Petition for Writ of Certiorari — In Re Gene N. Chavez, Petitioner

No. ______

IN THE

SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED

STATES

IN RE GENE N. CHAVEZ,

Petitioner.

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF MANDAMUS

AND/OR PROHIBITION TO THE SUPREME

COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

A. BLAIR DUNN

Counsel of Record

WESTERN AGRICULTURE, RESOURCE

AND BUSINESS ADVOCATES, LLP

400 Gold Ave SW, Suite 1000

Albuquerque, NM 87102

(505) 750-3060

abdunn@ablairdunn-esq.com

Counsel for Petitioner Gene N. Chavez

QUESTIONS PRESENTED

Petitioner Gene N. Chavez, a New Mexico

attorney, was suspended from the practice of law by

order of the Supreme Court of New Mexico entered

June 5, 2026 — an interim suspension “pending

further proceedings before the Disciplinary Board.”

No tribunal has ever found that Mr. Chavez

committed misconduct. No petition for interim

suspension was ever filed or served; no hearing on

suspension was ever noticed or held; no finding was

made that his continued practice posed any

probability of harm to the public — the showing New

Mexico's own Rule 17-207(A)(1)(e) NMRA requires;

and no prompt post-deprivation hearing has been

provided or scheduled. The order's recitals identify as

its bases the parties' conditional consent agreement,

the stipulated disciplinary history, and the argument

at a hearing held solely to consider that agreement —

the very materials Rule 17-211(C) NMRA withdraws

and declares “cannot be used against the attorney or

disciplinary counsel in any subsequent disciplinary

proceedings or in any other judicial proceeding” once a

conditional consent disposition fails. The questions

presented are:

1. Whether the interim suspension of an

attorney's license to practice law — a protected

interest, Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of

New Mexico, 353 U.S. 232 (1957), deprived in a

proceeding this Court has described as quasicriminal, In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544 (1968) —

without notice, petition, or hearing, without

any finding of probable misconduct or of harm

to the public, and without any prompt post-

ii

deprivation hearing, violates the Due Process

Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment as

construed in Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55

(1979).

2. Whether due process is violated where a

state's highest court rests an attorney's

suspension

exclusively

on

admissions,

stipulations,

and

consent-hearing

presentations that the state's own rules

withdraw and prohibit from any use upon the

failure of a conditional consent disposition, and

imposes that suspension immediately after the

attorney exercises his express rule-conferred

right to decline a modification to the proposed

consent disposition.

3. Whether, under Ex parte Bradley, 74 U.S. (7

Wall.) 364 (1868), a writ of mandamus or

prohibition should issue where a court has

suspended an attorney in excess of the

authority its own rules confer, the

constitutional deprivation is operative now,

rehearing has been denied without findings,

and — by operation of sovereign immunity, the

1996 amendment to 42 U.S.C. § 1983, Younger

abstention, and the Rooker-Feldman doctrine

— no other court in the United States can grant

relief.

iii

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING

Petitioner is Gene N. Chavez, an attorney

licensed in the State of New Mexico and the

respondent in In the Matter of Gene N. Chavez, Esq.,

No. S-1-SC-41313 (Disciplinary No. 2025-08-4616),

before the Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Pursuant to Rule 20.3(a), relief is sought

against the Supreme Court of the State of New

Mexico, the court that entered the June 5, 2026 order

of interim suspension, and against its Justices in their

official capacities as nominal respondents: the

Honorable Julie J. Vargas, Chief Justice, and the

Honorable C. Shannon Bacon, the Honorable Michael

E. Vigil, the Honorable David K. Thomson, and the

Honorable Briana H. Zamora, Justices.

DIRECTLY RELATED PROCEEDINGS

The proceedings directly related to this petition

are: In the Matter of Gene N. Chavez, Esq., No. S-1-SC41313 (Disciplinary No. 2025-08-4616) (Supreme

Court of New Mexico) (order of interim suspension

entered June 5, 2026; rehearing and stay denied June

16, 2026; disciplinary proceedings pending on remand

before the Disciplinary Board); and In re Gene N.

Chavez, No. 1:26-mc-00022-KG (D.N.M.) (order to

show cause regarding reciprocal discipline issued July

2, 2026; pending).

iv

TABLE OF CONTENTS

QUESTIONS PRESENTED.......................................ii

PARTIES TO THE PROCEEDING...........................iv

DIRECTLY RELATED PROCEEDINGS..................iv

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES.....................................viii

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF MANDAMUS

AND/OR PROHIBITION.........................................1

OPINIONS AND ORDERS BELOW..........................1

JURISDICTION...........................................................1

CONSTITUTIONAL AND RULE PROVISIONS

INVOLVED..............................................................2

STATEMENT OF THE CASE.....................................3

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT..................5

I. THE SUSPENSION WAS IMPOSED

WITHOUT THE PROCESS THE

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT

REQUIRES — NO NOTICE, NO

HEARING, NO PROBABLE-CAUSE

OR HARM FINDING, AND NO

PROMPT POST-DEPRIVATION

REVIEW..........................................................6

A. A law license is a protected interest,

and its suspension — even

temporarily — triggers due

process.....................................................6

B. Barry v. Barchi supplies the

governing framework, and this

suspension fails it at every step............7

C. The contextual due process cases the

State may invoke condemn, rather

than excuse, this suspension.................8

v

D. The suspension also violates New

Mexico’s own rules, which even a

court of last resort must respect

when it acts under them......................10

II. THE SUSPENSION RESTS

EXCLUSIVELY ON MATERIALS NEW

MEXICO LAW WITHDREW AND

PROHIBITS FROM ANY USE, AND IT

PENALIZES THE EXERCISE OF

RULE-CONFERRED AND

CONSTITUTIONALLY PROTECTED

RIGHTS.........................................................11

A. Rule 17-211(C) withdrew the only

materials beneath the order................11

B. The protections surrounding

consensual resolution cannot be

unilaterally disregarded by the

government that promised them.........13

C. The sequence penalizes the exercise

of protected rights................................13

III. ADEQUATE RELIEF CANNOT BE

OBTAINED IN ANY OTHER FORM OR

FROM ANY OTHER COURT.......................15

A. The state system affords no remedy

for the interim deprivation..................15

B. The lower federal courts are closed.........16

C. Certiorari from a final judgment

cannot repair an interim

deprivation............................................19

IV. THE WRIT IS IN AID OF THIS

COURT’S APPELLATE

JURISDICTION, AND THE

vi

CIRCUMSTANCES ARE

EXCEPTIONAL............................................20

CONCLUSION AND RELIEF SOUGHT.................22

APPENDIX — INDEX...............................................24

vii

TABLE OF AUTHORITIES

Cases

Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55 (1979)......7, 8, 12, 15, 23

