Justia New Mexico Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

A jury convicted Petitioner Mario Rudolfo of first-degree murder under a general verdict. The jury instructions contained two alternative theories for the jury to use as a basis for the first-degree murder conviction: (1) felony murder predicated on shooting at or from a motor vehicle and (2) willful and deliberate murder. Twelve years after Petitioner’s conviction, the New Mexico Supreme Court issued New Mexico v. Marquez, 376 P.3d 815, holding that “the crime of shooting at or from a motor vehicle may not serve as the predicate felony in support of a felony murder charge.” Appealing, Petitioner argued the Marquez holding applied retroactively and argued his conviction had to be vacated. The NEw Mexico Supreme Court held that Marquez announced a new substantive rule which applied retroactively. As a result, the Court set aside the district court’s denial of Petitioner’s writ of habeas corpus, vacated Petitioner’s first-degree murder conviction, and remanded the case for a new trial on first-degree murder. View "Rudolfo v. Steward" on Justia Law

Defendant Michael Romero alleged that his Sixth Amendment right to a fair and impartial jury was violated because one of his jurors revealed during voir dire that he knew the investigator in the case. Defendant did not inquire into the juror’s potential bias during jury selection, did not challenge the juror for cause, did not use an available peremptory challenge on the juror, and did not otherwise object to the juror during jury selection. The New Mexico Supreme Court concluded that the juror’s statements did not violate Defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury, and that Defendant both failed to preserve and waived any objection to the juror’s alleged bias. View "New Mexico v. Romero" on Justia Law

Defendant Christopher Rodriguez pleaded guilty to felony offenses committed when he was sixteen years old under a plea and disposition agreement, and following an amenability hearing, the district court imposed an adult sentence. Defendant appealed the amenability determination, and on its own motion, the Court of Appeals held that under the plea and disposition agreement, Defendant waived his right to appeal. The New Mexico Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether a juvenile waives the right to appeal an amenability determination by entering into a plea and disposition agreement. To this, the Court held that the right was not waived, reversed the Court of Appeals, and remanded the case to the Court of Appeals to decide Defendant’s appeal on the merits. View "New Mexico v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

The New Mexico Supreme Court addressed whether the tolling provision contained in Rule 7-506.1(D) NMRA of the Rules of Criminal Procedure for the Metropolitan Courts applied to cases dismissed without prejudice by the court in addition to cases voluntarily dismissed by the prosecution. In 2018, Defendant Tito Lope was arraigned in the metropolitan court on charges including aggravated driving while intoxicated (DWI) and reckless driving. Rule 7-506(B) required Defendant’s trial to commence within 182 days of arraignment (July 20, 2018), assuming that no extensions of time were granted under Rule 7-506(C) and that no tolling was warranted under Rule 7-506.1(D). The case was initially set for trial on April 30, 2018, but continued to June 4, 2018. The arresting officer did not appear on June 4, and the State could not explain his absence. The State requested a continuance; Defendant moved to dismiss. The metropolitan court dismissed the case without prejudice because the State was not prepared for trial. On June 14, 2018, the State filed a notice of refiling of the dismissed complaint. Several days later, the metropolitan court sent a notice setting trial for July 18, 2018, but on the following day issued sua sponte a new notice to the parties resetting trial for July 24, 2018. One day before the scheduled trial date, Defendant filed a motion to dismiss with prejudice for failure to prosecute under Rule 7-506(B), arguing that the State’s deadline to try Defendant was July 20. At the July 24 trial setting, Defendant arguing the tolling provision of Rule 7-506.1(D) applied only to voluntary dismissals, and that to apply the tolling provision in circumstances where the court dismisses a case as a sanction against the State would allow the State to benefit from its own mistake. The metropolitan court agreed with the State and concluded that the 182-day rule was tolled for ten days under Rule 7-506.1(D), extending deadline to bring Defendant to trial to July 30, 2018. After review, the Supreme Court held the tolling provision applied with equal force to cases dismissed by the court and to cases voluntarily dismissed by the prosecution and conclude that, with the benefit of the tolling provision here, the time for the State to bring Defendant to trial did not expire before Defendant entered into his conditional plea agreement. The Court therefore affirmed Defendant’s conviction. View "New Mexico v. Lopez" on Justia Law

