State v. Smile
| Citation | 2009 NMCA 064,212 P.3d 413 |
| Decision Date | 07 May 2009 |
| Docket Number | No. 27,338.,27,338. |
| Parties | STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Christopher SMILE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
Gary K. King, Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, James W. Grayson, Assistant Attorney General, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellee.
Hugh W. Dangler, Chief Public Defender, Mary A. Barket, Assistant Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellant.
{1} Defendant appeals from his conviction for aggravated stalking in violation of NMSA 1978, Section 30-3A-3.1 (1997). Defendant argues that his conduct was insufficient to support a charge of aggravated stalking, that testimony regarding statements he made to the police prior to and after his arrest should have been suppressed because he was not read his Miranda rights, and that the trial court erroneously admitted evidence that Defendant had attempted to plead guilty at his first appearance. For the following reasons, we affirm Defendant's conviction.
{2} Defendant and Tamisha, the victim of Defendant's stalking, met online. After having regular telephone conversations over a period of time, Defendant traveled from Little Rock, Arkansas, to Alamogordo, New Mexico, to meet Tamisha in person. After initially staying in a motel room that Tamisha had rented, Defendant stayed for a few weeks at an apartment being rented by Tamisha's friend Samantha. Although the relationship between Tamisha and Defendant was initially friendly, about three weeks after Defendant had arrived in Alamogordo, Tamisha became concerned that Defendant was more serious about the relationship than she was. Tamisha decided that Defendant needed to move out of Samantha's apartment, so she packed up Defendant's belongings and left them with one of Defendant's co-workers.
{3} Later that evening, Defendant showed up at Samantha's apartment looking for Tamisha. Samantha told Defendant that Tamisha was not there and, according to the girls' testimony, Defendant pretended to leave. As soon as Tamisha started to talk, however, Defendant began yelling from outside that he knew she was in there and started pounding on the door because, according to his testimony, he was enraged that Samantha had lied to him and that Tamisha was hiding from him. After cursing and shouting for Tamisha to come out of the apartment to no avail, Defendant threatened to damage Tamisha's and Samantha's cars that were parked in front of the apartment. The girls immediately called the police and ran outside to ensure that their vehicles were not damaged.
{4} Following this incident, Tamisha and Defendant reconciled for a short time. However, the relationship deteriorated quickly after Tamisha went on a weekend trip with some of her friends. Defendant testified that while Tamisha was gone, he had a vision while staring at a blank television screen in which he saw Tamisha being intimate with another man. When Tamisha returned to Alamogordo, Defendant went to Tamisha's apartment and accused her of cheating on him while she was out of town. Tamisha told Defendant that they were just friends and that she had in fact been with someone else over the weekend. Defendant became enraged by this comment and started to move toward Tamisha and her friend Hope in a threatening manner. In addition, Defendant stated, "[if] I see [you and your new boyfriend] together, I'm killing both of you." Fearing for their safety, Tamisha and Hope pushed Defendant out of the apartment and called the police. By the time the police arrived, Defendant had left the scene. The responding officer advised Tamisha that the best way to stop Defendant from threatening her was to obtain a temporary restraining order (TRO). Because of the threats Defendant had made to kill her and her new boyfriend, the threat he had made to damage her car after she took his belongings to his workplace, and because Defendant had left a number of threatening letters in Tamisha's mailbox and had made a threatening phone call to Tamisha's father, Tamisha obtained a TRO the following day.
{5} On the day Tamisha obtained the TRO, but before Defendant was served, Tamisha pulled into the parking lot of her apartment complex and saw Defendant sitting in a chair holding "Ninja-style" knives that he had recently purchased. Fearing for her safety, Tamisha quickly backed out of the parking lot, called 911, and circled the block until the police arrived. When the police arrived and began talking to Defendant, Defendant stated that he was there to "put the fear of God" into Tamisha for what she had done to him and that he could accomplish this in three ways: by letting it go, by calling his "homies" from Arkansas to help him out, or by taking care of it himself using the Ninja skills he had studied in Japan and intimidation methods he had learned as an ex-felon. While Defendant was talking to Officer Guinn, the officer who had responded to Tamisha's 911 call, another officer arrived and served Defendant with the TRO Tamisha had obtained earlier in the day. Officer Guinn explained the seriousness of the TRO to Defendant, and Defendant acknowledged that he understood the consequences" that would arise from a violation of the order. Before Officer Guinn took Defendant back to his residence, however, Defendant stated that a piece of paper was not going to stop him from inflicting pain and fear on Tamisha.
