State v. Padilla
| Decision Date | 08 January 2008 |
| Docket Number | No. 29,947.,29,947. |
| Citation | 2008 NMSC 006,176 P.3d 299 |
| Parties | STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Petitioner, v. Felipe PADILLA, Defendant-Respondent. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Gary K. King, Attorney. General, Patricia A. Gandert, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Petitioner.
John Bigelow, Chief Public Defender, JK Theodosia Johnson, Assistant Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, NM for Respondent.
{1} Defendant was convicted of the crime of aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer which elevates to a felony certain willful and careless vehicular flight from a police officer conducting a pursuit "in accordance with the provisions of the Law Enforcement Safe Pursuit Act." NMSA 1978, § 30-22-1.1 (2003). In this opinion, we decide as a matter of first impression whether the State has to prove, as an element of the crime, not only the unlawful conduct of the accused, but also the propriety of the police officer's conduct during the pursuit. The Court of Appeals held that the manner in which the officer conducted the pursuit was an essential element of the crime of aggravated fleeing and reversed Defendant's conviction for failure to instruct the jury on that issue. We reverse and reinstate Defendant's conviction.
{2} Defendant Felipe Padilla's conviction arose from his flight from a police officer on the night of October 14, 2003. Around 2:00 a.m., a Portales police officer became suspicious of Defendant when he drove his Buick down an alley, parked, but did not get out of the car. The officer called in Defendant's license plate number and determined that Defendant was in violation of registration statutes, NMSA 1978, § 66-3-18(C) (1998) and NMSA 1978, § 66-3-19 (1995). The officer activated his emergency lights, and in response, Defendant accelerated and ran a stop sign.
{3} The officer turned on his siren and began pursuing Defendant. Defendant continued to flee the police officer at speeds up to eighty miles per hour running a total of ten stop signs. Eventually, Defendant entered a mobile home sales lot, got out of his car, and attempted to flee on foot. Defendant was arrested shortly thereafter.
{4} The pursuing police officer testified that he was in uniform, wearing his badge, and was in a marked police vehicle. He also testified that, along with Defendant, there were two passengers in the car and that at times during the pursuit the passenger door would open four to six inches due to a broken latch. At one point during the pursuit another motorist was on the roadway in the vicinity of the speeding vehicles. Defendant crossed the center line four times while turning corners at high speed. Based on the way Defendant was driving, the officer charged Defendant with several misdemeanors and the felony of aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer.
{5} The text of the aggravated fleeing statute reads:
A. Aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer consists of a person willfully and carelessly driving his vehicle in a manner that endangers the life of another person after being given a visual or audible signal to stop, whether by hand, voice, emergency light, flashing light, siren or other signal, by a uniformed law enforcement officer in an appropriately marked law enforcement vehicle in pursuit in accordance with the provisions of the Law Enforcement Safe Pursuit Act [29-20-1 NMSA 1978].
B. Whoever commits aggravated fleeing a law enforcement officer is guilty of a fourth degree felony.
Section 30-22-1.1 (emphasis added).
{6} The aggravated fleeing statute specifically refers to the Law Enforcement Safe Pursuit Act ("the LESPA" or "the Act"). NMSA 1978, §§ 29-20-1 to -4 (2003). Both statutes passed the 2003 Legislature as part of the same bill and became effective the same day, July 1, 2003. See 2003 N.M. Laws, ch. 260, §§ 1-6. The LESPA establishes police training regarding the "safe initiation and conduct of high speed pursuits," § 29-20-3, and creates a mechanism to establish and enforce local high speed pursuit policies. See § 29-20-4(A) ().
{7} The outcome of this appeal hinges on the interpretation of the two statutes at issue. This Court reviews questions of statutory interpretation de novo. State v. Rivera, 2004-NMSC-001, ¶ 9, 134 N.M. 768, 82 P.3d 939. We first look to the plain language of the statute to determine if the statute can be enforced as written. See State v. Davis, 2003-NMSC-022, ¶ 6, 134 N.M. 172, 74 P.3d 1064 (). If the language of the statute is "doubtful, ambiguous, or an adherence to the literal use of the words would lead to injustice, absurdity, or contradiction," the court should reject the plain meaning rule in favor of construing the statute "according to its obvious spirit or reason." Id. (citing State ex rel. Helman v. Gallegos, 117 N.M. 346, 347-48, 871 P.2d 1352, 1353-54 (1994)).
