State v. Evans

• Citation: 2009 NMSC 027,210 P.3d 216
• Decision Date: 27 May 2009
• Docket Number: No. 30,454.,No. 30,443.,30,443.,30,454.
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph EVANS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico

210 P.3d 216

2009 NMSC 027

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph EVANS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 30,443.

No. 30,454.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

May 27, 2009.

Hugh W. Dangler, Chief Public Defender, Michael L. Rosenfield, Assistant Public Defender, Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant.

Gary K. King, Attorney General, Martha Anne Kelly, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Plaintiff.

OPINION

BOSSON, Justice.

{1} This Opinion addresses two interlocutory appeals, which we hereby consolidate on our own motion. Joseph Evans ("Defendant") appeals the district court's denial of his motion to suppress his confession, which he argues was involuntary. The State appeals the district court's suppression of physical evidence stemming from a search warrant which the district court concluded lacked probable cause. We affirm the district court's decision not to suppress the confession and reverse as to the suppression of the physical evidence. This case is remanded to the district court for further proceedings.

BACKGROUND

{2} Police discovered Felicia Penaloza's body partially wrapped in a fitted, white bed sheet, lying face-down in an arroyo northwest of Gallup on September 12, 2005. She was 16 years old. The Office of the Medical Investigator determined that she had been asphyxiated by a ligature around her neck, and by a black plastic trash bag tied over her head. The plastic bag was cinched around her neck with an "electrical type wire," according to an affidavit that police filed in support of an application for a search warrant.

{3} According to the same affidavit, police interviewed Seferino Griego three days after discovering Penaloza's body. Griego inculpated Defendant in the crime. Police also interviewed Defendant's mother, Sheree Thornton, whose account gave police further reason to believe Defendant may have been involved in the crime. We will address the statements of Griego and Thornton in detail below. Thornton also allowed New Mexico State Police Agent Patrick Ness to view the basement of her house where Defendant apparently kept a bedroom. Agent Ness saw exposed electrical wiring, sheets, two mattresses without linen, and a number of electrical wires of different sizes and colors. Police then interviewed a McKinley County Probation Officer who overheard Griego accuse Defendant of killing Griego's "girlfriend," and Defendant later say, "I guess I am a murderer."

{4} On September 17, 2005, New Mexico State Police Agent Henrietta Soland applied to McKinley County Magistrate Judge John Carey for a warrant to search Thornton's house. Magistrate Judge Carey granted the application, and police executed the search warrant on the same day, finding, among other things, a piece of an electrical cord which police claim matched the cord found around Victim's neck.

{5} The following day Agent Ness, who had not participated in the execution of the search warrant, and Agent Soland interviewed Defendant at the McKinley County Adult Detention Center. Defendant had been detained there for 13 days on charges unrelated to the present case. In a 90-minute interrogation, conducted in the afternoon in a visiting room at the detention center, Defendant ultimately acknowledged culpability in Victim's death. His story changed considerably throughout the course of the interrogation. He initially denied any involvement in the death, saying that he was merely present at his house when Victim was there. Then he denied killing her, but said he put the bag over her head after she was dead. Then he said he was with her when she "quit moving." And finally, he claimed he accidentally strangled her, although it is unclear in his testimony that he confessed to strangling her in the same manner as described in the medical examiner's autopsy report. Throughout the second half of the interrogation, Agent Ness made several statements which Defendant claims were impermissibly coercive.

Procedural History

{6} The District Attorney for the Eleventh Judicial District charged Defendant by criminal information on November 29, 2005 with an open count of murder in connection with Victim's death. The information also charged Defendant with one count of kidnapping and one count of tampering with evidence. Defendant waived his right to a preliminary hearing.

{7} Both of the appeals in this case are before this Court pursuant to State v. Smallwood, 2007-NMSC-005, ¶ 11, 141 N.M. 178, 152 P.3d 821, where we held that this Court has jurisdiction over interlocutory appeals in which a criminal defendant "may possibly be sentenced to life imprisonment or death."

