State v. Teague
| Decision Date | 30 April 2019 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. A-1-CA-35619 |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. STEVEN TEAGUE, Defendant-Appellee. |
| Court | Court of Appeals of New Mexico |
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 Refer to Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decisions.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 BERNALILLO COUNTY, Michael E. Martinez, District Judge
Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, Walter M. Hart, III, Assistant Attorney General, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellant
Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender, Nina Lalevic, Assistant Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellee.
JUDGES
WE CONCUR: M. MONICA ZAMORA, Chief Judge, JENNIFER L. ATTREP, Judge
AUTHOR: J. MILES HANISEE
{1} The State appeals from the district court's dismissal of the State's motion to revoke Defendant Steven Teague's probation. Concluding that Rule 5-203(A) NMRA, New Mexico's mandatory joinder rule for criminal proceedings, does not apply to probation revocation proceedings and that Defendant has failed to establish a due process violation in this case, we reverse and remand.
{2} In 2007, Defendant was charged with fifteen counts of manufacturing child pornography, fifteen counts of possession of child pornography, and five counts of attempting to distribute child pornography. Defendant entered into a plea agreement under which he pled guilty to two counts of possession of child pornography, and no contest to two counts each of manufacturing of child pornography and attempting to distribute child pornography. Under the agreement, the State agreed to dismiss all remaining charges and to limit Defendant's total exposure of twenty-four years' incarceration to ten years at initial sentencing. Accepting the agreement in December 2008, the district court sentenced Defendant to twenty-four years' incarceration, suspending seventeen years but imposing a mandatory, one-year habitual offender enhancement for a total of eight years' incarceration. The district court also imposed an indefinite period of supervised probation to begin immediately upon Defendant's release from prison.
{3} Defendant was paroled and released to probation in March 2012. His order of probation included the following pertinent terms and conditions:
The order of probation pointedly warned Defendant, "[Y]our probation may be revoked if you violate any one of the conditions of this [o]rder during the time of your probation."
The 2013 Search and Defendant's 2014 Probation Revocation{4} In 2013, probation and other law enforcement officers received a tip from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that Defendant was in possession of child pornography. Officers questioned Defendant, searched his home, and seized his electronic devices. During the search, probation officers encountered Defendant's eighteen-year-old boyfriend (Boyfriend) and found over one hundred pornographic items. They discovered approximately fifty pornographic photos that appeared to feature "younger males in their younger teens" on Defendant's cellular phones, as well as laptops and a bill for internet service. Based on this search, Defendant's probation officer filed a report of violation, alleging that Defendant violated Standard Conditions Number 1 and 4, and Special Condition Number 10. Defendant's parole was revoked in August 2013 "based on the possession of pornography by a [s]ex [o]ffender," at which time he was returned to prison.
{5} In 2014, the State formally moved to revoke Defendant's probation. At the ensuing revocation hearing, the State informed the district court that it had reached an agreement with Defendant in which he would "admit to a violation of Standard Condition Number 4, which is association with individuals detrimental to his probation, specifically, [Boyfriend,]" and the State would agree that Defendant would "serve a [ninety]-day sanction." The State additionally agreed that the ninety-day sanction for the probation violation would run concurrently with Defendant's "penalty for th[e parole] violation." The district court accepted Defendant's admission to the violation, sentenced Defendant to ninety days' incarceration to run "concurrent with [his] parole sentence," and reinstated Defendant's probation with the additional condition that Defendant have "no contact or association with [Boyfriend]."
{6} In 2015, a special agent with the New Mexico Attorney General's office obtained and executed a search warrant for the cell phones seized during the 2013 search of Defendant's home. The search unearthed yet more pornographic photographs, along with two videos on Defendant's two cellular phones depicting children believed to be less than eighteen years of age engaged in sexual acts or on lascivious display. The special agent also located an email that Defendant sent himself that included an attachment of a boy the probation officer believed to be less than fifteen years old in a sexually explicit position. Defendant admitted that he purchased both cell phones, and, after the special agent showed him six sexually explicit images found on both of his phones, he also admitted the children depicted therein were under eighteen years of age. Based on this evidence, in July 2015 the State filed two new felony charges against Defendant for possession and manufacturing of child pornography.
{7} The next month, the State again moved to revoke Defendant's probation, this time based exclusively on Defendant's having been charged anew criminally with a second set of child pornography offenses (hereinafter referred to as the Second Motion). Prior to a hearing on the Second Motion—the dismissal of which is at issue in this appeal—Defendant pled guilty to both new criminal charges. Defendant thereafter moved to dismiss the Second Motion because of either the State's failure to timelyprosecute the second revocation in accordance with Rule 5-805 NMRA or, alternatively, his theory that the Second Motion constituted "piecemeal prosecution" and violated Rule 5-203(A).
{8} The district court denied Defendant's motion to dismiss under Rule 5-805 but seemed to agree that the Second Motion constituted impermissible "piecemeal prosecution" because it was improper for the State to "go back and bring up more and more violations [occurring] prior to" the date of the initial probation revocation motion based on the "same contraband" seized. The district court thus granted Defendant's motion to dismiss. The State appeals.
{9} The issue we must resolve is whether the district court erred in dismissing the Second Motion. The State argues that Rule 5-203(A) provides no basis for dismissing the Second Motion because it has no application to probation revocation proceedings and makes various other arguments why the district court erred. Defendant seems to abandon his argument based on Rule 5-203(A). Instead, Defendant advances three alternative theories in support of the district court's ruling: (1) that the district court denied the Second Motion on the merits; (2) that dismissal was proper because the State failed to bring the Second Motion within the time limits prescribed by Rule 5-805; or (3) that the general policy against piecemeal prosecution requires dismissal of the second probation revocation proceeding pursuant to due process principles.
{10} We begin by addressing the State's argument that the district court misapplied Rule 5-203(A)'s mandatory joinder requirement to Defendant's probation revocation proceeding. Cf. State v. Harrison, 2010-NMSC-038, ¶¶ 6, 8, 15, 148 N.M. 500, 238 P.3d 869 (). We first conclude that, to the extent the district court granted Defendant's motion to dismiss pursuant to Rule 5-203(A), such reliance was error, and then proceed to consider each of Defendant's alternative arguments to determine whether dismissal was proper for a different reason.
{11} We review a district court's probation revocation decision for an abuse of discretion. State v. Leon, 2013-NMCA-011, ¶ 36, 292 P.3d 493. " court abuses its discretion when it exercises its discretion based on a misunderstanding of the law." State v. Vigil, 2014-NMCA-096, ¶ 20, 336 P.3d 380. Thus, "[e]ven when we review for an abuse of discretion, . . . we review the application of the law to the facts de novo." State v. Hunter, 2005-NMCA-089, ¶ 20, 138 N.M. 96, 117 P.3d 254 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Likewise, construction of statutes and ourSupreme Court's rules is subject to de novo review. See State v. Chakerian, 2018-NMSC-019, ¶ 10, ___ P.3d ___ (); State v. Montoya, 2011-NMCA-009, ¶ 8, 149 N.M. 242, 247 P.3d 1127 ().
{12} To the extent the district...
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