Barsky v. Board of Regents, 347 U.S. 442 (1954).....14

BE&K Construction Co. v. NLRB, 536 U.S. 516

(2002)...............................................................14

Bolen v. New Mexico Racing Commission, 578

P.3d 1121 (N.M. 2025)....................................16

Catanach v. Thomson, 718 F. App’x 595 (10th

Cir. 2017).........................................................17

Elephant Butte Irrigation District v.

Department of Interior, 160 F.3d 602

(10th Cir. 1998)...............................................17

Ex parte Bradley, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 364 (1868)

...........................................................2, 6, 11, 20

Ex parte Wall, 107 U.S. 265 (1883)...........................20

Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123 (1908)........................17

Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S. 924 (1997)....................8, 9

Goss v. Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975)..............................7

Graff v. Aberdeen Enterprizes, II, Inc., 65 F.4th

500 (10th Cir. 2023)..................................18, 19

Guttman v. Widman, 188 F. App’x 691 (10th

Cir. 2006).........................................................17

Hartman v. Moore, 547 U.S. 250 (2006)...................14

Hatton v. Combs, 793 F. App’x 801 (10th Cir.

2019)................................................................18

In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544 (1968)...................7, 13, 21

Kline v. Biles, 861 F.3d 1177 (10th Cir. 2017)....18, 19

viii

La Buy v. Howes Leather Co., 352 U.S. 249

(1957)...............................................................21

Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459 (2006)........................18

Marshall v. Bacon, 2023 WL 7703946 (D.N.M.

Nov. 15, 2023)............................................17, 19

Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319 (1976)..................8

Matter of Bacotti, 214 A.D.3d 34 (N.Y. App. Div.

2023)............................................................5, 21

Matter of Kort, 224 A.D.3d 15 (N.Y. App. Div.

2024).................................................................. 9

Matter of Liebowitz, 200 A.D.3d 124 (N.Y. App.

Div. 2021)....................................................5, 21

Matter of Padilla, 67 N.Y.2d 440 (1986)...................10

Middlesex County Ethics Committee v. Garden

State Bar Association, 457 U.S. 423

(1982).....................................................8, 18, 19

NAACP v. Alabama ex rel. Patterson, 357 U.S.

449 (1958)........................................................20

Nelson v. Colorado, 581 U.S. 128 (2017).....................9

Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391 (2019).....................14

People v. Moseley, 585 P.3d 276 (Colo. O.P.D.J.

2025).................................................................. 8

People v. Varallo, 913 P.2d 1 (Colo. 1996)..................9

Pueblo of Santa Ana v. Nash, 854 F. Supp. 2d

1128 (D.N.M. 2012).........................................17

Rauth v. New Mexico Medical Board, 534 P.3d

1037 (N.M. Ct. App. 2023)..............................10

Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of New

Mexico, 353 U.S. 232 (1957)..............................7

Selling v. Radford, 243 U.S. 46 (1917)......................21

ix

Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957).......................10

Stein v. Disciplinary Board of the Supreme

Court of New Mexico, 520 F.3d 1183 (10th

Cir. 2008).........................................................18

Stein v. Legal Advertising Committee of the

Disciplinary Board, 272 F. Supp. 2d 1260

(D.N.M. 2003), aff’d, 122 F. App’x 954

(10th Cir. 2004).........................................18, 19

Theard v. United States, 354 U.S. 278 (1957)..........21

United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy,

347 U.S. 260 (1954)...................................10, 11

United States v. Mezzanatto, 513 U.S. 196

(1995)...............................................................13

Vitarelli v. Seaton, 359 U.S. 535 (1959)....................10

Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, 595 U.S. 30

(2021).........................................................17, 19

Will v. Michigan Department of State Police,

491 U.S. 58 (1989).....................................16, 19

Constitutional Provisions

U.S. Const. amend. XI...............................................17

U.S. Const. amend. XIV.....................................2, 6, 22

Statutes

28 U.S.C. § 1257(a)....................................1, 19, 20, 21

28 U.S.C. § 1651(a) (All Writs Act).......................1, 21

42 U.S.C. § 1983...................................................16, 17

NMSA 1978, §§ 41-4A-1 to -12 (New Mexico

Civil Rights Act)..............................................16

NMSA 1978, § 41-4A-10............................................16

x

Rules

Sup. Ct. R. 20.....................................1, 2, 6, 15, 16, 19

Rule 12-404 NMRA................................................4, 15

Rule 17-207 NMRA..........................2, 4, 10, 11, 14, 23

Rule 17-211 NMRA......................2, 3, 4, 11, 12, 13, 14

Rule 17-212 NMRA..................................................4, 5

xi

PETITION FOR A WRIT OF MANDAMUS

AND/OR PROHIBITION

Petitioner Gene N. Chavez respectfully

petitions this Court, pursuant to the All Writs Act, 28

U.S.C. § 1651(a), and Rule 20 of the Rules of this

Court, for a writ of mandamus and/or prohibition

directed to the Supreme Court of the State of New

Mexico.

