforcement. The answer is in the following article: Investigators from two different law enforc...
On July 9, 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major victory for the Muscogee (Creek) Nation in the case of McGirt v. Oklahoma, No. 18-9526. The Court ruled that the Creek Nation's reservation was not diminished by Congress, and so the state of Oklahoma lacked criminal jurisdiction over crim...
Open government is a foundational pillar of democracy which is reflected in New Mexico's public records laws. The courts have made clear that governmental entities may not escape their duties to the public to provide access to public records by simply contracting their public roles and responsibi...
Rothstein Donatelli attorneys have always been involved in institutional reform efforts, whether through class action litigation or legislative activities. For over twenty years, Mark Donatelli has been chosen for the New Mexico Sentencing Commission through appointment by the Speaker of the NM H...
Although everyone knows the Catholic Church became a refuge for child molesters at times, unfortunately, institutional protection of child molesters extends far beyond just the Catholic Church to other local, national and global religious organizations and other institutions parents entrusted wit...
The most crucial moments in defending any criminal case often occur in the initial days of proceedings. The choices made and actions taken by the defense in those times can shape the trajectory of the entire case and often represent the difference between a favorable outcome and one that negative...
Rothstein Donatelli continues to be at the forefront of every survivors' fight to hold Church leaders accountable for unleashing vast numbers of pedophile priests into the communities of New Mexico. In this case, our survivors' rights team is prosecuting claims involving one of the most notoriou...
