State v. Baca

• Decision Date: 04 May 2015
• Docket Number: 34,120.
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff–Petitioner, v. Abraham BACA, Defendant–Respondent.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

352 P.3d 1151

2015 NMSC 021

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff–Petitioner

v.Abraham BACA, Defendant–Respondent.

34,120.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

May 4, 2015.

Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General, Nicole Beder, James W. Grayson, Donna Bevacqua–Young, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Petitioner.

Ben A. Ortega Albuquerque, NM, for Respondent.

The Law Office of Lucero & Howard, L.L.C., Leon F. Howard III, Albuquerque, NM, Laura Louise Schauer Ives Albuquerque, NM, for Amicus Curiae American Civil Liberties Union.

OPINION

DANIELS, Justice.

{1} State and federal constitutional protections against twice being placed in jeopardy for the same criminal offense preclude a second prosecution after a defendant has been acquitted but do not necessarily preclude reprosecution after a procedural dismissal, particularly one made at the request of the accused. Even where a verbatim record is available, determining the true nature of the termination in the first proceeding is not always an easy task, requiring judicial sensitivity to both the defendant's double jeopardy protections and the public interest in one full and fair opportunity to prosecute a criminal case. In cases where there is a limited record for review, the task is even more difficult.

{2} In this case, we affirm the district court's determination that a nonrecord magistrate court's termination of a DWI trial for a filing defect, on motion of the defendant and before the State had completed presenting evidence in its case in chief, was a procedural dismissal rather than an acquittal on the merits. We therefore affirm the district court's ruling that the State was not constitutionally barred from further prosecution.

I. BACKGROUND

{3} Defendant Abraham Baca, at the time a New Mexico State Police officer, was arrested by Sergeant Martin Trujillo for aggravated DWI and driving left of center of a roadway. The State filed a criminal complaint against Defendant in Rio Arriba County Magistrate Court. The complaint alleged that after Defendant had been stopped for weaving and crossing into the oncoming traffic lane, Sergeant Trujillo observed numerous signs of intoxication, including a strong odor of alcohol, red bloodshot watery eyes, slurred speech, and failure of field sobriety tests. The complaint also alleged that Defendant refused to submit to any breath alcohol testing, either at the scene or at the sheriff's office, before he was booked and released on bond.

{4} Defendant entered a plea of not guilty and waived his right to a jury trial. When the prosecutor failed to appear at a pretrial conference, apparently because an address change resulted in the prosecutor's nonreceipt of the hearing notice, the magistrate court dismissed the case without prejudice. A day later, the State refiled the charges in a new magistrate court criminal complaint.

{5} The State's filed witness lists indicate that it intended to call seven witnesses at trial. According to the first filed criminal complaint, two of those witnesses, Sergeant Trujillo and Deputy Jose Martinez, were officers present at the scene of arrest who had “observed Mr. Baca's driving.”

{6} The case came before magistrate Judge Alex M. Naranjo for trial. As we have observed in the past, “[b]ecause the magistrate court proceedings are not recorded, what actually transpired at this setting is not of record.” State v. Montoya, 2008–NMSC–043, ¶ 2, 144 N.M. 458, 188 P.3d 1209 ; see NMSA 1978, § 35–1–1 (1968) (“The magistrate court is not a court of record.”).

{7} What does appear in the magistrate court record is that on the day of trial, the magistrate judge entered a written order (the Trial Order) dismissing the case with prejudice “upon motion made by defense attorney Ben Ortega per rule NMRA 6–506 –A(C)–(D)” and “per second motion that officer testimony be suppressed.” The parties agree that, although the defense had not raised the matter by pretrial motion, the refiled complaint had not complied with Rule 6–506A(C) NMRA (2004, amended effective 2014).¹ Rule 6–506A(C) is a procedural rule requiring that after the dismissal of a complaint without prejudice, refiled complaints containing the same charges must be captioned “Refiled Complaint” and must contain specified information about the earlier case so that the court can be alerted to the need to treat the later case as a continuation of the first, pursuant to Rule 6–506A(D).

{8} The Trial Order was entered on a standardized court form that contained, among other options, fields for recording the magistrate's determination of guilty or not guilty, but these fields were left completely blank and instead the order recited that the cause was “dismissed with prejudice.”