OPINIONS AND ORDERS BELOW

The order of the Supreme Court of New Mexico

suspending Petitioner from the practice of law

pending further proceedings before the Disciplinary

Board, entered June 5, 2026, in In the Matter of Gene

N. Chavez, Esq., No. S-1-SC-41313, is unreported and

is reproduced at App. 1a. The order of that court

denying rehearing and denying a stay, entered June

16, 2026, is unreported and is reproduced at App. 4a.

JURISDICTION

This Court has jurisdiction under the All Writs

Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1651(a). The writ sought is in aid of

this Court's appellate jurisdiction because this Court

possesses prospective certiorari jurisdiction over any

final judgment of the Supreme Court of New Mexico in

the underlying disciplinary proceeding, 28 U.S.C. §

1257(a), and because the interim deprivation

challenged here inflicts injury that eventual review of

a final judgment cannot remedy. Mandamus has

issued from this Court in precisely this setting: where

a court removes an attorney from practice in excess of

1

its powers, leaving him otherwise “utterly

remediless,” the writ of mandamus is the historically

appropriate remedy. Ex parte Bradley, 74 U.S. (7

Wall.) 364 (1868). As required by Rule 20.1, Part III of

the Reasons for Granting the Writ sets out with

particularity why the relief sought is not available in

any other court.

CONSTITUTIONAL AND RULE PROVISIONS

INVOLVED

The

Fourteenth

Amendment

to

the

Constitution of the United States provides in relevant

part that no State shall “deprive any person of life,

liberty, or property, without due process of law.”

Rule 17-211(C) NMRA provides that if a

conditional agreement of consent to discipline is

rejected by the hearing committee, board, or Supreme

Court, the admission shall be withdrawn and the

agreement, or any factual stipulations or admissions

made in connection with the agreement or at any

hearing held to consider the agreement,

“cannot be used against the

attorney or disciplinary

counsel in any subsequent

disciplinary proceedings or

in any other judicial

proceeding.”

Rule 17-207(A)(1)(e) NMRA permits an interim

suspension pending disciplinary proceedings only

upon the filing in the Supreme Court and service upon

the attorney, by chief disciplinary counsel, of a

petition setting forth facts demonstrating that the

attorney's continued practice “will result in a

2

substantial probability of harm, loss, or damage to the

public.” Rule 17-211(B)(1)(a) NMRA confers on the

attorney the express right to decline a modification to

a proposed consent disposition.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE

1. The underlying disciplinary matter has been

pending since March 2025. It arises from statements

— expressly qualified as made “upon information and

belief” — contained in a single motion filed in a statecourt civil case: petitioning activity in a court of law.

For more than fourteen months while the matter was

pending, Petitioner continued to practice law,

cooperated fully with disciplinary counsel, and drew

no further incident, client complaint, or allegation of

harm. At no point did the Disciplinary Board or chief

disciplinary counsel petition for his interim

suspension or assert that his continued practice

endangered anyone.

2. Petitioner and disciplinary counsel

negotiated a conditional agreement not to contest the

allegations and to consent to discipline under Rule 17211 NMRA. On May 14, 2026, the Supreme Court of

New Mexico heard oral argument for the sole purpose

of considering that proposed consent disposition.

Interim suspension was not noticed, briefed, or

argued.

3. Following argument, the court proposed a

modification to the conditional agreement under Rule

17-211(B)(1)(a) NMRA. On May 15, 2026, Petitioner

exercised his express right under that rule to decline

the proposed modification.

3

4. On June 5, 2026 — within three weeks of

Petitioner's exercise of that right — the court entered

an order suspending him from the practice of law

“pending further proceedings before the Disciplinary

Board,” remanding the matter to the Board, and

directing compliance with the client-notification

obligations of Rule 17-212 NMRA. App. 1a. The order

invoked the court's inherent superintending

authority. It made no finding of misconduct. It made

no finding of probable cause to believe misconduct had

occurred. It made no finding that Petitioner's

continued practice posed any probability of harm to

the public. Its recitals identify as the bases for the

court's consideration the parties' conditional consent

agreement, the disciplinary-history stipulation filed

at the court's request, and the argument heard on May

14, 2026 — each a matter Rule 17-211(C) NMRA

withdraws from use upon rejection of the agreement.

5. No petition for interim suspension under

Rule 17-207(A)(1)(e) NMRA was ever filed or served.

No hearing was ever held on whether Petitioner's

continued practice presented a “substantial

probability of harm, loss, or damage to the public.”

Petitioner received no notice that his immediate

suspension was even at issue and no opportunity to be

heard on that question before his license was taken.

Nor has the order or any subsequent proceeding

provided for a prompt post-suspension hearing at

which the State must justify the deprivation; the

suspension runs indefinitely, “pending further

proceedings” of no fixed schedule.

6. Petitioner timely moved for rehearing under

Rule 12-404 NMRA and moved to stay the

suspension's effective date, raising each of the defects

4

described above. On June 16, 2026, the court denied

both motions in a one-page order containing no

findings of fact, no analysis, and no response to the

objections raised. App. 4a.

7. On June 30, 2026, Petitioner filed his Answer

to the Specification of Charges before the Disciplinary

Board, denying the operative allegations of

misconduct and demanding an evidentiary hearing.

No hearing committee has convened, no evidence has

been taken, and no findings have been made.

Petitioner has fully complied with his notice

obligations under Rule 17-212 NMRA and filed an

affidavit of compliance.

8. The suspension has already begun to

replicate itself. On July 2, 2026, the United States

District Court for the District of New Mexico issued an

order directing Petitioner to show cause why

reciprocal discipline should not be imposed, In re Gene

N. Chavez, No. 1:26-mc-00022-KG (D.N.M.).

Reciprocal-discipline regimes do not wait for finality;

interim orders themselves trigger reciprocal interim

suspensions in other jurisdictions. See, e.g., Matter of

Liebowitz, 200 A.D.3d 124 (N.Y. App. Div. 2021) (rule

governing reciprocal discipline does not require that

the foreign order be final); Matter of Bacotti, 214

A.D.3d 34 (N.Y. App. Div. 2023) (reciprocal discipline

predicated on another jurisdiction's interim

suspension). Petitioner's clients have been notified,

his matters disrupted, and his suspension published

— all before any tribunal anywhere has heard a single

witness or made a single finding of misconduct.

