Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

Respondents the State of New Mexico and Warden Erasmo Bravo appealed the district court's grant of Petitioner George Quintana's petition for writ of habeas corpus. The district court granted the petition based exclusively on the allegations contained in petitioner's amended petition, together with a supporting affidavit from one of petitioner's trial counsel admitting to being ineffective in her representation of him. The district court's rationale for this "unorthodox" decision was Respondents' failure to timely file a response to the amended petition and their failure to appear at a scheduled motions hearing, despite having received notice of the hearing. The reason for Respondents' failure to file a response and appear at the hearing was due to a conflict of interest that arose when the attorney affiant went to work for the District Attorney in the same jurisdiction. The district court was aware of the conflict and the confusion regarding whether an attorney from the Attorney General's office or an attorney from a district attorney's office from another jurisdiction would represent Respondents. Despite acknowledging the existence of the conflict and the confusion about who would represent Respondents, the district court vacated petitioner's convictions and granted him a new trial. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court held that the conduct of the District Attorney and the Attorney General did not rise to the level of stubborn resistance to the district court's orders that would justify the extreme sanction of vacating petitioner's jury convictions without both considering a response from Respondents and after having had a full evidentiary hearing. Accordingly, the Court reversed the district court's grant of habeas relief and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Quintana v. Bravo" on Justia Law

Defendant Greg Collier was indicted in August 2006 for fourth-degree extreme cruelty to animals after a horse he owned died. A jury acquitted Defendant of felony extreme cruelty to animals but was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the lesser included offense of misdemeanor cruelty to animals, on which the district court, at the State's request, instructed the jury without objection from Defendant. The issue on appeal to the Supreme Court was whether the State could retry Defendant for the lesser offense, which was not explicitly charged in the indictment, without running afoul of the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that the State could retry Defendant for the lesser included offense because retrial after a mistrial caused by jury deadlock does not violate the constitutional prohibition on double jeopardy. Furthermore, the Court held that the applicable statute of limitations did not bar retrial on the lesser included offense. View "New Mexico v. Collier" on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was whether "Crawford v. Washington" (541 U.S. 36 (2004)) and subsequent related case law precluded a forensic pathologist from relating subjective observations recorded in an autopsy report as a basis for the pathologist's trial opinions, when the pathologist neither participated in nor observed the autopsy performed on the decedent. The Court answered this question affirmatively and concluded that there was a Confrontation Clause violation because: (1) the autopsy report contained statements that were made with the primary intention of establishing facts that the declarant understood might be used in a criminal prosecution; (2) the statements in the report were related to the jury as the basis for the pathologist's opinions and were therefore offered to prove the truth of the matters asserted; and (3) the pathologist who recorded her subjective observations in the report did not testify at trial and Defendant Arnoldo Navarette did not have a prior opportunity to cross-examine her. The Court reversed and remanded the case for a new trial. The Court did not address remaining issues raised by defendant as without merit. View "New Mexico v. Navarette" on Justia Law

Defendant Bruce Hall was convicted of a sex crime in California pursuant to a plea agreement. He then moved to New Mexico and was charged with the fourth-degree felony of failing to register as a sex offender. The New Mexico Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA) requires a person convicted of any of twelve enumerated sex offenses, or who is convicted of an sheriff for the New Mexico county in which that person resides. The issue before the Supreme Court in this case was what constituted an equivalent offense and how a court makes that determination. Upon review, the Court held that an offense is "equivalent" to a New Mexico offense for purposes of SORNA, is if the defendant's actual conduct that gave rise to the out-of-state conviction would have constituted one of the twelve enumerated offenses requiring registration. View "New Mexico v. Hall" on Justia Law

