Justia New Mexico Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In Moses v. Skanders (Moses II), the New Mexico Supreme Court considered whether using public funds to lend textbooks to private school students violated Article XII, Section 3. In Moses II, the Court held the plain meaning and history of Article XII, Section 3 forbade such lending. The U.S. Supreme Court subsequently vacated the New Mexico Court's judgment and remanded the case for further consideration in light of Trinity Lutheran Church of Columbia, Inc. v. Comer, 137 S.Ct. 2012 (2017). On remand, the New Mexico Court concluded its previous interpretation of Article XII, Section 3 raised concerns under the Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. To avoid constitutional concerns, the Court held that the textbook loan program, did not result in use of public funds in support of private schools as prohibited by Article XII, Section 3. The Court also held the textbook loan program was consistent with Article IV, Section 31 of the New Mexico Constitution, which addressed appropriations for educational purposes, and Article IX, Section 14 of the New Mexico Constitution. View "Moses v. Ruszkowski" on Justia Law

Petitioner David Lukens, Jr. sought habeas relief, claiming he received ineffective assistance of appellate counsel. The issues he raised before the New Mexico Supreme Court centered on: (1) whether prejudice due to deficient performance of Petitioner’s attorney should be presumed or whether Petitioner had to prove that actual prejudice occurred on direct appeal; and (2) if there was prejudice, whether the remedy should be a new appeal. Although the performance of Petitioner’s appellate counsel on direct appeal (Appellate Counsel) was clearly deficient in certain instances, the Supreme Court held that prejudice may not be presumed because the performance of Appellate Counsel did not deprive Petitioner of his constitutional right to a direct appeal of his conviction. Furthermore, the Court held that Petitioner failed to establish actual prejudice in his direct appeal. Because Petitioner did not establish prejudice, the Court did not reach the question of remedy. Therefore, the Court affirmed the district court’s denial of the petition for a writ of habeas corpus. View "Lukens v. Franco" on Justia Law

New Mexico prosecuted Defendant Kelson Lewis under a five-count indictment. The only count at issue in this appeal was Count 1, under which Defendant was charged with criminal sexual contact of a minor (CSCM). At the close of the State’s case at trial, the district court granted the State’s motion to amend the CSCM charge from second to third degree and granted Defendant’s motion to include battery as a lesser included offense under Count 1. The issue this case presented for the New Mexico Supreme Court's review in this appeal centered on two issues which arise when a jury is asked to render a verdict on a count that includes both greater and lesser offenses and it deadlocks in its deliberations on the greater offense. The Court held that a district court satisfies the requirements under Rule 5-611(D) when it has established a clear record as to which offense the jury is deadlocked. Strict compliance with the provisions of Rule 5-611(D) is not necessary to fulfill its purpose. Further, the Court recognized an ambiguity in the existing jury instructions regarding the order in which a jury must deliberate on counts which include both greater and lesser included offenses. The Court resolved this ambiguity and provided guidance to courts and litigants, and adopted approach to jury instructions that enables the jury to consider both the greater and lesser offenses under a count in any order it deems appropriate provided it return a verdict of not guilty on the greater offense before the court may accept a verdict on the lesser included offense. View "New Mexico v. Lewis" on Justia Law

Casey Baker (Worker) appealed a Workers’ Compensation Administration decision denying his request that Endeavor Services, Inc. and Great West Casualty Company (Employer) pay 100% of Worker’s attorney fees pursuant to the fee-shifting provision set forth in NMSA 1978, Section 52-1-54(F)(4) (2003, amended 2013). At issue was whether Worker made an offer of judgment that was sufficient to trigger the fee-shifting provision. The New Mexico Supreme Court found Worker’s offer of judgment put Employer on notice that Worker was proposing an unambiguous partial settlement and that Worker intended to invoke the fee-shifting statute. Therefore, Worker made a valid offer under Section 52-1-54(F) (2003) and the workers’ compensation judge erred as a matter of law by declining to apply the mandatory fee-shifting provision. The case was remanded for further proceedings. View "Baker v. Endeavor Servs." on Justia Law