REASONS FOR GRANTING THE WRIT

5

Mandamus from this Court is, and should

remain, a remedy sparingly granted. But this Court

settled long ago that the writ has a specific and

historic office in exactly this setting. In Ex parte

Bradley, 74 U.S. (7 Wall.) 364 (1868), this Court held

that the want of jurisdiction of a court in a summary

proceeding to remove an officer of the court or disbar

an attorney is one of the specific cases in which

mandamus is the appropriate remedy, precisely

because an attorney wrongfully stripped of his

practice by such an order would otherwise be “utterly

remediless.” That is this case. A state's highest court

— the one court in the state system that answers to no

other — has suspended an attorney through a

summary procedure its own rules do not authorize, on

materials its own rules prohibit, without any of the

findings the Constitution requires, and has denied

rehearing without a word of explanation. Every other

courthouse door in the country is closed. Each of Rule

20's requirements is satisfied.

I.

THE SUSPENSION WAS IMPOSED

WITHOUT

THE

PROCESS

THE

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT REQUIRES

— NO NOTICE, NO HEARING, NO

PROBABLE-CAUSE OR HARM FINDING,

AND NO PROMPT POST-DEPRIVATION

REVIEW.

A. A law license is a protected interest, and

its suspension — even temporarily —

triggers due process.

This Court held seventy years ago, in a case

arising from this very State, that the practice of law is

6

a protected interest whose denial implicates the Due

Process Clause. Schware v. Board of Bar Examiners of

New Mexico, 353 U.S. 232 (1957). Attorney-discipline

proceedings are “quasi-criminal” in nature, entitling

the attorney to fair notice and a meaningful

opportunity to be heard. In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. 544,

550–51 (1968). And the requirement of notice and an

opportunity to be heard attaches even to short and

temporary deprivations of protected interests. Goss v.

Lopez, 419 U.S. 565 (1975). An interim suspension of a

law license is not a modest deprivation: clients must

be notified, pending matters surrendered, and the

suspension published. Petitioner received none of the

process these cases require — no petition, no notice

that suspension was at issue, no hearing on

suspension, no findings — and, when he raised those

defects on rehearing, a one-page denial without

engagement.

B. Barry v. Barchi supplies the governing

framework, and this suspension fails it at

every step.

Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55 (1979), is this

Court's controlling precedent on interim suspensions

of professional licenses. Barchi teaches two things.

First, even where important state interests permit

suspension before a full hearing, the deprivation must

rest on an adequate assurance of non-arbitrariness —

there, a probable-cause showing that the licensee had

committed the violation. Second, the licensee is

constitutionally entitled to a prompt post-suspension

hearing, one that proceeds and concludes without

appreciable delay; the Court found a constitutional

7

deficiency where the scheme did not assure a prompt

hearing and the licensee could suffer the full penalty

before ever putting the State to its proof. Both

requirements are violated here. There was no

probable-cause finding, no harm finding, and no

finding of any kind — the order rests, by its own

recitals, on withdrawn consent materials, not on any

assessment of misconduct or danger. And there is no

prompt post-suspension hearing: the suspension runs

indefinitely “pending further proceedings” before a

Board that has not yet convened a hearing committee,

on no fixed schedule. Disciplinary tribunals applying

Barchi have found due process violated by far less. See

People v. Moseley, 585 P.3d 276 (Colo. O.P.D.J. 2025)

(post-suspension hearing delayed over five months

was not sufficiently prompt to constitute a meaningful

opportunity to be heard, supporting the attorney's

defense to reciprocal discipline).

C. The contextual due process cases the

State may invoke condemn, rather than

excuse, this suspension.

Petitioner anticipates the response that due

process is flexible and contextual, and that a state's

compelling interest in policing its bar can justify

expedited action. See, e.g., Gilbert v. Homar, 520 U.S.

924 (1997); Middlesex County Ethics Committee v.

Garden State Bar Association, 457 U.S. 423 (1982)

(recognizing the State's extremely important interest

in the professional conduct of attorneys). The

flexibility of due process is measured by the Mathews

v. Eldridge balancing of the private interest, the risk

of erroneous deprivation, and the governmental

8

interest. See Nelson v. Colorado, 581 U.S. 128 (2017)

(applying that framework to state deprivation

procedures). Every factor condemns this order. The

private interest — an attorney's entire livelihood and

professional standing — is at its maximum. The risk

of erroneous deprivation is likewise at its maximum,

because the only materials before the court were

materials the law had withdrawn, and no

independent, non-arbitrary basis existed: in Gilbert,

the Court sustained a brief pre-hearing suspension of

a police officer because an arrest and formal felony

charges supplied independent assurance that the

suspension was not baseless, and because a prompt

post-suspension opportunity followed. Here there was

no arrest, no criminal charge, no adjudication, no

probable-cause finding — only contested civil

disciplinary allegations, fourteen months old, that the

State itself never deemed urgent. And the government

interest in immediate action is refuted by the State's

own conduct: for fourteen months, neither disciplinary

counsel nor the Board ever suggested that Petitioner's

continued practice endangered anyone, and the order

itself identifies no protective rationale and makes no

danger finding.

The comparative case law makes the same

point from the opposite direction. Even jurisdictions

that permit immediate interim suspension pair it with

the very process New Mexico's rules require and this

order omitted: in People v. Varallo, 913 P.2d 1 (Colo.