{8} The first appeal, by the State, challenges the district court's suppression of the physical evidence obtained in the search of Thornton's house. The district court overturned Magistrate Judge Carey's finding of probable cause, but offered no explanation for its ruling, except for "the lack of probable cause as portrayed in the affidavit." The State argues that the affidavit provided the magistrate with a sufficient factual basis to conclude that there was probable cause to search. For reasons explained below, we agree and therefore reverse the district court on this issue.

{9} In the second appeal, Defendant argues that his confession was invalid because police tactics in eliciting the confession amounted to unconstitutional coercion. We disagree, and therefore affirm the district court for reasons explained in detail below.

DISCUSSION

Probable Cause for Search Warrant

{10} The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution requires police to obtain a warrant, issued by a judge or magistrate, before executing any search or seizure, subject to "a few specifically established and well-delineated exceptions." Katz v. United States, 389 U.S. 347, 357, 88 S.Ct. 507, 19 L.Ed.2d 576 (1967). Probable cause to search a specific location exists when there are reasonable grounds to believe that a crime has been committed in that place, or that evidence of a crime will be found there. See State v. Gonzales, 2003-NMCA-008, ¶¶ 11-12, 133 N.M. 158, 61 P.3d 867.

{11} Put another way, before a valid search warrant may issue, the affidavit must show: "(1) that the items sought to be seized are evidence of a crime; and (2) that the criminal evidence sought is located at the place to be searched." State v. Herrera, 102 N.M. 254, 257, 694 P.2d 510, 513 (1985); see also State v. Baca, 97 N.M. 379, 379-80, 640 P.2d 485, 485-86 (1982) (same). There are no "bright-line, hard-and-fast rules" for determining probable cause, but the degree of proof necessary to establish probable cause is "more than a suspicion or possibility but less than a certainty of proof." State v. Nyce, 2006-NMSC-026, ¶ 10, 139 N.M. 647, 137 P.3d 587 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).

{12} Our inquiry focuses on the issuing judge's conclusion as to probable cause. In this case, that means we look at the magistrate's conclusions, not the district court's. If we conclude that the magistrate's conclusions as to probable cause were correct, we uphold those conclusions regardless of the decision reached by the district court.

{13} We break our inquiry into two components. First we look at the magistrate's probable cause determination as to Victim's death. Then we address the related but separate question of probable cause that evidence from the murder would be found in the specific location to be searched.

{14} Defendant argues that the search warrant affidavit was insufficient because it relied principally on the statement of Seferino Griego, who told police, among other things, that he saw Defendant with Victim shortly before she died. If it were true that the only evidence the State presented in its affidavit was a single witness's account that Defendant was seen with Victim around the time of her death, Defendant might well be correct. But the State presented much more than that. In addition to Griego's account, the State offered evidence obtained from the prior consensual search of Defendant's bedroom, including "numerous electrical wires/chords [sic] of different sizes and colors." In the same search, the agent also saw two mattresses without linens and other bedding material-observations which take on added importance given that Victim's body was found wrapped in sheets and tied with electrical wires.

{15} The State also presented statements from Defendant's mother which showed Defendant telling conflicting stories about his activities the night he borrowed his mother's van, around the time Victim disappeared. The State presented a statement from a probation officer who told police that during a chance encounter between Defendant and Griego in the booking area of the McKinley County jail, Griego loudly accused Defendant of killing Griego's "girlfriend." The probation officer said that Defendant did not immediately respond to Griego's accusation, but once he was in his holding cell, said "I guess I am a murderer."

{16} In addition, the State presented Griego's allegation that Defendant had called him around the time of Victim's death saying cryptically that he, Defendant, needed to "take out the garbage" and "take out the trash." Griego told police that the conversation confused him.

{17} Like Griego's statements to police, the allegation that Defendant said, "I must be a murderer," by itself, would likely not give rise to a finding of probable cause. Jailhouses are commonly understood to be places of exaggeration, deception, and braggadocio. Police gave little information in the affidavit about the manner in which Defendant spoke. Was he boastful, contemplative, sarcastic? It is not clear. Nonetheless, the statement can be considered in context with all the other information police provided in support of the search warrant application.

{18} Similarly, the stripped mattresses and exposed electrical wires in Defendant's bedroom, along with the electrical wires and sheets on Victim's body,...