Petitioner Joseph C. Perry, Petitioner, was a prison inmate at the Penitentiary of New Mexico serving sentence at the Lea County Correctional Facility for battery against a household member as well as for a parole violation for fraud over $2,500. In 2006, Petitioner was transported to the Otero County Detention Center for an arraignment relating to the fraud charge. While at the Otero Center, Petitioner raped inmate Joshua Sommer. Upon discovering Petitioner’s pending criminal charge for rape in Otero County District Court, the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) pursued disciplinary action against him for the same rape incident. A disciplinary hearing was scheduled at the Lea County Facility. A hearing officer conducted the hearing, documenting the proceedings and the evidence in a form entitled "Disciplinary Summary of Evidence and Proceeding," the tape of which was lost. The hearing officer ultimately concluded that Petitioner committed rape and threats to other inmates. NMCD forfeited Petitioner’s earned good time (69 days) and placed him in Level VI Disciplinary Segregation at a maximum security facility for a period of 455 days. In 2007, Petitioner filed a pro se petition for a writ of habeas corpus at the Santa Fe District Court, asserting five grounds for habeas relief. Just over three weeks later, Petitioner was convicted in Otero County on second-degree felony of criminal sexual penetration and the third-degree felony of bribery or intimidation of a witness, based on the same rape incident. Approximately a year later, the State filed an amended response to an amended petition for a writ of habeas corpus and attached the judgment and sentence from Otero County. The central issue at the evidentiary hearing was whether NMCD had violated Petitioner’s due process rights by denying him an opportunity to call witnesses or otherwise elicit written testimony at his prison disciplinary hearing. At the conclusion of the habeas hearing, the district court agreed with Petitioner’s contentions and issued an order granting remedies with respect to its earlier findings of due process violations. Notwithstanding Petitioner’s intervening criminal convictions for rape and witness intimidation, the district court ordered NMCD to (1) restore Petitioner’s good-time credits, (2) remove the disciplinary hearing findings from Petitioner’s record, (3) never use findings of the disciplinary hearing against Petitioner in any way, including in present and future decisions relating to classification and placement within the prison system, and (4) never pursue the same factual allegations that were the subject of the disciplinary hearing in later proceedings against Petitioner. The NMCD appealed; the Supreme Court reversed: "In focusing on Petitioner’s procedural due process rights, the district court appears to have lost sight of the reason for such a hearing. The court failed to appreciate the significance of the intervening criminal convictions - not to whether due process was violated - but, pivotally, to what remedy was appropriate under the circumstances." View "Perry v. Moya" on Justia Law

In this first-degree murder case, the State improperly admitted into evidence a diary of the decedent which was inadmissible hearsay. Because the diary was important to the State's case, and the State repeatedly relied upon its contents throughout the trial, the Supreme Court concluded that the error was not harmless and the convictions should have been reversed. View "New Mexico v. Leyba" on Justia Law

By the time Defendant Wayne Bent was indicted, the grand jury allegedly had exceeded its statutory term of service. Having been convicted subsequently of most of the charges in the indictment, Defendant appealed on the basis of that untimely indictment. He claimed that the untimely indictment deprived the grand jury of jurisdiction and that the Supreme Court should overturn the subsequent jury verdict against him. Persuaded by this argument, the Court of Appeals reversed Defendant's convictions. Upon review, the Supreme Court held that statutory challenges to the indictment like those presented by this case must be adjudicated before trial and before a verdict issues on those same charges. Accordingly, the Court reversed the Court of Appeals and remanded the case to that court for consideration of all other issues raised but not yet decided in Defendant's appeal. View "New Mexico v. Bent" on Justia Law

Defendant Julian Tafoya shot and killed Andrea Larez, and shot and injured Crystal Brady. Larez and Brady were sitting in the front of a car and Defendant and his girlfriend, Kaprice Conde, were sitting in back. Defendant was convicted by a jury of first degree felony murder with the predicate felony of "shooting at or from a motor vehicle," attempted first degree murder, and tampering with evidence. The trial court also found Defendant guilty of being a felon in possession of a firearm after the jury issued a special verdict finding that Defendant committed his crimes with a firearm. Defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment plus seventeen and one-half years. Defendant appealed his convictions to the Supreme Court. Defendant argued: (1) his felony murder conviction should be reversed because shooting entirely within a motor vehicle is neither shooting "at" nor "from" a motor vehicle pursuant to statute, and therefore cannot serve as the predicate felony for his felony murder conviction; (2) there was insufficient evidence of deliberation to support his conviction for attempted first degree murder. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed with Defendant on both arguments raised, and reversed his first degree murder conviction for entry of second degree murder. View "New Mexico v. Tafoya" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted certiorari to review a Court of Appeals opinion that overturned the district court's denial of a motion to suppress drug evidence discovered during a traffic stop of Defendant Gunnar Olson. Upon review of the matter, the Supreme Court held that the arresting officer had reasonable suspicion to expand the scope of the valid traffic stop to an investigation of prostitution solicitation and that Defendant's subsequent consent to a protective search of his fanny pack was not a fruit of a prior unlawful search or seizure. Accordingly, the Court reversed the Court of Appeals and affirmed the district court's denial of Defendant's motion to suppress.

In this case, the issue before the Supreme Court concerned the use of multiple levels of anonymous hearsay reports in the probable cause portion of a search warrant affidavit. The Court granted Defendant David Haidle’s application for interlocutory appeal to review the district court’s partial denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained at his home through execution of a magistrate court search warrant. The district court found that the warrant was issued without constitutionally adequate probable cause but refused to suppress pieces of blood-stained carpet on the theory that the carpet inevitably would have been discovered in a potential future search. Upon review, the Court affirmed the district court’s determination that the search warrant was invalid, but reversed the ruling that the inevitable discovery doctrine would make the unlawfully seized carpet evidence admissible.