{8} The question raised by this appeal is whether the Legislature intended the phrase "in accordance with the provisions of the [LESPA]" found at the end of the aggravated fleeing statute to be an essential element of the crime of aggravated fleeing. If, as Defendant claims, the Legislature intended the phrase to be an essential element, then the jury should have been instructed to that effect, and a pursuit not "in accordance" with the LESPA would nullify an otherwise valid arrest and prosecution for aggravated fleeing. See Rule 5-608(A) NMRA (); State v. Rosaire, 1997-NMSC-034, ¶ 13, 123 N.M. 701, 945 P.2d 66.
{9} Our Court of Appeals concluded that "a reasonable reading of the phrase `in accordance with' requires an evaluation of how police conduct the pursuit caused by a defendant." State v. Padilla, 2006-NMCA-107, ¶ 17, 140 N.M. 333, 142 P.3d 921. In interpreting the aggravated fleeing statute, that Court did not rely solely on the plain meaning of the text, but also looked to the purpose of the statute and the relationship between the aggravated fleeing statute and the LESPA. Id. ¶¶ 13-21. The Court then determined that "the policy objectives of the Act and the aggravated fleeing statute," were advanced by the plain language of the aggravated fleeing statute. Id. ¶ 14 (). As a result, under the Court of Appeals' interpretation, a defendant may not be convicted of aggravated fleeing, even if it is undisputed that the defendant's conduct was exactly that which the Legislature sought to punish. The prosecutor would also have to prove that local law enforcement agencies have established a high speed pursuit policy which complies with the requirements of the Act and with which the officer cap be shown to have complied. Id. ¶ 20.
{10} We are mindful that legislative intent is our touchstone when interpreting a statute. See State v. Smith, 136 N.M. 372, 98 P.3d 1022, 2004-NMSC-032, ¶ 8. 136 N.M. 372, 98 P.3d 1022 . "`Not only must the legislative intent be given effect, but the court will not be bound by a literal interpretation of the words if such strict interpretation would defeat the intended object of the legislature.'" State ex rel. Helman, 117 N.M. at 352, 871 P.2d at 1358 (quoting State v. Nance, 77 N.M. 39, 46, 419 P.2d 242, 247 (1966)). Accordingly, we now undertake our "judicial responsibility to search for and effectuate the legislative intent." Id. at 353, 871 P.2d 1352, 871 P.2d at 1359.
{11} We look first to general principles underlying criminal law to inform our analysis. Criminal liability is typically defined by the conduct of the accused, not the conduct of the police officer or the law enforcement agency tasked to enforce the criminal code. A criminal code has two primary functions. First, a criminal code "defines conduct which is deemed sufficiently injurious to the interests of the individual or community to warrant the protection of a criminal law." 1 Charles E. Torcia, Wharton's Criminal Law § 1, at 2 (15th ed.1993). Second, a criminal code "provides a punishment for the criminal conduct, geared primarily to the gravity of the offense, yet broad enough in latitude to accommodate the characteristics of individual offenders." Id. "The substantive criminal law is that law which, for the purpose of preventing harm to society, declares what conduct is criminal and prescribes the punishment to be imposed for such conduct." 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 1.2, at 11 (2d ed.2003).
{12} Typically, criminal liability is premised upon a defendant's culpable conduct, the actus reus, coupled with a defendant's culpable mental state, the mens rea. 1 LaFave, supra, § 1.2(b), at 14 (); 1 Torcia, supra, § 27, at 164 (). The focus of both requirements is on the accused. Id. § 27, at 168-71 (); see also Black's Law Dictionary 1373 (8th ed.2004) (defining "scienter" as "[a] degree of knowledge that makes a person legally responsible...
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