State v. Lyster

• Decision Date: 18 August 2020
• Docket Number: No. A-1-CA-36229,A-1-CA-36229
• Parties: STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LARRY LYSTER, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. LARRY LYSTER, Defendant-Appellant.

No. A-1-CA-36229

COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

August 18, 2020

This decision of the New Mexico Court of Appeals was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Refer to Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decisions. Electronic decisions may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official version filed by the Court of Appeals.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF OTERO COUNTY

James Waylon Counts, District Judge

Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General

Maris Veidemanis, Assistant Attorney General

Santa Fe, NM

Margaret J. Crabb, Assistant Attorney General

Albuquerque, NM

for Appellee

Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender

Nina Lalevic, Assistant Appellate Defender

Santa Fe, NM

for Appellant

MEMORANDUM OPINION

ATTREP, Judge.

{1} Defendant Larry Lyster appeals his misdemeanor conviction for violating an order of protection, issued pursuant to the Family Violence Protection Act (FVPA), NMSA 1978, §§ 40-13-1 to -12 (1987, as amended through 2019). Defendant raises four issues on appeal: (1) the underlying order of protection was invalid, (2) there was insufficient evidence to prove he knowingly violated the order of protection, (3) his right to a speedy trial was violated, and (4) the district court committed error in admitting certain testimony. We affirm.

BACKGROUND

{2} In 2008, Defendant's then-wife, Marena Lyster, petitioned the district court for an order of protection against Defendant. The district court issued the protection order in cause number D-1215-DV-2008-00262 (the original order), which expired by its own terms six months later, on April 23, 2009.

{3} Some months after the original order expired, Ms. Lyster petitioned the district court for a new protection order in cause number D-1215-DV-2009-00199. A domestic violence special commissioner conducted a hearing on the petition, at which both Defendant and Ms. Lyster appeared, and found that there was "good cause" to renew and extend the original order. The district court, in August 2009, adopted the special commissioner's recommendation to renew the original order and extend it for an indefinite term. This order (the renewed order) was entered in both D-1215-DV-2008-00262 and D-1215-DV-2009-00199 cause numbers.

{4} Several years later, in March 2015, a police officer saw Defendant shortly after midnight on a residential street in Alamogordo and questioned Defendant why he was there. After releasing Defendant, dispatch informed the officer that there was an outstanding protection order involving Defendant and that the protected person, Ms. Lyster, lived on the street where the officer had questioned Defendant. The officer later arrested Defendant, and he was charged with violating an order of protection, contrary to Section 40-13-6. A jury convicted Defendant, and he appealed. We reserve discussion of additional facts, as needed, for our analysis.

DISCUSSION

I. Validity of the Order of Protection

{5} Defendant first contends that the State failed to prove an element requisite to his conviction—that is, the validity of the underlying order of protection on the date of the offense.¹ See UJI 14-334. Defendant argues that the district court lacked authority under the FVPA to renew and extend the original order because it had expired. Fromthis, he reasons that the court acted without jurisdiction and, as a result, the renewed order was invalid. Defendant's argument fails. Even if we assume for purposes of our analysis that the district court lacked authority to renew and extend the original order under the FVPA, this does not, as Defendant contends, mean the court acted in the absence of jurisdiction such that the renewed order was void or invalid as a matter of law.² We explain.

{6} "The universal rule adhered to by the courts is that the judgment or final order of a court having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and the parties, however erroneous, irregular, or informal such judgment or order may be, is valid until reversed or set aside." Acequia Del Llano v. Acequia De Las Joyas Del Llano Frio, 1919-NMSC-001, ¶ 9, 25 N.M. 134, 179 P. 235 (citing Black on Judgments, § 190); see also Valid Judgment, Black's Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) (defining "valid judgment" as "[a] judicial act rendered by a court having jurisdiction over the parties and over the subject matter in a proceeding in which the parties have had a reasonable opportunity to be heard"). "The test of the jurisdiction of a court is whether or not it had power to enter upon the inquiry; not whether its conclusion in the course of it was right or wrong." State v. Patten, 1937-NMSC-034, ¶ 13, 41 N.M. 395, 69 P.2d 931; see also Gonzales v. Surgidev Corp., 1995-NMSC-036, ¶ 12, 120 N.M. 133, 899 P.2d 576 ("The only relevant inquiry in determining whether the court has subject matter jurisdiction is to ask whether th[e] kind of claim . . . advance[d] falls within the general scope of authority conferred upon such court by the constitution or statute." (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). In short, "[e]rrors of law do not invalidate judgments." In re Field's Estate, 1936-NMSC-060, ¶ 37, 40 N.M. 423, 60 P.2d 945.

