State v. Jim
| Decision Date | 03 April 2014 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 31,008 |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CASEY JIM, Defendant-Appellant. |
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF McKINLEY COUNTY
Gary K. King, Attorney General
James W. Grayson, Assistant Attorney General
for Appellee
Jorge A. Alvarado, Chief Public Defender
Kimberly Chavez Cook, Assistant Appellate Defender
Adrianne R. Turner, Assistant Appellate Defender
Santa Fe, NM
for Appellant
{1} Casey Jim (Defendant) was convicted of second degree murder after being a participant in the beating and stabbing death of Tyrone White (Victim). Defendant argues his conviction must be reversed because: (1) he was entitled to a jury instruction permitting the jury to consider the step down crime of voluntary manslaughter; (2) the jury should have been instructed to consider whether alcohol intoxication negated his capacity to form the specific intent required for accessory liability; (3) the district court violated Defendant'sright to confront the witnesses against him when it admitted the transcript of Defendant's confession into evidence; (4) the district court fundamentally erred when it gave a "shotgun instruction" to the jury; (5) trial evidence was insufficient to establish that Defendant intended to kill Victim; and (6) Defendant's trial counsel was ineffective. We affirm.
{2} The facts of this case are largely undisputed. After consuming a large quantity of alcohol on October 10, 2009, Defendant, accompanied by his brother Kevin and a man named Isaac, walked along a ditch near where Kevin had been stabbed several weeks prior. As they discussed the stabbing, they came upon Victim sitting with a woman with whom they were familiar. Kevin and Isaac began punching and kicking Victim, and Defendant later admitted to punching Victim one time as well. During the attack and upon Kevin's request, Defendant provided Kevin with the knife used to fatally stab Victim. In the midst of the altercation, Defendant's hand was cut. Victim later died while undergoing medical treatment from the injuries Kevin, Isaac, and Defendant collectively inflicted upon him.
{3} After his arrest, police conducted an interview during which Defendant maintained that he remembered little of what took place due to his high level of intoxication. When one police detective described to Defendant the sequence of events as reported to them by witnesses to the assaults that led to Victim's death, Defendant stated, Defendant was subsequently charged with first degree murder and convicted at trial of the lesser included offense of second degree murder, from which he now appeals.
{4} Although Defendant organizes the issues he presents on appeal differently in his brief in chief, for clarity and brevity we address each as set out below.
{5} Defendant appeals the district court's denial of Defendant's request to submit both a voluntary intoxication and voluntary manslaughter instruction to the jury. On appeal, we review the propriety of a jury instruction, given or denied, under a de novo standard. State v. Munoz, 1998-NMSC-041, ¶ 8, 126 N.M. 371, 970 P.2d 143. "We view the evidence in the light most favorable to the giving of the requested instruction." State v. Hill, 2001-NMCA-094, ¶ 5, 131 N.M. 195, 34 P.3d 139.
{6} Defendant argues that the district court committed error when it refused his requestthat the jury be instructed as to UJI 14-5111 NMRA in specific reference to accessory liability. If then given, this instruction would have permitted the jury to consider "whether or not [D]efendant was intoxicated from the use of alcohol and, if so, what effect this had on [D]efendant's ability to form the intent to help, encourage[,] or cause the crime of murder to be committed." According to Defendant, this instruction should have been given because voluntary intoxication is a defense to a specific intent crime and accessory liability is a specific intent crime. Indeed, a voluntary intoxication instruction had been given by the district court as to the crime of conspiring to commit first degree murder, of which Defendant was acquitted. In arguing that the instruction was again appropriate in the context of accessory liability for the step-down crime of second degree murder, Defendant relies on both the definition of a specific intent crime and UJI 14-2822 NMRA, addressing liability as an aider and abettor to an underlying crime. Defendant correctly points out that a specific intent crime is one in which the defendant intends "to do some further act or achieve some additional consequence[.]" State v. Bender, 1978-NMSC-044, ¶ 8, 91 N.M. 670, 579 P.2d 796. Under UJI 14-2822, the State must prove, among other elements, that "[D]efendant intended that the crime be committed."