On November 1, 2011, officers discovered Defendant Matias Loza smelling strongly of gasoline and cowering under a fifth-wheel trailer. One hundred yards away, a Suzuki automobile containing the human remains of Richard Valdez was fully engulfed in flames. Shoeprints in the area were consistent with the shoes Defendant was wearing. After claiming that he had been brought to the area by a truck, which he had just escaped after being shot at by its occupants, Defendant offered one of the officers $40,000 to let him go free. Following a more extensive investigation into Defendant’s background and his reasons for being so near the murder scene, detectives ascertained Defendant was connected with the AZ Boys gang, and gathered further intelligence from anonymous sources that Defendant had in fact served as a hitman and killed Valdez in connection with the gang’s drug trafficking activity. In this case, the issue before the New Mexico Supreme Court was whether defendant’s racketeering convictions foreclosed a subsequent prosecution for the crimes alleged as the predicate offenses in the earlier racketeering case. In support of the racketeering charges, the State alleged the underlying predicate offenses of murder, arson, and bribery of a public officer. The State then sought to prosecute Defendant for the crimes alleged as the predicate offenses in the earlier prosecution-murder, arson, and bribery-as well as other related charges. Defendant contended this subsequent prosecution violated his Fifth Amendment right against double jeopardy, and the his Article II, Section 15 rights from the New Mexico Constitution. Disagreeing that double jeopardy attached to the subsequent prosecution, the New Mexico Supreme Court affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant's motion to dismiss. View "New Mexico v. Loza" on Justia Law

The New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department (the Department) appealed a Court of Appeals decision to reverse the district court’s termination of Father’s parental rights with regard to Child. Mother and Father reported that Father had been standing and rocking Child when he accidentally dropped her on the carpet. Child was in critical condition, having sustained multiple fractures, including twenty-three rib fractures and four skull fractures in various stages of healing, facial bruising, liver lacerations, brain bleeding, and a possible detached retina. Doctors determined that the “volume, distribution, and severity of [Child’s] injuries [were] not consistent with a short fall in the home” and instead evidenced multiple incidents of blunt force trauma to Child’s head and body. Child was severely physically and mentally impaired as a result of the injuries. The Court of Appeals concluded that the Department failed to make reasonable efforts to assist Father in remedying the conditions and causes of neglect and abuse that rendered Father unable to properly care for Child. The New Mexico Supreme Court granted certiorari to review whether the district court’s determination that the Department made reasonable efforts to assist Father was supported by substantial evidence. The Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeals opinion and affirmed the district court order terminating Father’s parental rights. View "New Mexico ex rel. CYFD v. Keon H." on Justia Law

In a wrongful death action, the jury returned a special verdict that awarded damages to the individual loss-of-consortium claimants but not to the decedent’s estate. The decedent’s surviving spouse and children (collectively Plaintiffs) filed a motion for a new trial, arguing that the award of zero damages to the estate was not supported by substantial evidence. The issue before the New Mexico Supreme Court was whether Plaintiffs waived the right to challenge the jury verdict on appeal by failing to object to the verdict prior to the jury’s discharge. After review, the Supreme Court concluded that they did: “A party is deemed to have waived a challenge to an ambiguous, inconsistent, or incomplete jury verdict if the party had an opportunity to raise the objection before the jury was discharged but failed to do so.” In this case, Plaintiffs created ambiguity in the verdict by modifying the uniform jury instruction on wrongful death damages and drafting the special verdict form in a way that failed to advise jurors how to allocate damages between the individual loss-of-consortium claimants and the decedent’s estate. During its deliberations, the jury submitted a question to the district court which confirmed that the jury was confused about how to allocate damages on the special verdict form. As a result of this confusion, it was unclear whether the jury deliberately intended to award zero wrongful death damages to the estate or whether the jury mistakenly included wrongful death damages in its award to the individual claimants. View "Saenz v. Ranack Constructors, Inc." on Justia Law

