State v. Doyal

• Decision Date: 05 July 1955
• Docket Number: No. 5831,5831
• Citation: 286 P.2d 306,1955 NMSC 60,59 N.M. 454
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bob C. DOYAL, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 306

286 P.2d 306

59 N.M. 454

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bob C. DOYAL, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 5831.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

July 5, 1955.

Rehearing Denied Aug. 16, 1955.

Ward & Carrell, Lovington, (Melvin Neal, Hobbs, G. T. Hanners, Lovington, and M. E. Noble, Las Vegas, on rehearing only), for appellant.

Richard H. Robinson, Atty. Gen., Fred M. Standley, W. R. Kegel, Asst. Attys. Gen., for appellee.

SADLER, Justice.

The question for decision is whether a district judge committed reversible error in holding for trial in the district court a minor defendant a few months past 15 years of age, charged with two murders committed at 14 1/2 years of age, as against remanding the cases (consolidated for trial in the district court), to the juvenile court for disposition by the judge of the latter court.

The parents of the youth had been divorced when he was about one year of age. He remained in the custody of his mother in Oklahoma until about nine (9) months before the homicides, though paying occasional visits to his father in New Mexico. The mother had become converted to the Pentecostal religious sect some two years before the youth ran away from his mother and came to New Mexico to live with his father. It should be added that following the divorce of defendant's parents, his father married the sister of his former wife, mother of defendant. All three of the adults, the father, mother and step-mother had become adherents or devotees of the Pentecostal faith, sometimes known as 'Holy Rollers.' It was said to be a tenet of their religion to frown upon, as sinful, all forms of recreation and worldly pleasures; indeed, as worldly, the doing of anything except earning a living and working in the church.

Thus it was that the step-mother, and his mother as well when the youth resided with her, regarded as sinful the normal recreations of the boy such as reading westerns or novels, listening to the radio, going to picture shows, swimming or even the drinking of a coke. Accordingly, the step-mother was constantly nagging the defendant to read the bible and to get down on his knees and pray. It was her hope and aim to convert him to the Pentecostal faith with all its emotionalism.

With this as a background, on the afternoon of May 19, 1953, the young boy, who lived on a farm nine miles from Lovington, was late in getting home by reason of a little party arranged by the school bus driver for the children riding the bus, as a sort of farewell, incident to the closing of school. When the defendant got home, an argument ensued. The step-mother insisted that the youth get down on his knees and pray. When he refused she became very angry and left the house. While she was absent from the house the defendant, fearing he would be sent back to his mother in Oklahoma and being no longer able to stand the environment, decided to carry out a preconceived plan to run away from home. He loaded a rifle and when Mrs. Doyal, the step-mother, returned he forced her, at gunpoint, to write three checks in the sum of $10.00, each, and deliver them to him.

Following this he compelled Mrs. Doyal and his little half-sister, Beverly, to go to the granary. It was his plan to lock them in the granary while he made good his escape. Arriving at the granary, Mrs. Doyal suddenly turned toward him, and in a state of panic he fired the rifle indiscriminately at both Mrs. Doyal and the little half-sister, Beverly, killing them both. The step-mother was shot three times and the little girl two or three times. Both died instantly.

Following the slayings, the defendant went back into the house, pulling the lock from the door jamb to get in, notwithstanding the door through which he had left the house was still open. He took the three checks, jumped into a truck and started for Lovington. En route he seemed to have recovered his composure and, instead of fleeing as he apparently had planned originally, he turned to the sheriff's office and gave himself up to that official, telling him what had taken place. He was duly arrested. The next day, May 20, 1953, two criminal complaints were filed in the office of John W. Green, justice of the peace for precinct No. 8 in Lovington, New Mexico, each charging the accused with murder.

The justice of the peace certified the proceedings to the district court of Lea County on May 21, 1953. Informations were filed charging the defendant with the two murders on May 21, 1953. On May 25, 1953, a hearing was held before the Honorable John R. Brand, district judge. The exact nature of the hearing is hazy. The judge stated he was not sitting as a committing magistrate but only for the purpose of determining whether this should be a district court case or remanded to the justice court. Whatever the nature of the hearing, at its conclusion and on motion of the district attorney, the court dismissed the informations on file and remanded the defendant to the justice of the peace for preliminary hearings.