1996), immediate suspension comported with due

process because the attorney received notice of

disciplinary counsel's petition for immediate

suspension and appeared, through counsel, in

response to a rule to show cause; in Matter of Kort, 224

9

A.D.3d 15 (N.Y. App. Div. 2024), the due process

defense to reciprocal discipline failed because the

attorney had been mailed requests for response and

served with the motion for interim suspension. See

also Matter of Padilla, 67 N.Y.2d 440, 446 (1986)

(interim suspension permissible only upon an

immediate threat to the public clearly established by

admission or uncontroverted evidence, with the basis

articulated); cf. Rauth v. New Mexico Medical Board,

534 P.3d 1037 (N.M. Ct. App. 2023) (recounting that

even New Mexico's executive-branch summary

suspension of a physician was noticed on an asserted

clear and immediate danger to the public). Petitioner

received what no reported decision sustains: no

petition, no service, no notice, no show-cause

opportunity, no finding, and no prompt hearing after

the fact.

D. The suspension also violates New

Mexico's own rules, which even a court of

last resort must respect when it acts under

them.

For a matter not involving a criminal conviction

or adjudicated incapacity, Rule 17-207(A)(1)(e) NMRA

prescribes the path to an interim suspension: a

petition filed and served by chief disciplinary counsel

demonstrating a substantial probability of harm, loss,

or damage to the public. Under United States ex rel.

Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260, 265–67 (1954),

Service v. Dulles, 354 U.S. 363 (1957), and Vitarelli v.

Seaton, 359 U.S. 535, 539–40 (1959), governmental

action taken in disregard of the government's own

prescribed procedures cannot stand. Petitioner

10

anticipates the objection that the Accardi line

addresses executive agencies, and that a state

supreme court's inherent superintending authority

over the bar cannot be cabined by a rule of court. The

objection fails twice over. First, the Accardi principle

is not about the branch of government; it is about the

rule of law — a sovereign that promulgates binding

procedures to protect individuals must follow them,

and New Mexico's Supreme Court promulgated Rules

17-207 and 17-211 as binding law governing exactly

this situation. Second, and independently, the

constitutional violation stands on its own: whatever

the reach of inherent authority, its exercise remains

subject to the Due Process Clause, and inherent

authority supplies no exemption from notice, hearing,

and findings. Ex parte Bradley itself involved a court's

summary removal of an attorney in excess of its

powers; the existence of judicial power over the bar

has never immunized its summary exercise from

constitutional limits.

II.

THE

SUSPENSION

RESTS

EXCLUSIVELY ON MATERIALS NEW

MEXICO

LAW

WITHDREW

AND

PROHIBITS FROM ANY USE, AND IT

PENALIZES THE EXERCISE OF RULECONFERRED AND CONSTITUTIONALLY

PROTECTED RIGHTS.

A. Rule 17-211(C) withdrew the only

materials beneath the order.

When the court rejected the conditional consent

disposition, Rule 17-211(C) NMRA operated by its

plain terms: the admission was withdrawn, and the

11

agreement, the factual stipulations, and everything

presented at the hearing held to consider the

agreement “cannot be used against the attorney or

disciplinary counsel in any subsequent disciplinary

proceedings or in any other judicial proceeding.” Yet

the June 5 order's own recitals identify precisely those

materials — the conditional agreement, the stipulated

disciplinary history, and the May 14 consent-hearing

argument — as its bases. Once those materials are set

aside, as New Mexico law commands, nothing remains

beneath the suspension: no findings by any hearing

committee, no evidence taken under oath, no

adjudication of any kind — only contested, unproven

charges that Petitioner has answered and denied.

Petitioner anticipates two responses. The first

is that Rule 17-211(C)'s prohibition reaches only

merits adjudications, not a supervisory interim

measure. The rule's text forecloses that reading: it

bars use “in any subsequent disciplinary proceedings

or in any other judicial proceeding” — language of

total exclusion, with no carve-out for interim or

protective orders, and an interim suspension entered

by a court in a disciplinary case is on any account a

subsequent disciplinary proceeding. The second

response is that the mere pendency of the

Specification of Charges supplied an independent

basis for the order. But Barchi answers that:

unproven, contested charges — standing alone, with

no probable-cause assessment and no danger finding

— cannot constitutionally support the immediate

deprivation of a professional license. And the order's

recitals refute the premise: the court did not recite the

pendency of charges as its basis; it recited the

12

withdrawn agreement, the withdrawn stipulations,

and the withdrawn hearing.

B.

The

protections

surrounding

consensual

resolution

cannot

be

unilaterally

disregarded

by

the

government that promised them.

Rule 17-211(C) is an exclusionary promise of

the same family as the protections surrounding plea

negotiations and settlement discussions, which exist

to encourage the candid, voluntary resolution of

disputes. This Court has emphasized that such

protections are subject to waiver by voluntary

agreement of the parties — not to unilateral disregard

by the government after the fact. See United States v.

Mezzanatto, 513 U.S. 196 (1995). Petitioner never

waived Rule 17-211(C); he invoked it. Using his

conditional admissions against him after the consent

process failed springs exactly the kind of procedural

“trap” this Court condemned in Ruffalo: good-faith

participation in a process the rules invite, converted

into the instrument of the participant's punishment.

390 U.S. at 550–51.

C. The sequence penalizes the exercise of

protected rights.

The matter was pending for more than fourteen

months without any suggestion that interim

suspension was necessary. The suspension issued

within three weeks of one event and one event only:

Petitioner's exercise of his express right under Rule

17-211(B)(1)(a) NMRA to decline the court's proposed

modification. Petitioner anticipates the response that

13

temporal proximity alone does not establish

retaliation, and that the collapse of a consent process

may legitimately prompt a court to consider interim

protection. But that response presupposes what is

missing here: a protective determination. A court that

concludes, after a consent process fails, that the public

needs interim protection makes a finding to that effect

— the finding Rule 17-207(A)(1)(e) requires. This

order contains none. Nothing about Petitioner's

dangerousness changed between May 14 and June 5

except his refusal, and the order identifies nothing

else. Official reprisal for constitutionally protected

activity offends the Constitution, Hartman v. Moore,

547 U.S. 250 (2006); Nieves v. Bartlett, 587 U.S. 391

(2019), and the underlying statements for which

Petitioner is charged were themselves petitioning

activity in a court of law, a right whose protection

extends to all departments of government, BE&K

Construction Co. v. NLRB, 536 U.S. 516 (2002).

