State v. Trammell

• Decision Date: 04 August 2016
• Docket Number: NO. S–1–SC–34826,S–1–SC–34826
• Citation: 2016 NMSC 031,387 P.3d 220
• Parties: State of New Mexico, Plaintiff–Petitioner, v. Lucas Trammell, Defendant–Respondent.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

387 P.3d 220

2016 NMSC 031

State of New Mexico, Plaintiff–Petitioner,

v.Lucas Trammell, Defendant–Respondent.

NO. S–1–SC–34826

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

August 4, 2016

Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General, Yvonne Marie Chicoine, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Petitioner.

Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender, Mary Barket, Assistant Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, NM, for Respondent.

OPINION

VIGIL, Justice.

{1} In 2004 Lucas Trammell (Defendant) pled guilty, in part, to false imprisonment of a minor victim. At the time, a conviction of false imprisonment of a minor victim required that Defendant register as a sex offender under the New Mexico Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), NMSA 1978, §§ 29–11A–1 to –10 (1995, as amended through 2000). Defendant's attorney failed to realize that Defendant's plea included a sex offense requiring SORNA registration. Defendant moved to withdraw his plea six years later, after he was arrested and found to have violated the terms of his probation. We conclude that although counsel's failure to advise Defendant of the SORNA registration requirement in his plea agreement was per se deficient performance under the first prong of the Strickland test for ineffective assistance of counsel, Defendant failed to show that under Strickland 's second prong he had been prejudiced by that deficient performance. See Strickland v. Washington , 466 U.S. 668, 687, 104 S.Ct. 2052, 80 L.Ed.2d 674 (1984).

I. BACKGROUND

{2} On March 31, 2004, pursuant to a plea agreement, Defendant was convicted of several crimes, including false imprisonment of a minor. Defendant's conviction followed a March 15, 2002, incident whereby Defendant stole a truck, unaware that there was a twelve-year-old boy in the back seat. Upon realizing that the child was in the vehicle, Defendant returned the child unharmed to the vehicle's original location.

{3} On July 1, 2004, the district court sentenced Defendant to a total of eleven years and six months in prison and suspended two of those years, resulting in a prison term of nine years and six months. Defendant's prison term was to be followed by two years of probation and parole. The district court issued its judgment, sentence, and partial suspension order by standard court form, filling in the blanks in accordance with the facts and circumstances of Defendant's case. Notably, on the page listing potential probation conditions, the district court did not check the box next to the language "Defendant Shall Register as a Sex Offender pursuant to section NMSA 1978, § 29–11A–1, et seq ., as amended." Further, the order provided that "upon release from D.O.C. ... Defendant must successfully complete [a] residential substance abuse program including either Fort Stanton or Delancey Street. This will be followed by standard supervised probation. Complete STEPS program."

{4} Defendant completed his prison sentence on May 26, 2008, and was released to complete his probation and parole. Prior to his release, though, Defendant had met with a case worker to discuss his probation conditions and was informed that as a result of his conviction for false imprisonment of a minor victim he would be subject to sex offender probation requiring SORNA registration. See NMSA 1978, § 29–11A–3(B)(7) (2000) (providing that " ‘sex offense’ means: ... (7) false imprisonment ... when the victim is less than eighteen years of age and the offender is not a parent of the victim"). Although he was surprised to learn that he was subject to sex offender probation, Defendant complied with the registration requirement because he was eager to be released. As a sex offender, one condition of his release was that he could "not date or marry anyone who has custody of minor children without prior permission from [his] Probation/Parole Officer."

{5} After his release, on November 6, 2009, Defendant was arrested on child abuse charges for the battery of his girlfriend's fourteen-year-old son. Because Defendant failed to seek permission from his probation officer prior to dating the victim's mother, he had violated the terms of his supervision—so the State filed a motion to revoke probation. Additionally, now that Defendant had violated the terms of his supervision, the State sought to impose the four years of habitual offender time it had agreed not to pursue under the original plea agreement.

{6} Defendant, by new counsel, then filed a motion for modification of his probation terms and conditions requesting that the district court issue an order "immediately suspending his supervision by the Sex Offender Probation Unit (SUP) and placing him on standard probation with all the standard terms and conditions as ordered at initial sentencing." Defendant contended that he "was not ordered onto sex offender probation by [the district] court as part of his sentence," but rather "was specifically ordered ... to be supervised under the standard terms of probation." Further, Defendant argued that pursuant to NMSA 1978, Section 31–20–5.2(A) (2003), "prior to placing a sex offender on probation, the court must conduct a hearing to determine the terms and conditions of probation," and no such hearing was conducted in his case. See id .