In 2007, two bills addressing the monitoring and parole of convicted sex offenders passed within days of each other and were signed into law on the same day. Defendant Anthony Sena, who pleaded no contest to the offense of child solicitation by electronic communication device, asked the New Mexico Supreme Court to hold these laws irreconcilable. Consequently, he sought application of the preexisting standard parole term to his sentence and not the extended parole term enacted in the 2007 legislation. To this, the Court disagreed that the bills were irreconcilable and concluded that the extended parole term applied to those convicted of this crime. In this opinion, the Court reaffirmed that its role was to read statutes harmoniously if possible and that the proper test for a court to apply when reconciling legislation and discerning legislative intent in these circumstances was that of New Mexico v. Smith, 98 P.3d 1022. The Court of Appeals opinion was reversed and the Court affirmed the district court’s imposition of the extended parole term on Defendant’s crime. View "New Mexico v. Sena" on Justia Law

Defendant Albert Fernandez appealed his conviction for battery upon a peace officer. The New Mexico Supreme Court granted Defendant’s petition for certiorari review to determine whether: (1) the district court incorrectly admitted Defendant’s prior conviction for battery upon a peace officer; (2) cumulative error deprived Defendant of a fair trial; and (3) the Court of Appeals improperly decided Defendant’s appeal without considering his reconstructed testimony. After such review, the Supreme Court found that the district court abused its discretion in admitting Defendant’s prior conviction for battery upon a peace officer. The Court therefore reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded for a new trial. In light of its reversal, the Supreme Court concluded it was unnecessary to address the merits of Defendant’s claim of cumulative error. Finally, the Court concluded Defendant’s request to supplement the record with his reconstructed testimony was resolved by the Court of Appeals and was therefore moot. View "New Mexico v. Fernandez" on Justia Law

Defendant-Appellee Derrick Romero pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal sexual penetration (CSP). In the first judgment and sentence, the district court erred in ordering that Appellee serve two years of parole, resulting in an unlawfully short period of mandatory parole. Thirteen days later, the district court ostensibly corrected the sentencing error by entering a second amended judgment, which replaced Appellee’s parole period of two years with five-to-twenty years. Both of these parole periods were illegal sentences, as NMSA 1978, Section 31-21-10.1(A)(2) (2007), required a sex offender convicted of CSP in the second degree to serve an “indeterminate period of supervised parole for . . . not less than five years and up to the natural life of the sex offender.” Appellee challenged the revised parole period of five-to-twenty years in an Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. The district court determined that it did not have jurisdiction to correct the illegal parole sentence in the first judgment and accordingly granted Appellee’s habeas petition, vacating the second amended judgment and reinstating the original two-year parole period. The State appealed the grant of habeas relief. The Supreme Court held that historical changes leading to Rule 5-801 (2009) (former Rule 5- 801) did not remove a district court’s common law jurisdictional authority to correct an illegal sentence. Thus, the Court overruled New Mexiso v. Torres, 272 P.3d 689 in that regard. Under this holding, the Court reversed the district court’s grant of the writ of habeas corpus and remanded to the district court to impose the statutorily required parole sentence. The Court further directed the Rules of Criminal Procedure for State Courts Committee to clarify the length of time in which a district court retains the relevant jurisdiction to correct an illegal sentence in accordance with the Court's opinion here. Finally, under Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969), and Rule 5-303 NMRA, the Court held that Appellee was entitled to an opportunity for plea withdrawal. View "New Mexico v. Romero" on Justia Law