Whether analyzed as retaliation or simply as

arbitrariness, a professional-license deprivation must

bear a rational connection to fitness and public

protection, cf. Barsky v. Board of Regents, 347 U.S.

442 (1954); an order whose only identified predicates

are legally unusable materials and whose only

temporal trigger is the exercise of a rule-conferred

right bears none.

The systemic stakes extend far beyond this

Petitioner. Consent procedures — Rule 17-211 and its

counterparts in every jurisdiction — depend on the

assurance that an attorney who negotiates candidly,

makes conditional admissions, and ultimately walks

away is restored to the status quo ante. If a state's

highest court may strip that assurance away, and no

14

court may say otherwise, every rational attorney

facing charges must refuse to negotiate, and

disciplinary systems nationwide lose the consensual

resolutions on which they depend. The consent decree

becomes an offer that cannot be refused.

III.

ADEQUATE

RELIEF

CANNOT

BE

OBTAINED IN ANY OTHER FORM OR

FROM ANY OTHER COURT.

Rule 20.1 requires the petition to set out with

particularity why the relief sought is not available in

any other court. Here that showing can be made with

unusual precision, forum by forum.

A. The state system affords no remedy for

the interim deprivation.

The order under challenge is an order of the

Supreme Court of New Mexico itself. There is no

higher state court. Petitioner sought rehearing under

Rule 12-404 NMRA and a stay; both were denied in a

one-page order without findings. The remand to the

Disciplinary Board affords no remedy for the interim

suspension: the Board proceeds toward an eventual

merits adjudication, but the suspension — entered by

the court that supervises the Board — remains in

force throughout, and the Board has no power to

dissolve its supervising court's order. Petitioner will

vigorously litigate the charges before the Board and

expects to prevail; but a favorable final adjudication

months or years from now cannot restore the interim

years of practice, the clients lost, or the reciprocal

discipline imposed in the meantime. That is the

Barchi point: a licensee who can suffer the full

15

practical penalty before ever putting the State to its

proof has been denied due process, and a merits forum

that convenes later is not a remedy for the deprivation

happening now.

A claim under the New Mexico Civil Rights Act,

NMSA 1978, §§ 41-4A-1 to -12, likewise offers no

adequate avenue. Such a claim must be brought in a

New Mexico district court — a court inferior to the

respondent — against a public body. In Bolen v. New

Mexico Racing Commission, 578 P.3d 1121 (N.M.

2025), the Supreme Court of New Mexico held that a

public body may raise judicial immunity, which the

Act expressly preserves, NMSA 1978, § 41-4A-10, as

an affirmative defense to Civil Rights Act damages

claims, applying a function-based framework.

Whether that immunity would ultimately defeat a

claim for injunctive relief against the Supreme Court

itself is untested; but Rule 20 does not require

Petitioner to spend the life of his interim suspension

litigating a novel theory, against a preserved

immunity defense the respondent court itself

announced, in a trial court being asked to enjoin the

highest court of its own state. A remedy that is

structurally anomalous, legally unprecedented, and

immunity-encumbered is not “adequate relief” within

the meaning of Rule 20.1.

B. The lower federal courts are closed.

Every avenue in the lower federal courts is

foreclosed, several times over. The Supreme Court of

New Mexico, as an arm of the State, is not a “person”

subject to suit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for any form of

relief. Will v. Michigan Department of State Police,

16

491 U.S. 58 (1989). The Eleventh Amendment bars

damages claims against the court's Disciplinary

Board and its members in their official capacities.

Guttman v. Widman, 188 F. App'x 691 (10th Cir.

2006); Ysais v. New Mexico Judicial Standards

Commission, 616 F. Supp. 2d 1176 (D.N.M. 2009). And

prospective relief fares no better: this Court

reaffirmed in Whole Woman's Health v. Jackson, 595

U.S. 30 (2021), that Ex parte Young, 209 U.S. 123

(1908), does not permit an injunction against a state

court or its machinery, and the District of New Mexico

has applied that principle to New Mexico's

disciplinary apparatus specifically, Marshall v.

Bacon, 2023 WL 7703946 (D.N.M. Nov. 15, 2023); see

also Elephant Butte Irrigation District v. Department

of Interior, 160 F.3d 602 (10th Cir. 1998) (Ex parte

Young inapplicable where relief would intrude

excessively on a special state sovereign interest).

Suit against the individual Justices is

separately barred by statute and doctrine. The 1996

amendment to § 1983 provides that in any action

against a judicial officer for an act taken in a judicial

capacity, injunctive relief “shall not be granted”

unless a declaratory decree was violated or

declaratory relief was unavailable — and neither

exception is available here, because no declaratory

decree exists and Petitioner can and does raise his

constitutional objections in the state proceeding.

Catanach v. Thomson, 718 F. App'x 595 (10th Cir.

2017). A claim confined to declaratory relief fails as

well: the District of New Mexico has held such a claim

not cognizable under § 1983 where declaratory relief

was not unavailable in the state proceeding, Pueblo of

Santa Ana v. Nash, 854 F. Supp. 2d 1128 (D.N.M.

17

2012), and the Tenth Circuit has affirmed the denial of

declaratory relief against judicial officers as a matter

of remedial discretion even where not statutorily

barred, Hatton v. Combs, 793 F. App'x 801 (10th Cir.

2019). The June 5 order was a judicial act; the Tenth

Circuit has held that even informal attorney

disciplinary matters presented to a state's highest

court are judicial proceedings. Stein v. Disciplinary

Board of the Supreme Court of New Mexico, 520 F.3d

1183 (10th Cir. 2008).

