On November 7, 2005, Freedom from Religious Foundation, Inc., along with several individual members of the organization who were New Mexico taxpayers, filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico against the New Mexico Corrections Department and Correction Corporation of America, a private contractor paid to run the New Mexico Women's Correctional Facility (NMWCF) in Grants County. The plaintiffs sued under 42 U.S.C. § 1983, alleging that the CCA's use of Christian faith-based programming in NMWCF constituted an endorsement of religion and violated the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. The parties consented to proceed before a magistrate judge.

On January 31, 2007, the Court (Magistrate Judge Richard L. Puglisi) denied a variety of motions for summary judgement regarding whether Plaintiffs had stated a valid claim, whether Plaintiffs' taxpayer status gave them standing to sue, and whether the Christian program at NMWCF violated the Establishment Clause.

On June 26, 2007, the Court notified the parties of its intention to withdraw its decisions on the summary judgement motions and to dismiss the Plaintiffs' claims with prejudice or grant summary judgement for Defendants on the issue of taxpayer standing. The Court asked the parties to submit arguments about the proposed action. Instead, on July 6, 2007, the parties moved to dismiss the complaint with prejudice, which the Court did the same day. The case is now closed.

Kristen Sagar - 02/27/2007
Kenneth Gray - 08/01/2013


compress summary