{7} Applying these principles here, we conclude that the necessary elements of jurisdiction were present when the district court issued the renewed order. Based on the limited record before us, it appears Ms. Lyster filed a petition for a new order of protection, pursuant to the FVPA, and, after a hearing on the matter at which Defendant was present, the district court renewed and extended the original, expired, order of protection, filing the renewed order in both cases. See State v. Torrez, 2013-NMSC-034, ¶ 40, 305 P.3d 944 ("The reviewing court views the evidence in the light most favorable to the guilty verdict, indulging all reasonable inferences and resolving all conflicts in the evidence in favor of the verdict." (alteration, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted)); Patten, 1937-NMSC-034, ¶ 15 ("Every presumption not inconsistent with the record is to be indulged in favor of the jurisdiction of courts having unlimited jurisdiction[.]"). The district court thus had personal jurisdiction over Defendant. See State v. Garcia, 2005-NMCA-065, ¶ 7, 137 N.M. 583, 113 P.3d 406 (providing that the defense of lack of personal jurisdiction is subject to waiver if not properly asserted and that the defendant submitted to the jurisdiction of the district court when he pled guilty tothe charges). Further, petitions for domestic abuse protection orders, such as Ms. Lyster's, fall within the general scope of authority conferred upon the district court by the constitution; and the FVPA provides that the district court hears such petitions. See State ex rel. Foy v. Austin Cap. Mgmt., Ltd., 2015-NMSC-025, ¶ 7, 355 P.3d 1 ("The source of a district court's subject matter jurisdiction derives from the New Mexico Constitution. Under Article VI, Section 13 of the New Mexico Constitution, the district court shall have original jurisdiction in all matters and causes not excepted in this constitution[.]" (alteration, emphasis, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted)); Best, 2017-NMCA-073, ¶ 21 (providing that "Section 40-13-3(A) confers jurisdiction to the district court in the judicial district in which an alleged victim of domestic abuse lives"); see also §§ 40-13-3(A), 40-13-2(C).

{8} Defendant disputes neither of these points but instead argues that if Ms. Lyster was not "able to prove domestic violence such that a new order could be entered, no order should have issued" and that "an extension can only be had from a currently valid order[.]" However compelling an argument Defendant presents relating to the district court's error in renewing and extending the original order, it is not directed "to whether the court had the power to engage in the decision[-]making process in the first place." In re Adoption Petition of Webber, 1993-NMCA-099, ¶ 11, 116 N.M. 47, 859 P.2d 1074. In determining whether a district court acted with jurisdiction, "[w]e are not called upon to say whether the court decided right or not in granting the [order], but whether it became the duty of the court to decide either that it should be granted or denied." Patten, 1937-NMSC-034, ¶ 19. "If such was its duty, then [the district court] had jurisdiction, and its decision, be it correct or erroneous, is the law of the case until it shall be reversed upon appeal[.]" Id. This statement of law has been reaffirmed even in instances where the district court crafts a remedy in excess of the authority prescribed by law. See, e.g., State v. Bailey, 1994-NMCA-107, ¶¶ 4-7, 118 N.M. 466, 882 P.2d 57 (holding, notwithstanding the fact the district court lacked authority to issue an injunction in a criminal proceeding, that the district court's issuance of the injunction was erroneous but not in excess of jurisdiction); id. ¶¶ 7-10 (addressing whether the injunction-issuing court had subject matter and personal jurisdiction to act and rejecting the suggestion that judicial error constitutes a third form of jurisdictional defect). Here, the district court was called upon to resolve Ms. Lyster's petition for a new order of protection. Given this, Defendant's claim that the court's erroneous resolution of the petition amounted to a jurisdictional defect is not borne out by long-standing precedent.

{9} Defendant's citation to several New Mexico and out-of-state cases in support of a contrary result are of no help. The cited New Mexico cases either do not pertain to the question of the district court's jurisdiction or construe statutory provisions or rules that are not applicable here and involve direct appeals from underlying district court orders. Likewise, the out-of-state cases cited in Defendant's primary briefing, involving direct attacks on the extension of expired orders of...