Harry Hall’s attorney says damages of $100 per day date back to February 2023; current district attorney says final amount remains unresolved
GALLUP, N.M.- A state district judge ruled Wednesday that the McKinley County District Attorney’s Office owes damages to Cibola County resident Harry L. Hall after the office failed to comply with New Mexico’s public-records law, although Hall’s attorney and the current district attorney offered different understandings of whether the final amount has already been determined.
Thomas Grover, Hall’s attorney, said District Judge Brenna Clani-Washinawatok ruled that the office owes Hall $100 per day beginning Feb. 16, 2023, continuing until the office complies with the New Mexico Inspection of Public Records Act, commonly known as IPRA.
Grover said Hall is also entitled to attorney fees and litigation costs.
“She has awarded my client and sanctioned the District Attorney’s Office of McKinley County $100 a day from February 16, 2023, to their date of compliance with IPRA, which is ongoing at this point,” Grover told the Cibola Citizen following Wednesday’s hearing.
McKinley County District Attorney John Bernitz agreed that the office failed to respond within the required timeframe and said he understood the judge to have determined that Hall is owed money. However, Bernitz said Thursday that he believes additional questions remain before the court determines the final amount.
“I believe the hearing yesterday, the judge said, ‘Well, I think that you guys owe Mr. Hall some money,’ but we don’t know how much that is,” Bernitz said.
Bernitz said he understood that the hearing had been continued so the court could receive more information.
The Cibola Citizen requested a copy of the court’s written ruling Thursday and was awaiting the final order at the time of publication.
The case, Harry L. Hall v. McKinley County District Attorney’s Office, was filed Jan. 22 in the Eleventh Judicial District Court in Gallup. Hall sought a writ of mandamus requiring the office to fulfill its obligations under IPRA.
Hall said his original records request concerned veterans and other employees who had been hired or fired by the DA’s Office. The request dates back to 2023, when Bernadine Martin was district attorney.
Grover said the judge found that the office must either produce public records responsive to Hall’s request or issue a denial that complies with IPRA.
That denial, Grover said, would need to identify the records being withheld, explain the legal basis for withholding them and identify the person responsible for the denial.
“In other words, the DA’s Office is supposed to comply with the law,” Grover said. “That is a clear message that this judge sent forward.”
Grover praised Clani-Washinawatok’s handling of the case and said the judge understood the importance of public access to government records.
“She really saw the case for what it was and wasn’t getting distracted by the, frankly, endless details that are immaterial to the issues of the case,” Grover said.
Request Began Under Former District Atorney
Bernitz said the dispute began before he took office and acknowledged that Martin did not respond within IPRA’s required timeframe.
“I think Ms. Martin really didn’t know how to handle it,” Bernitz said. “She sat on her hands about it for a while before she responded.”
Bernitz said he did not believe Martin intentionally ignored the law, but that she may not have understood its requirements.
“IPRA has some timeframe requirements that I don’t think Ms. Martin purposely ignored, but just didn’t realize that they were required,” he said.
Martin resigned earlier this year while facing a petition from New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez seeking her removal from office. Torrez had alleged a series of management and legal failures within the McKinley County DA’s Office, including failures to prepare cases, subpoena witnesses and comply with state procurement requirements.
Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham later appointed Bernitz to lead the office.
Grover sharply criticized the former administration’s handling of Hall’s request but drew a distinction between Martin and the current district attorney.
“The DA’s Office could have stopped the bleeding, if you will, if they just complied with IPRA,” Grover said. “That, unfortunately, spans the timeline of the former DA to the current DA.”
Grover said Bernitz had been responsive in other matters and suggested the current district attorney may not have been fully aware of the unresolved Hall request. Grover lauded Bernitz for his work in repairing McKinley County District Attorney’s Office and moving on cases that have been stalled.
“I’d be surprised if he even knew this was going on,” Grover said.
DA Questions if Requested Data Exists
Bernitz said the office has responded to Hall, but that Hall and Grover did not consider the response sufficient.
“I think we have responded,” Bernitz said. “We responded to the request, but I don’t think it was satisfactory to Mr. Hall or Mr. Hall’s attorney.”
Bernitz said Hall’s request included statistical information concerning employee characteristics, including age, disability status and other personal information that the office may not routinely collect or compile.
The office hires employees based largely on submitted résumés, Bernitz said, and does not necessarily maintain a database containing all of the requested demographic information.
“The information isn’t compiled, and I don’t even know if we can compile some of it,” Bernitz said. “Unless they disclosed it in their résumé, we wouldn’t have any idea about that.”
Under IPRA, public bodies generally must produce existing public records but are not ordinarily required to create new records or reports that do not already exist.
Bernitz said he believes the judge is seeking additional information about whether responsive records exist and how much work would be required to identify or compile them.
Grover, however, said the office could satisfy the law by producing responsive records that do exist or issuing a legally sufficient denial explaining why other requested information cannot be provided.
New Records Procedures Implemented
Bernitz said the DA’s Office had 17 employees when he assumed leadership, despite being authorized for 34 positions. He said the office now has 29 employees and has taken several steps to improve its handling of public-records requests.
Before his arrival, Bernitz said, the office did not have an officially designated records custodian.
The office has since assigned a custodian, provided that employee with training and attended an IPRA task-force presentation in Gallup. Bernitz said he and the records custodian have also reviewed the New Mexico Attorney General’s IPRA compliance handbook.
“We’ve gotten on track with the timelines and the responsibilities of assigning a custodian of records,” Bernitz said.
Hall previously told the Citizen that he had spent approximately $12,000 of his own money pursuing the case.
Hall’s case remains listed as D-1113-CV-2026-00059 in the Eleventh Judicial District Court.
The amount of any attorney-fee award and the final calculation of damages were not yet available in a written court order. The Cibola Citizen has requested the written court order but did not receive it by 12 p.m. September 3.