Abstention and jurisdictional doctrines close

whatever might remain. This Court held in Middlesex

County Ethics Committee v. Garden State Bar

Association, 457 U.S. 423 (1982), that Younger

abstention applies to ongoing state attorney

disciplinary proceedings, and the District of New

Mexico and the Tenth Circuit have applied Middlesex

to dismiss an attorney's federal suit to enjoin New

Mexico disciplinary proceedings, Stein v. Legal

Advertising Committee of the Disciplinary Board, 272

F. Supp. 2d 1260 (D.N.M. 2003), aff'd, 122 F. App'x

954 (10th Cir. 2004); when the Younger conditions are

satisfied, claims for declaratory as well as injunctive

relief are subject to outright dismissal, Graff v.

Aberdeen Enterprizes, II, Inc., 65 F.4th 500 (10th Cir.

2023). To the extent a federal complaint were instead

framed as an attack on the June 5 order itself, the

Rooker-Feldman doctrine deprives the lower federal

courts of jurisdiction: every federal court of appeals

has held that an attorney may not challenge the result

of a state disciplinary proceeding in a lower federal

court, including by attacking the process leading to

the decision. Kline v. Biles, 861 F.3d 1177 (10th Cir.

2017); see Lance v. Dennis, 546 U.S. 459 (2006). The

18

two doctrines bracket the case: one bars relief while

the state proceeding is pending, the other once it

concludes.

Petitioner acknowledges the argument that

these doctrines have edges — that Younger's premise

of an adequate state opportunity might be contested

where the interim order itself is the violation, or that

an “independent claim” might be theorized around

Rooker-Feldman. But Rule 20.1 asks whether

adequate relief can be obtained elsewhere, not

whether an ingenious complaint might survive a

motion to dismiss in some other circuit. In this

district, on these facts, the controlling authorities —

Will, Whole Woman's Health, Marshall, the 1996

amendment, Middlesex, Stein, Graff, and Kline —

leave no realistic path, and Middlesex itself directs the

constitutional claims into the very state proceeding

whose interim order cannot be reached there. A

remedy that requires threading five overlapping

doctrines, in the teeth of on-point adverse precedent,

while the deprivation runs, is not adequate relief in

any meaningful sense.

C. Certiorari from a final judgment cannot

repair an interim deprivation.

Nor is eventual certiorari review an adequate

substitute. The deprivation is operative now. By the

time the Disciplinary Board convenes a hearing

committee, takes evidence, makes findings, and the

Supreme Court of New Mexico enters a final judgment

reviewable under 28 U.S.C. § 1257(a), the interim

suspension will have run its full destructive course —

clients lost, matters surrendered, reciprocal discipline

19

imposed on the strength of the interim order, and a

reputation publicly branded — all without any

adjudication of misconduct, ever. This Court's cases

recognize that the procedural posture of a case does

not strip constitutional questions of their claim to this

Court's attention, cf. NAACP v. Alabama ex rel.

Patterson, 357 U.S. 449 (1958), and Ex parte Bradley

recognizes that where the ordinary channels cannot

reach a court's summary removal of an attorney,

mandamus exists precisely so that the attorney is not

left “utterly remediless.” Ex parte Wall, 107 U.S. 265

(1883), is not to the contrary: there the writ was

denied because the disbarring court had acted within

its jurisdiction after notice and an opportunity to

respond. Here the court acted outside the exclusive

procedural path its own rules prescribe, with no notice

and no opportunity at all — the Bradley side of the

line, not the Wall side.

IV.

THE WRIT IS IN AID OF THIS COURT'S

APPELLATE JURISDICTION, AND THE

CIRCUMSTANCES ARE EXCEPTIONAL.

The writ would issue in aid of this Court's

appellate jurisdiction because this Court possesses

prospective certiorari jurisdiction over any final

judgment in the underlying disciplinary proceeding,

28 U.S.C. § 1257(a), and because the interim

suspension, left in place, will drain that eventual

review of practical meaning: the federal questions will

arrive at this Court, if at all, only after the deprivation

has become irreversible and after the state order has

been replicated through reciprocal discipline across

the federal system and in every jurisdiction of

20

Petitioner's admission. That replication is not

speculative. The United States District Court for the

District of New Mexico issued its reciprocal-discipline

show-cause order within weeks of the state

suspension,

and

reciprocal-discipline

regimes

elsewhere expressly attach to interim, non-final

orders. Matter of Liebowitz, 200 A.D.3d 124 (N.Y. App.

Div. 2021); Matter of Bacotti, 214 A.D.3d 34 (N.Y. App.

Div. 2023). The All Writs Act confers discretionary

power to issue mandamus in exceptional

circumstances as an instrument of supervisory

judicial administration, La Buy v. Howes Leather Co.,

352 U.S. 249 (1957), and only this Court sits in a

supervisory posture over the judgments of a state's

highest court.

Petitioner anticipates the objection that the

petition is premature because no final judgment

exists, and that the Selling mechanism — the

independent due process review that federal courts

conduct before imposing reciprocal discipline, Selling

v. Radford, 243 U.S. 46 (1917); Theard v. United

States, 354 U.S. 278 (1957); In re Ruffalo, 390 U.S. at

547 (state discipline entitled to respect but not

conclusively binding on federal courts) — is the

system's built-in safeguard. Three answers. First,

prematurity inverts the problem: it is precisely

because no final judgment exists that § 1257 review is

unavailable and mandamus is the only writ that can

reach the deprivation while it matters; a doctrine that

makes relief unavailable both before finality

(prematurity) and after it (mootness of the interim

harm) is a description of the trap, not a justification

for it. Second, the Selling mechanism protects only

Petitioner's federal admissions, one show-cause

21

proceeding at a time, at Petitioner's expense in each; it

cannot restore the New Mexico license itself, which is

the source of the injury and of every reciprocal

consequence. Third, the exceptional-circumstances

inquiry looks to the character of the violation, and this

record is exceptional by any measure: a state supreme

court (i) bypassed the exclusive interim-suspension

procedure its own rules prescribe; (ii) rested the

suspension, by its own recitals, on materials its own

rules withdraw from “any” use; (iii) acted within three

weeks of the attorney's exercise of a right the rules

expressly confer; (iv) made no finding of misconduct,

probable cause, or public harm; (v) provided no

prompt post-deprivation hearing; and (vi) denied

rehearing in one page, without reasons. Petitioner

does not ask this Court to adjudicate the underlying

charges; he has answered them and demanded the

evidentiary hearing to which he is entitled. He asks

only that the interim deprivation — imposed without

process and sustained without explanation — be

vacated, or that the State be required to afford the

process its own rules and the Fourteenth Amendment

prescribe.