In 2009, the New Mexico legislative and executive branches statutorily abolished capital punishment for first-degree murder, the only remaining New Mexico crime carrying a potential death sentence, for all offenses committed after July 1, 2009. Defendant Muhammad Ameer was charged with first-degree murder committed on or after July 1, 2009. In this appeal, an issue arose from the district court’s order applying the capital offense exception to the constitutional right to bail and denying Defendant any form of pretrial release. The New Mexico Supreme Court held that first-degree murder was not currently a constitutionally defined capital offense in New Mexico that would authorize a judge to categorically deny release pending trial. Following briefing and oral argument, the Supreme Court issued a bench ruling and written order reversing the district court’s detention order that had been based solely on the capital offense exception. In the same order, the Supreme Court remanded the case for the district court to consider the State’s unaddressed request for detention under the 2016 amendment to Article II, 4 Section 13 of the New Mexico Constitution, allowing courts a new and broader evidence-based authority to deny pretrial release for any felony defendant “if the prosecuting authority . . . proves by clear and convincing evidence that no release conditions will reasonably protect the safety of any other person or the community.” At that time, the Court advised its opinion would follow; this was the opinion setting forth the Court’s reasoning. View "New Mexico v. Ameer" on Justia Law

Defendants Isaac Martinez and Carla Casias were each indicted on one count of armed robbery and one count of conspiracy to commit armed robbery. Early in the investigation of the robbery, a police detective enlisted the help of the deputy district attorney, who prepared and authorized service of what purported to be judicial subpoenas duces tecum (the subpoenas) to obtain records of calls and text messages of suspects from their cellular telephone providers. These purported subpoenas represented on their face that they were issued in the name of the Eighth Judicial District Court, although at the time of their preparation and service there was no pending prosecution, court action, or grand jury proceeding. Over signature of the deputy district attorney, some of these purported subpoenas ordered production of “Call Detail Records, and Text Message Detail” for the specified phones, all ordered subscriber information, and all ordered production to the Taos Police Department with the warning, “IF YOU DO NOT COMPLY WITH THIS SUBPOENA, you may be held in contempt of court and punished by fine or imprisonment.” These early subpoenas were filed with the district court in a miscellaneous court docket, rather than a criminal or grand jury docket, but they were styled as “State of New Mexico, Plaintiff, vs. John Doe, Defendant.” The detective used information gained from the early subpoenas to obtain search warrants for additional evidence. In this case, the New Mexico Supreme Court addressed whether a court could dismiss an indictment because evidence considered by the grand jury had been developed through use of unlawful subpoenas. The Supreme Court confirmed “almost a century of judicial precedents in New Mexico” and held that, absent statutory authorization, a court may not overturn an otherwise lawful grand jury indictment because of trial inadmissibility or improprieties in the procurement of evidence that was considered by the grand jury. View "New Mexico v. Martinez" on Justia Law

Just after midnight on September 8, 2012, Defendant John Radosevich’s neighbor called 911 to report that Defendant was yelling obscenities and throwing objects into his yard. After calling the police, the neighbor walked outside his house to investigate. Defendant met the neighbor in the alleyway between their homes and, following a verbal exchange, Defendant threatened to stab the neighbor with “a little steak knife.” Moments later an officer arrived at the scene, and Defendant threw the knife away and returned to his house. An officer subsequently recovered the knife. The State charged Defendant with assault with intent to commit murder (a third-degree felony) and tampering with evidence (a fourth-degree felony). The district court directed a verdict in Defendant’s favor on the assault with intent to murder charge and then, over Defendant’s objection, instructed the jury on an uncharged crime, assault with a deadly weapon. Defendant was convicted of both assault with a deadly weapon (a fourth-degree felony), and tampering with evidence. Defendant appealed to the Court of Appeals, and the appellate court reversed the assault charge. The Court of Appeals also addressed Defendant’s argument that because his tampering conviction was “tied to his conviction for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, he should be retried for tampering or permitted to challenge the degree of his conviction,” based on his contention that the offense for which tampering could have been committed was a misdemeanor, making the tampering offense a petty misdemeanor. Rather than remanding for a new trial, the Court of Appeals held that because the tampering jury instruction did not tie to an identified crime, defendant's conviction was relative to an indeterminate crime and should be amended, not retried. The case was then remanded for the district court to simple amend Defendant's judgement and sentence to impose felony tampering under the applicable statute's indeterminate crime provision. The New Mexico Supreme Court reversed. The offense of tampering where the level of the underlying crime cannot be determined beyond a reasonable doubt is punishable at the lowest penalty classification for tampering; the highest crime for which tampering with evidence of a probation violation is committed is the highest crime for which the defendant is on probation, rather than an indeterminate crime. View "New Mexico v. Radosevich" on Justia Law