State v. Aragon

• Decision Date: 14 December 1989
• Docket Number: No. 17916,17916
• Citation: 1989 NMSC 77,109 N.M. 197,784 P.2d 16
• Parties: , 58 USLW 2391 STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Casimiro "Casey" L. ARAGON, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 16

784 P.2d 16

109 N.M. 197, 58 USLW 2391

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Casimiro "Casey" L. ARAGON, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 17916.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

Dec. 14, 1989.

[109 NM 197] Jacquelyn Robins, Chief Public Defender, Linda Yen, Asst. Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, for appellant.

Jim Foy, Silver City, Trial Counsel.

Hal Stratton, Atty. Gen., Charles H. Rennick, Asst. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for appellee.

OPINION

SOSA, Chief Justice.

Appellant was convicted by a jury in Luna County of first degree murder contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-2-1(A)(1) (Repl.Pamp.1984), and of aggravated burglary contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-16-4(A)(C). He was sentenced to life for the murder count with a mandatory one-year firearm enhancement, and nine years plus two year's probation for the aggravated burglary count. The sentences were ordered to be served consecutively.

There is no dispute that Appellant killed Rufina Mendoza. Appellant and the victim had lived together off and on for nine years. Appellant had fathered the victim's child. He suffered from a nervous disorder, and for a while the victim served as his custodian to receive social security payments for him. When the parties' relationship grew unstable, the victim forced Appellant to leave her home. Appellant began drinking heavily and had to acquire a new custodian. During this time the victim made it difficult for Appellant to visit his son and to come to the victim's house.

On the evening of July 25, 1986, after drinking heavily, Appellant entered the victim's home through a closed, unlocked screen door, displayed a gun, and stated he was going to kill the victim. The victim's adult daughter stood between Appellant and her mother but was told by Appellant to get out of the way or he would kill her, too. Appellant then fired a shot into the floor. The victim's daughter threw a pillow at Appellant, knocking him into a chair. Appellant fired a shot into the victim's shoulder, causing her to fall to the floor. Appellant then walked to where the victim had fallen, looked down at her, and shot her again. Appellant then shot himself. The victim died from the gunshot wounds.

Appellant raises several points on appeal. However, because we reverse the judgment and remand the case to the trial court for a new trial, we consider only the principal issue raised on appeal. We phrase that issue as follows:

DID THE PROSECUTOR'S USE OF PEREMPTORY CHALLENGES TO STRIKE THE ONLY TWO BLACKS WHO HAD A CHANCE TO SERVE ON THE JURY UNCONSTITUTIONALLY DEPRIVE APPELLANT OF A JURY REFLECTING A REPRESENTATIVE CROSS SECTION OF THE COMMUNITY?

We answer this question in the affirmative, and thus settle an issue that heretofore has not been squarely decided by the courts of our state. At trial, three Blacks were members of the venire. Appellant is not Black, but Hispanic. His victim, too, was Hispanic. One Black member of the venire was excused for cause. The two other Black members were peremptorily excused by the prosecutor. Appellant contends that the prosecutors' peremptory strikes unconstitutionally deprived him of a jury reflecting a cross section of the community, in violation of both the federal and state constitutions (U.S. Const. amend. VI and N.M. Const. art. II, Sec. 14). The sixth amendment provides in pertinent part, that an accused shall be tried by "an impartial jury." Similarly, Article II, Section 14 of our state constitution provides in pertinent part: "[T]he accused shall have the right to * * * a speedy public trial by an impartial jury * * *."

When the prosecutor's strikes were challenged at trial, he offered as an explanation that the individuals in question might be related to a Black defendant then being prosecuted by the State in the same court and raised the possibility that the two potential jurors would be prejudiced against the State in its prosecution of Appellant. After hearing the prosecutor's explanation, the court overruled Appellant's objection to the prosecutor's peremptory challenges, and the potential jurors were stricken.

The prosecutor had asked no questions during voir dire to elicit from the two prospective jurors responses showing that they in fact were related to the other defendant. Nothing in the record shows that the prosecutor had anything on which to base his opinion that these individuals might be untrustworthy jurors other than his own statement to the court about their possible blood relationship to the other defendant. Nor did the court conduct an inquiry as to how the prosecutor arrived at this conclusion. The court in effect simply accepted the prosecutor's rationale for excluding the Black prospective jurors and then overruled Appellant's objection.