CONCLUSION AND RELIEF SOUGHT

The petition for a writ of mandamus and/or

prohibition should be granted. The Court should issue

a writ directing the Supreme Court of the State of New

Mexico to vacate its June 5, 2026 order of interim

suspension in In the Matter of Gene N. Chavez, Esq.,

No. S-1-SC-41313; or, in the alternative, a writ

directing that court to afford Petitioner the process

required by the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth

22

Amendment, Barry v. Barchi, 443 U.S. 55 (1979), and

by Rule 17-207(A)(1)(e) NMRA — a petition, notice, an

opportunity to be heard, findings on probable cause

and on the probability of harm to the public, and a

prompt hearing — before any interim suspension may

take or remain in effect; or, in the alternative, a writ of

prohibition restraining enforcement of the June 5,

2026 order pending final adjudication of the

disciplinary charges. Petitioner further requests such

other relief as the Court deems just and proper.

Respectfully submitted,

_________________________

______

A. Blair Dunn

Counsel of Record

Western Agriculture,

Resource

and Business Advocates,

LLP

400 Gold Ave SW, Suite

1000

Albuquerque, NM 87102

(505) 750-3060

abdunn@ablairdunnesq.com

Counsel for Petitioner Gene

N. Chavez

August 2026

23

APPENDIX

APPENDIX — INDEX

Appendix A — Order of Suspension, In the Matter of

Gene N. Chavez, Esq., No. S-1-SC-41313 (N.M.

June 5, 2026)

Appendix B — Order Denying Motion for Rehearing

and Motion to Stay, No. S-1-SC-41313 (N.M.

June 16, 2026)

APPENDIX A

[Filed: Supreme Court of New Mexico, June 5, 2026,

11:47 a.m., Office of the Clerk]

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF

NEW MEXICO

June 5, 2026

NO. S-1-SC-41313

IN THE MATTER OF

GENE N. CHAVEZ, ESQ.,

An Attorney Suspended from the Practice of

Law Before the Courts of the State of New

Mexico

ORDER

WHEREAS, this matter initially came on for

consideration by the Court upon the parties’

conditional agreement not to contest the allegations

and consent to discipline, complete disciplinary

history of Respondent Gene N. Chavez filed at the

Court’s request, and argument of the parties heard on

May 14, 2026;

WHEREAS, following oral argument, the Court

issued an order proposing a modification to the

conditional agreement under Rule 17-211(B)(1)(a)

NMRA;

WHEREAS, Respondent filed a notice on May

15, 2026, rejecting the proposed modification;

1a

WHEREAS, this Court has inherent authority

to regulate and discipline attorneys under the Court’s

power of “superintending control over all inferior

courts,” granted by the New Mexico Constitution,

Article VI, Section 3;

WHEREAS, the Court having considered the

foregoing and being sufficiently advised; Chief Justice

Julie J. Vargas, Justice Michael E. Vigil, Justice C.

Shannon Bacon, Justice David K. Thomson, and

Justice Briana H. Zamora concurring;

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that

Respondent is hereby SUSPENDED from the practice

of law pending further proceedings before the

Disciplinary Board;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this matter is

remanded to the Disciplinary Board for further

proceedings under Rule 17-211 NMRA;

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Respondent

shall comply with Rule 17-212 NMRA, as applicable;

and

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that this

suspension shall be published in the Bar Bulletin.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

WITNESS, the Honorable

Julie J. Vargas, Chief

Justice of the Supreme

Court of the State of New

Mexico, and the seal of said

Court this 5th day of June,

2026.

2a

[SEAL]

Elizabeth A. Garcia, Clerk

of Court

Supreme Court of New

Mexico

By: /s/ Kristin R. Edwards

Deputy Clerk

[Certification: “I CERTIFY AND ATTEST: A true copy

was served on all parties or their counsel of record on

date filed. Kristin Edwards, Deputy Clerk of the

Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico.”]

3a

APPENDIX B

[Filed: Supreme Court of New Mexico, June 16, 2026,

11:43 a.m., Office of the Clerk]

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF

NEW MEXICO

June 16, 2026

NO. S-1-SC-41313

IN THE MATTER OF

GENE N. CHAVEZ, ESQ.,

An Attorney Suspended from the Practice of

Law Before the Courts of the State of New

Mexico

ORDER

WHEREAS, this matter came on for

consideration by the Court upon Respondent’s

opposed motions for rehearing and stay; and

WHEREAS, the Court having considered the

foregoing and being sufficiently advised; Chief Justice

Julie J. Vargas, Justice Michael E. Vigil, Justice C.

Shannon Bacon, Justice David K. Thomson, and

Justice Briana H. Zamora concurring;

NOW, THEREFORE, IT IS ORDERED that

both motions are DENIED.

IT IS SO ORDERED.

WITNESS, the Honorable

Julie J. Vargas, Chief

4a

Justice of the Supreme

Court of the State of New

Mexico, and the seal of said

Court this 16th day of

June, 2026.

[SEAL]

Elizabeth A. Garcia, Clerk

of Court

Supreme Court of New

Mexico

By: /s/ Kristin R. Edwards

Deputy Clerk

[Certification: “I CERTIFY AND ATTEST: A true copy

was served on all parties or their counsel of record on

date filed. Kristin Edwards, Deputy Clerk of the

Supreme Court of the State of New Mexico.”]

5a