{9} The State filed a notice of appeal in district court pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 35–13–1 (1968), which authorizes a party “aggrieved” by a magistrate court judgment or final order to appeal to district court within fifteen days of its issuance.

{10} Nearly two months after the notice of appeal was filed and while the case was pending before the district court, the magistrate court sua sponte entered a new signed order in its own files, titled “Amended Final Order on Criminal Complaint Numc [sic] Pro Tunc” (the Amended Order). The Amended Order stated,

A motion was made by defense attorney Ben Ortega to suppress the testimony of Sergeant Martin Trujillo for violation of NMRA 6–506A(C)–(D). Sergeant Martin Trujillo was the arresting Officer. A second motion was made by defense attorney Ben Ortega for a directed verdict of not guilty due to insufficient evidence to proceed.

Motion to suppress and directed verdict of not guilty were granted.

THE DEFENDANT IS THEREFORE ACQUITTED.

{11} After the Amended Order was filed in magistrate court, defense counsel moved the district court to dismiss the appeal on double jeopardy grounds, arguing that the magistrate court had acquitted him. Lacking the benefit of a complete record, the district court held a hearing to reconstruct the magistrate proceedings in order to determine whether the magistrate judge had dismissed the case on procedural grounds as indicated in the original Trial Order or had acquitted Defendant as indicated in the post-appeal Amended Order. In support of the latter theory, the defense relied primarily on the testimony of the magistrate judge.

{12} The magistrate judge testified in district court that Sergeant Trujillo was the first and only one of the seven people listed on the State's witness list who actually testified at the nonjury trial in the magistrate court. When Sergeant Trujillo completed his testimony at that trial, the defense “challenged” the State's criminal complaint, arguing that the State's refiled criminal complaint had not included the prior-case information required by Rule 6–506A(C). Defense counsel made an oral motion that the magistrate judge should suppress Sergeant Trujillo's testimony as a sanction for that violation. After the magistrate judge granted the motion to suppress Sergeant Trujillo's testimony, the defense moved for a “directed verdict of not guilty.” The magistrate judge testified that he then took a short recess to consider that motion.

{13} The magistrate judge testified that when he returned and began announcing his ruling, the State interrupted to say that it was going to voluntarily dismiss the current complaint against Defendant. The magistrate judge responded that he “didn't need to be listening to her dismissing the case, that [he] would be dismissing the case.” At that point, defense counsel “reminded” the magistrate judge that he should “not dismiss the case” but instead should “find Mr. Baca not guilty.” The magistrate judge testified before the district court that he responded, “So be it,” and that he orally stated that Defendant would be found not guilty. However, no such ruling was contained in the official written Trial Order.

{14} When defense counsel asked the magistrate judge in district court why he granted the “directed verdict” of not guilty, the magistrate judge answered that it was for the State's violation of Rule 6–506A and because the testimony of “the only [witness] that testified,” Sergeant Trujillo, whom the magistrate judge described as “the key witness for the State,” had been suppressed.

{15} On the State's cross-examination in district court, the magistrate judge testified that he would not have granted a directed verdict before the State was done presenting all of its witnesses. The magistrate judge acknowledged that the State had other witnesses waiting to testify and that the State had not rested its case. He was also aware that the written Trial Order he entered did not indicate a determination of guilt or innocence despite the fact that the order was a standard court form, with fields specifically for such determinations, and that he had instead left the fields relating to guilt or innocence empty.

{16} In response to questions from the district court about the Amended Order purporting to retroactively acquit Defendant after the case had been appealed, the magistrate judge stated that he did not know who prepared it, could not remember anyone communicating with him personally about it, and could only speculate that a clerk, who had not been present during the trial, had chosen to prepare it at a later time. Whatever its source may have been, he acknowledged that this Amended Order, not on an official court form, was the first nonstandard custom-prepared amended disposition order that he had ever entered in a case in his eleven years as a magistrate.

{17} After hearing all testimony presented by the parties for reconstruction of the magistrate court record, the district court struck the Amended Order and declined to consider it, finding that the Amended Order was not a true correction of the record and that the Trial Order more accurately reflected what had actually occurred at the aborted trial in the magistrate court. The district court found that the magistrate judge's...