I. The Batson and Taylor Holdings As They Affect Jury Selection

Constitutional jurisprudence in this area is clear on two points: (1) Under the Equal Protection Clause of the fourteenth amendment, a defendant may challenge the constitutionality of the state's selection of members of the petit jury when the defendant shows that he is a member of a cognizable racial group and establishes a prima facie case that potential jurors from his group were excluded from the jury for reasons of race. Batson v. Kentucky, 476 U.S. 79, 106 S.Ct. 1712, 90 L.Ed.2d 69 (1986); (2) Under the sixth amendment, a defendant is entitled to select a petit jury from a venire that constitutes a representative cross section of the community in which he is tried. Taylor v. Louisiana, 419 U.S. 522, 95 S.Ct. 692, 42 L.Ed.2d 690 (1975).

Appellant contends that the prosecutor's alleged racially-discriminatory striking of two Black members from the venire deprived him of a jury comprised of a fair cross section of the community. Appellant thus asks us in effect to adopt the Wheeler Doctrine, discussed below, and to grant the holding in Taylor onto the holding in Batson, arguing that under the state constitution we may afford greater protection to a criminal defendant than has been given criminal defendants by rulings of the United States Supreme Court.

The State argues against this. To the State, the sixth amendment requirement that the venire be selected from a cross section of the community is not applicable to the prosecutor's peremptory strikes of prospective jurors. The State argues that Taylor and the sixth amendment apply to selection of the venire, and that Batson and the Equal Protection Clause apply to selection from the venire. In the State's words, "the Sixth Amendment requirement that the jury be selected from a fair cross section of the community is not applicable to the petit jury itself, but only to the venire, or jury pool."

Because we decide this case on the independent and adequate state ground of the New Mexico Constitution, Article II, Section 14, we do not decide whether the State is correct in asserting that the sixth amendment proscription against exclusion of a section of the community from jury service extends to the prosecutor's use of preemptory challenges.¹

II. How Our Court of Appeals Has Addressed This Issue

Our court of appeals has come close to agreeing with Appellant's position. In State v. Crespin, 94 N.M. 486, 488, 612 P.2d 716, 718 (Ct.App.1980), decided before Batson, the court in dictum linked "systematic acts by the prosecutor" in striking members of a minority racial group from the petit jury with a violation of Article II, Section 14 of our constitution. In Crespin, the sole Black member of the venire was stricken by the prosecutor, but the court felt unable from that fact alone to conclude that the State systematically had excluded Blacks from the jury.

In State v. Sandoval, 105 N.M. 696, 736 P.2d 501 (Ct.App.1987), the court applied Batson to a factual situation in which the defendant was Hispanic and the prosecutor peremptorily struck the only two Hispanics who could have sat on the jury. Noting that "Crespin has been modified by Batson," id. at 699, 736 P.2d at 504, the court decided the issue strictly on an equal protection basis. Yet, the dictum in Crespin, to the effect that a challenge to racially biased peremptory strikes based on the state constitution might succeed if brought in a proper case, was not laid to rest.

In State v. Hall, 107 N.M. 17, 751 P.2d 701 (Ct.App.), cert denied, 107 N.M. 16, 751 P.2d 700 (1988), the court of appeals was asked to decide the issue that is now before us. In Hall, the defendant was Black and the peremptorily stricken potential jurors were Hispanic. Defendant challenged the strikes on sixth amendment grounds, relying on Fields v. People, 732 P.2d 1145 (Colo.1987). The court held that Fields was inapplicable because defendant did not show that the potential jurors with Hispanic surnames "were excused solely because of their membership in that group as required by Fields." Hall, 107 N.M. at 22, 751 P.2d at 705 (emphasis in original). In another recent case raising the issue of challenged peremptory strikes, State v. Goode, 107 N.M. 298, 756 P.2d 578 (1988), the court of appeals was not called upon to decide the issue raised in Hall, but resolved the case solely on Batson-Sandoval equal protection grounds.

III. Origins and Elaboration of the Wheeler Doctrine

In People v. Wheeler, 22 Cal.3d 258, 583 P.2d 748, 148 Cal.Rptr. 890 (1978), the California Supreme Court held that both the federal sixth amendment and equivalent section of the California constitution guaranteed a criminal defendant the right to trial by jury drawn from a representative cross section of the community, and that a prosecutor's systematic use of peremptory strikes to exclude members of a cognizable racial group violated that section of the California constitution. Other state courts have followed California's lead: State v. Superior Court In & for Maricopa County, 157 Ariz. 541, 760 P.2d 541 (1988); Riley v. State, 496 A.2d 997 (Del.1985), cert. denied, 478 U.S. 1022, 106 S.Ct. 3339, 92 L.Ed.2d 743 (1986); State v....