{7} The State agrees that voluntary intoxication is a defense to specific intent crimes. See State v. Garcia, 2011-NMSC-003, ¶ 35, 149 N.M. 185, 246 P.3d 1057 . It argues, however, that the district court's denial of Defendant's request was proper because, in this case, Defendant's liability as an accessory depended on whether he intended that the principal crime of second degree murder be committed. It maintains that because the requisite mental state for second degree murder is that the defendant had knowledge that an act creates a strong probability of death or great bodily harm to another, and is thus a general intent crime, intoxication is not an available defense for either the principal or the accessory. See State v. Campos, 1996-NMSC-043, ¶ 39, 122 N.M. 148, 921 P.2d 1266 ().
{8} New Mexico cases have held that "an accessory must share the criminal intent of the principal." State v. Carrasco, 1997-NMSC-047, ¶ 18, 124 N.M. 64, 946 P.2d 1075; see State v. Ochoa, 1937-NMSC-051, ¶ 32, 41 N.M. 589, 72 P.2d 609 (); State v. Montes, 2007-NMCA-083, ¶ 33, 142 N.M. 221, 164 P.3d 102 (). Thus, the mens rea required to convict a principal in an underlying crime is the same required to convict an accomplice. See State v. Marquez, 2010-NMCA-064, ¶¶ 12-13, 148 N.M. 511, 238 P.3d 880 ( that the requisite mens rea for homicide or great bodily injury by vehicle is conscious wrongdoing, and in order to prove accessory liability for this crime, "it would be necessary for the [s]tate to demonstrate that efendant encouraged and shared the intent of conscious wrongdoing with [the principal] to the extent that it escalated to a partnership in the enterprise"); State v. Martinez, 1973-NMCA-075, ¶ 7, 85 N.M. 198, 510 P.2d 916( that where the necessary intent to convict the principal is to "injure or defraud," conviction of an accessory requires proof of an "intent to injure or defraud").
{9} The proposition that the same mens rea is required to convict both the principal and the accomplice to a crime was most recently recognized in State v. Perry, where this Court affirmed the district court's rejection of the defendant's proposed modified jury instruction for accomplice liability. 2009-NMCA-052, ¶ 45, 146 N.M. 208, 207 P.3d 1185. Like Defendant, the defendant in Perry was convicted of second degree murder. Id. ¶ 6. The defendant's proposed modified instruction contained language instructing the jury that accomplice liability required that "the defendant's intent must be the intent that is specified in the specific elements instruction for the crime itself." Id. ¶ 42. After the district court rejected this language, the defendant argued that the requested modification was necessary to prevent the jury from convicting him on the basis of a "lesser intent than what the crime requires." Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). During deliberations, the jury sent two questions to the district court regarding the requisite intent for accomplice liability, to which the court responded "[p]lease review the elements instruction for each crime . . . in combination with all other instructions." Id. ¶ 44 (omission in original).
{10} On appeal, this Court noted that our Supreme Court in Carrasco,1997-NMSC-047, ¶ 7, explained that "an accessory must share the criminal intent of the principal[,]" and that UJI 14-2822 "incorporates the intent requirement and correctly states the standard for a finding that a defendant is guilty as an accessory." Perry, 2009-NMCA-052, ¶ 43 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Given this precedent, this Court held that "we presume that the jury looked to the element instruction for each crime in order to determine the intent required for the underlying crime." Id. ¶ 45. Thus, the intent required for conviction as an accessory is the same level of intent contained in the element instruction for the underlying crime. Id. ¶¶ 45-46.
{11} This also means the requisite mental state required to support conviction on the basis of accomplice liability is not uniform for all underlying crimes. To the contrary, an accessory's mens rea incorporates specific intent only when the underlying crime is a specific intent crime. Likewise, when the underlying crime is a general intent crime, the accomplice need only manifest...
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