{7} Defendant then filed a motion to withdraw his plea on April 9, 2010. Defendant argued that because "he was not advised ... that he was pleading guilty to a sex offense ..., his guilty plea was ... not entered knowingly and voluntarily." Defendant thus argued that his plea counsel was ineffective by failing to advise him that SORNA registration was a collateral consequence of his plea, relying heavily on the Court of Appeals' opinion in State v. Edwards , 2007–NMCA–043, 141 N.M. 491, 157 P.3d 56, cert. quashed , 2007–NMCERT–008, 142 N.M. 436, 166 P.3d 1090 (Aug. 3, 2007). In Edwards , the Court of Appeals held that a defense attorney's failure to advise a client in a criminal case of the SORNA registration consequences of a guilty plea amounted to deficient performance under the first prong of the Strickland test for ineffective assistance of counsel. Edwards , 2007–NMCA–043, ¶ 32, 141 N.M. 491, 157 P.3d 56. Defendant further argued that he was prejudiced by his attorney's deficient performance because "had he been adequately advised, he would have rejected the plea and disposition agreement as it was," and instead would have negotiated a plea that did not subject him to sex offender registration. Both Defendant's original plea attorney and his attorney in the probation revocation proceedings believed that if defense counsel and the prosecutor had realized this plea included a sex offense there likely would have been a different plea agreement.

{8} The district court held a hearing on the motion to withdraw the plea on April 16, 2010. Then, on May 19, 2010, the district court found that Defendant was a habitual offender and ordered him to serve an additional four years of imprisonment. The district court did not rule on the motion to withdraw Defendant's original plea until October 29, 2010, when it denied the motion, concluding that there had not been ineffective assistance of counsel because the Court of Appeals opinion upon which Defendant relied was not retroactively applicable to Defendant's case and Defendant had not met his burden of showing he had been prejudiced by his counsel's conduct.

{9} Defendant appealed the denial of his motion to withdraw his plea to the Court of Appeals. See State v. Trammell , 2014–NMCA–107, ¶ 5, 336 P.3d 977. The Court of Appeals reversed the district court, holding that its opinion in Edwards did not announce a new rule, so it applied retroactively. Trammell , 2014–NMCA–107, ¶ 2, 336 P.3d 977. Therefore, Defendant's attorney's failure to advise him that he would be subject to SORNA registration as a result of his plea constituted deficient performance by counsel. Id .

{10} The Court of Appeals' determination that Edwards did not announce a new rule was "based partly on the fact that a line on Defendant's judgment and sentence paperwork called into question possible SORNA registration." Trammell , 2014–NMCA–107, ¶¶ 12, 14, 336 P.3d 977. The Court of Appeals went on to conclude that "[t]he affirmative obligation of defense counsel to be aware of collateral consequences of a plea is well established." Id. ¶ 15. Additionally, case law at the time Defendant entered his plea provided that " ‘there is little question that adequate pre-plea knowledge of the SORNA registration and notification consequences of a plea ought to be a part of criminal procedure.’ " Id . (quoting State v. Moore , 2004–NMCA–035, ¶ 26, 135 N.M. 210, 86 P.3d 635 ). Combined with testimony by Defendant's attorney that it was "standard practice to advise a client that he was pleading guilty to a sex offense and that he had failed to realize that Defendant's offense was considered a sex offense," the Court of Appeals determined that these factors demonstrated that Defendant's attorney had failed to meet his obligation under Edwards , which applied retroactively to Defendant's case. Trammell , 2014–NMCA–107, ¶ 15, 336 P.3d 977.

{11} The Court of Appeals then considered whether Defendant had been prejudiced by his attorney's failure to advise him of the SORNA registration requirements under Strickland 's second prong. See Trammell , 2014–NMCA–107, ¶¶ 16–18, 336 P.3d 977.

The Court of Appeals noted that in order to show prejudice, Defendant would have been required to "show that there was a reasonable probability that he would have rejected the plea and proceeded to trial if he had been informed of the SORNA consequences." Id . ¶ 16. "However," the Court of Appeals added, "these rules are not mechanical, and we may consider other factors, so long as the focus is on whether there has been such a breakdown in the adversarial process as to undermine the fundamental fairness of the proceeding whose result is being challenged." Id . (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)...