Defendant Christina Banghart-Portillo pleaded guilty to tampering with evidence, and conspiracy to commit tampering with evidence, contrary to (Count 1 and Count 2, respectively), each of which was a fourth-degree felony offense, under a written plea agreement. Because Defendant had a prior felony conviction, each sentence was enhanced at her initial sentencing by one year under New Mexico’s habitual offender statute. Defendant also admitted her identity in a second prior felony at the time of her sentencing, yet the district court imposed no additional enhancement at that time. The district court imposed consecutive sentences. The central issue this case presented for the New Mexico Supreme Court's review was whether Defendant had a reasonable expectation of finality for Count 1 such that the district court no longer had jurisdiction when it applied the habitual offender enhancement to that Count. Defendant argued on appeal that the district court’s enhancement of the Count 1 sentence resulted in a double jeopardy violation because the court had lost jurisdiction by the time of the enhancement. The Court of Appeals held that the district court retained jurisdiction to apply a habitual offender enhancement to Count 1. The Supreme Court concluded Defendant did not have a reasonable expectation of finality in Count 1 at the time that the district court enhanced Defendant’s sentence because the district court had previously informed her of the consequences she faced if she violated probation. Therefore, it affirmed the Court of Appeals and held that the district court properly retained jurisdiction to apply a habitual offender enhancement to Count 1. View "New Mexico v. Banghart-Portillo" on Justia Law

On interlocutory appeal, the State challenged the Court of Appeals’ affirmance of the district court’s pretrial ruling that almost all statements made by Declarant Kimbro Talk to sexual assault nurse examiner (SANE) nurse Gail Starr were inadmissible as violating Defendant Oliver Tsosie’s confrontation rights under the Sixth Amendment. The district court concluded that Declarant’s statements sought by the State for use at Defendant’s trial were testimonial in nature, and thus inadmissible, pursuant to Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) and Davis v. Washington, 547 U.S. 813 (2006). The New Mexico Supreme Court reversed and, without ruling on other considerations of admissibility, held that almost all of the excluded statements were nontestimonial in nature and thus did not violate Defendant’s rights under the Confrontation Clause. View "New Mexico v. Tsosie" on Justia Law

Child, then age seventeen, became Facebook friends with a former schoolmate, Jeremiah Erickson (Erickson), then age nineteen. The two conversed primarily through their respective Facebook Messenger accounts. Child and Erickson used Messenger to arrange in-person meetings, during which Erickson drove to Child’s house to pick her up and drive her somewhere to “hang out.” It was the second of these meetings that gave rise to the events leading to Child’s adjudication. Both Erickson and Child testified that their get-together on the night of February 24, 2020, did not end well, and each provided a different narrative as to what unfolded. At Child’s adjudication, the State sought to introduce evidence of communications between Child and Erickson the State alleged took place on Facebook Messenger the day after an incident involving Erickson’s vehicle. The State sought to authenticate the messages through Erickson’s testimony as to his personal knowledge of both the accuracy of screenshots and his history of Facebook Messenger communications with Child, as well as through the contents of the messages themselves. Child’s counsel objected to the authentication of the exhibits, arguing the screenshots did not show with certainty the messages were sent from Child’s Facebook account and emphasizing what counsel characterized as the inherent difficulty in “lay[ing a] foundation on Facebook Messenger messages because anybody can have access to somebody’s phone or Facebook account.” The district court overruled the objection, and the evidence was admitted. Child was subsequently adjudicated delinquent and appealed the district court’s judgment and disposition. The New Mexico Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that the traditional authentication standard set out in Rule 11-901 provided the appropriate legal framework for authenticating social media evidence. But the Court disagreed with appellate court's conclusion that the State failed to meet the threshold for authentication established under that rule, much less that the district court abused its discretion in finding the State had met its burden. The Supreme Court held the State’s authentication showing was sufficient under Rule 11-901 to support a finding that, more likely than not, the Facebook Messenger account used to send the messages belonged to Child and that Child was the author of the messages. Accordingly, the Court of Appeals was reversed and Child’s delinquency adjudications were reinstated. View "New Mexico v. Jesenya O." on Justia Law