New Mexico court stays push for grand juries on COVID steps

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — The New Mexico Supreme Court has put on hold several citizen requests that used petition drives to call for convening grand juries to investigate Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s handling of COVID-19. The Albuquerque Journal reports that the state high court on Tuesday granted Lujan Grisham’s motion for a stay of requests filed in Eddy, Lea and Chaves counties in southeastern New Mexico pending further court filings. Republican legislators and others have criticized Lujan Grisham’s imposition of public-health mandates as overly burdensome and infringing on personal freedoms. She has defended them as necessary to curb the spread of the coronavirus.