The San Juan County Sheriff’s Office is investigating a homicide, but has withheld the details, including the victim’s name.
The homicide reportedly happened between 7:32 p.m. March 12 and 2:52 a.m. March 13.
The Tri-City Record requested the incident report and received a highly redacted narrative that does not include the location of where the body was found, the reporting party, or the identity victim, something that should be releasable under the law.
“It is clear that the name of the deceased person should be public if the person is a suspected victim of homicide,” said Amanda Lavin, legal director for the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government. “The names of victims of crimes may be redacted only before charges are filed, and only for certain crimes. Homicide is not one of these crimes.”
The Sheriff’s Office report did state that the victim is a 45-year-old Native American female, who died “between 7:32 p.m. March 12 and 2:52 a.m. March 13,” according to the narrative.
The victim reportedly was found around 7:30 p.m. March 13, “along a dirt road,” the report states.
The reporting party met the investigator “at the intersection of NM 170 and NM 574,” according to the narrative.
The crime listed on the narrative is first-degree murder with the suspect “unknown.”
The Sheriff’s Office claimed the reason for the redactions was “confidential, sources methods or information,” which is allowed under the Inspection of Public Records Act, but Lavin said the department is using this as “a sort of catchall exception to redact or withhold any information they think should be confidential.”
Some of this information “isn't specifically exempted under IPRA, including information about ongoing investigations and victims of suspected homicide, which are both categories of information that are public and should not be removed from public records,” Lavin said.
The Sheriff’s Office records clerk noted that Detective C. Price “is responsible for any denial or redaction” and that this is an “active case.”
However, Lavin said the New Mexico Supreme Court ruled in 2020, “that law enforcement records relating to an ongoing criminal investigation are not exempt from inspection under IPRA.”
In the case of Jones v. City of Albuquerque Police Department, 2020-NMSC-013, ¶ 37, “the court went on to reiterate, ‘the exceptions to IPRA's mandate of disclosure are narrowly drawn,’” Lavin said.
She added, “the Sheriff's Office appears to be using 14-2-1.2(A)(7) to redact anything and everything they want instead of only what is specifically allowed to be redacted under IPRA.”
The Tri-City Record will provide more information when it becomes available.
