New Mexico judge dismisses Project Jupiter data center lawsuit, but offers chance to re-file
A New Mexico judge dismissed a Las Cruces resident’s Project Jupiter lawsuit without prejudice, giving him another chance to file an amended complaint.
A judge dismissed Derrick Pacheco’s complaint without prejudice for the second time, telling the Las Cruces resident he was on his second of three strikes.
Joshua Bowling, Source New Mexico
A New Mexico judge on Tuesday dismissed a Las Cruces resident’s lawsuit against the Doña Ana Board of County Commissioners over its handling of a vote on the controversial Project Jupiter data center — but gave him another chance to refile.
Resident Derrick Pacheco first filed his lawsuit against county officials in October and accused them of acting inappropriately by issuing $165 billion in bonds for the Oracle and OpenAI development before the county Planning and Zoning Commission had a chance to vote on its zoning. At the time, Pacheco told Source NM he was relying on OpenAI’s service ChatGPT to coach him through writing and filing a lawsuit rather than hiring an attorney.
Tuesday’s ruling was the second time Third Judicial District Court Judge James Foy has dismissed Pacheco’s complaint without prejudice, meaning each time he has given him a chance to re-file an amended version. During the most recent hearing, Foy told Pacheco that he was on his second of three strikes.
“I think I told you this last time: Go get a lawyer,” Foy told him.
Attorneys for Oracle, Doña Ana County and Yucca Growth Infrastructure, one of the data center’s developers, argued in court that giving Pacheco another chance to file an amended lawsuit would be a “third bite at the apple” and a waste of judicial resources.
After the ruling, Pacheco told Source NM he plans to file an amended complaint in the coming weeks and is considering hiring an attorney.
“If I win this thing, that’s unprecedented news,” he said, referring to his plan to use OpenAI’s services to fight OpenAI’s planned data center. “It’s the supercomputer fighting the supercomputer.”
While Pacheco goes back to the drawing board, several other Project Jupiter-related lawsuits are pending in court.
Joshua Bowling
This week, the government watchdog group New Mexico Foundation for Open Government filed a lawsuit against county officials and accused them of violating the state’s public records law, the Inspection of Public Records Act.
In the lawsuit, the foundation’s attorneys argue that county officials refused to turn over public records, such as emails related to the data center, requested by the New Mexico Environmental Law Center because they fall under the law’s exemption for state “tactical response plans…that could be used to facilitate the planning or execution of a terrorist attack.”
“They’re wrongfully relying on this exemption that’s very narrow…they’re using it to withhold emails that are obviously of great public concern,” Amanda Lavin, NMFOG’s legal director, told Source NM Tuesday. “We’re filing this lawsuit in the greater context of the general public perception, which is that this project got approved in a very secretive, chaotic, sort of rushed process that concerns a lot of people.”
Neither the chair of the county commission nor the county manager responded Tuesday to Source NM’s request for comment.
The New Mexico Environmental Law Center also has filed two lawsuits, both pending in court, over the development.
In one, filed in October, NMELC attorneys argue that county officials violated state law by voting to approve Project Jupiter last year even though the applications before the Board of County Commissioners were incomplete and, in some cases, had the word “draft” written across them.
The other suit alleges that county leaders violated the state’s Open Meetings Act when they “abruptly” paused a heated meeting regarding Project Jupiter and proceeded to meet behind closed doors.
Lavin, the attorney for the open government group, said the allegations in her lawsuit closely align with the two NMELC cases.
“The way that the county has handled IPRA requests related to what they’re doing fuels the concern that they’re not above-board with what they’re doing here,” she said.
Joshua Bowling is a senior reporter for Source New Mexico. He's reported in New Mexico, where he broke stories of lavish spending at Western New Mexico University and more, since 2022.
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