These hearings were had on May 26, 1953, before John W. Green, justice of the peace. Thereafter, and without the filing of new informations, Judge Brand having been disqualified in the meantime, and the Honorable Luis E. Armijo, judge of the Fourth Judicial District, having been duly designated to preside in said matters, the accused, Bobby Doyal, entered pleas of guilty to murder in the second degree before Judge Armijo in each of the two cases. The judge imposed two sentences of 25 years, each, to run concurrently, to be served in the state penitentiary.

Thereafter, on January 30, 1954, the present counsel for accused having been retained in the meantime, a motion was filed to set aside the sentences because the informations filed May 21, 1953, having been dismissed and no new ones filed, the court was without jurisdiction to accept the accused's plea or impose sentences. This motion was sustained and on February 19, 1954, the defendant was discharged. But not for long. On the same day, two new criminal complaints were filed in the office of the above mentioned justice of the peace and immediately certified to the juvenile court. Apparently, due to the view entertained by the parties below that only the resident district judge could sit as the Juvenile Judge, the Honorable John R. Brand, judge of the juvenile court within and for Lea County, presided at the hearing in the juvenile court. Argument was had before Judge Brand and he ordered the accused bound over to the district court for trial.

Thereupon Judge Armijo, who had been present during the juvenile proceedings before Judge Brand and had heard the testimony, then took the bench as district judge. As soon as he had done so, counsel for defendant moved the district court to transfer the cases against the accused, Doyal, to the juvenile docket under the authority of 1941 Comp. Sec. 44-110, L.1943, c. 40, Sec. 6. The grounds for such motion were that the portion of section 4, chapter 40, Laws of 1943, purporting to vest in the juvenile and district courts 'unbridled discretion' as to which persons shall be tried in the criminal court and which shall be handled as juveniles, was unconstitutional:

'1. As an unlawful delegation of legislative power to the judiciary.

'2. As depriving this defendant of due process and equal protection of the laws.

'3. Because the subject of that portion of the Act was not clearly expressed in the title.

'4. That it was an abuse of the discretion under the evidence introduced to bind this defendant over to the district court for trial for a felony.'

In support of the motion, instead of again putting the witnesses on the stand, all of the evidence introduced in the juvenile proceedings was introduced in the district court, without objection. This was done because Judge Armijo had actually been present in the court room and had heard such evidence. The motion was overruled. Thereafter, a motion to quash the indictments, based on the same grounds, was filed on February 24, 1954, which was also overruled. The same motion was renewed during the jury trial.

On March 29, 1954, the two consolidated cases came on for jury trial and the defendant was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter in both cases. Sentences of confinement in the penitentiary for not less than eight nor more than ten years on the first count, and not less than three nor more than four years on the second count, were imposed. This appeal followed.

The claimed errors relied upon by counsel for defendant are four in number and to an appreciable extent are a renewal of objections to the original Juvenile Delinquency Act, as amended, and as challenged in In re Santillanes, 47 N.M. 140, 138 P.2d 503. First, it is said that portion of L.1943, c. 40, Sec. 4, 1953 Comp. Sec. 13-8-7, purporting to vest jurisdiction in the district court to try juveniles under the age of 18 years for crimes is unconstitutional and void, giving it into the hands of the district court, as it does, 'unbridled discretion' to say which person under 18 years of age shall be tried in the juvenile courts and which in the district courts. The Act thus amounts to an unlawful delegation of legislative power to the judiciary in violation of Article 3 of the Constitution of New Mexico. Next, it is said the portion of the Act referred to, L.1943, c. 40, Sec. 4, is bad from a constitutional standpoint in that the discretion vested in the district court denies this defendant equal protection of the laws and due process of law in violation of Art. 2, Sec. 18, of the Constitution of New Mexico and of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

The same portion of L.1943, c. 40, Sec. 4, 1953 Comp. Sec. 13-8-7, is likewise said to be bad from a constitutional standpoint because the subject matter thereof is not contained in the title of the Act as required by Art. 4, Sec. 16, of the Constitution of the State of New Mexico. And, finally, it is urged the court erred...