{6} Following this incident, Tamisha, who worked a night shift, went to work. When she returned home the next morning, she found a copy of the TRO in her door with a handwritten message stating, "It ain't over, [b]itch, I want to see your man[;] [w]here he at?" Tamisha recognized the handwriting as Defendant's, immediately became concerned for her safety, and called the police. Officer Jackson responded to the call and began investigating the TRO violation. Officer Jackson later met with Officer Guinn, and the two officers went to Defendant's residence to determine if he had written the threatening message on the TRO. After a brief investigation, Defendant was arrested for violating the TRO. After his arrest, however, the officers determined that Defendant had violated Section 30-3A-3.1, and the State charged Defendant with aggravated stalking due to the pattern of threatening behavior he had engaged in and his threatening conduct in violation of the TRO.
{7} At trial, after the State rested its case, Defendant argued that the State had presented insufficient evidence to support a conviction for aggravated stalking because he had engaged in only one instance of threatening conduct after he was served with the TRO, and Section 30-3A-3.1 requires that there be a pattern of conduct after the TRO is served. The trial court disagreed and concluded that Section 30-3A-3.1 requires only one threatening act following the issuance of a TRO. On appeal, Defendant makes the same argument that he made in the trial court.
{8} Interpretation of a statute is a question of law that we review de novo. State v. Davis, 2007-NMCA-022, ¶ 6, 141 N.M. 205, 152 P.3d 848. "Our ultimate goal in statutory construction is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the Legislature." State v. Smith, 2004-NMSC-032, ¶ 8, 136 N.M. 372, 98 P.3d 1022 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). To reach this goal, we begin "by looking first to the words chosen by the Legislature and the plain meaning of the Legislature's language." State v. Davis, 2003-NMSC-022, ¶ 6, 134 N.M. 172, 74 P.3d 1064 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "When a statute contains language which is clear and unambiguous, we must give effect to that language and refrain from further statutory interpretation." State v. Johnson, 2001-NMSC-001, ¶ 6, 130 N.M. 6, 15 P.3d 1233 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
{9} Defendant was charged with and convicted of aggravated stalking, a fourth degree felony, pursuant to the Harassment and Stalking Act (the Act). NMSA 1978, §§ 30-3A-1 to -4 (1997).
A. Aggravated stalking consists of stalking perpetrated by a person:
(1) who knowingly violates a permanent or temporary order of protection issued by a court, except that mutual violations of such orders may constitute a defense to aggravated stalking;
(2) in violation of a court order setting conditions of release and bond;
(3) when the person is in possession of a deadly weapon; or
(4) when the victim is less than sixteen years of age.
§ 30-3A-3.1(A)(1)-(4). Stalking is defined as
knowingly pursuing a pattern of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to feel frightened, intimidated or threatened. The alleged stalker must intend to place another person in reasonable apprehension of death, bodily harm, sexual assault, confinement or restraint or the alleged stalker must intend to cause a reasonable person to fear for his safety or the safety of a household member. In furtherance of the stalking, the alleged stalker must commit one or more of the following acts on more than one occasion:
(1) following another person, in a place other than the residence of the alleged stalker;
(2) placing another person under surveillance by being present outside that person's residence, school, workplace or motor vehicle or any other place frequented by that person, other than the residence of the alleged stalker; or
(3) harassing another person.
§ 30-3A-3(A)(1)-(3). Defendant's aggravated stalking conviction was based on his violation of Section 30-3A-3.1(A)(1), stalking perpetrated by a person who knowingly violates a temporary order of protection.
{10} Our Legislature first enacted the Act in 1993. 1993 N.M. Laws, ch. 86, § 2. The 1993 Act criminalized stalking but made the crime a misdemeanor. Id. It was only when an...
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