State v. Valdivia
| Decision Date | 11 February 2020 |
| Docket Number | No. A-1-CA-36887,A-1-CA-36887 |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. CHRISTOPHER VALDIVIA, Defendant-Appellant. |
| 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 Refer to Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decisions.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 DOÑA ANA COUNTY
Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM
John Kloss, Assistant Attorney General
for Appellee
Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender
Kimberly Chavez Cook, Assistant Appellate Defender
Brian Parrish, Assistant Appellate Defender
Santa Fe, NM
for Appellant
{1} Defendant Christopher Valdivia appeals from the district court's denial of his motion to suppress following his conditional guilty plea to possession of a controlled substance, NMSA 1978, § 30-31-23(E) (2011, amended 2019), tampering with evidence, NMSA 1978, § 30-22-5 (2003), battery upon a peace officer, NMSA 1978, § 30-22-24 (1971), and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer, NMSA 1978, § 30-22- 1(B) (1981). Defendant additionally raises a double jeopardy challenge, arguing his convictions for battery upon a peace officer and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer violate double jeopardy. We affirm.
{2} Officer Veronica De La O of the Las Cruces Police Department testified at the suppression hearing as follows. The police department received a call reporting a man slumped over in a chair in the front yard of a residence; the caller could not tell whether the man was breathing. Officers De La O and Francisco Gomez separately were dispatched, with Officer De La O arriving first and Officer Gomez arriving shortly thereafter. Officer De La O identified the residence as "a known drug house"—she previously had responded to the residence for drug overdoses and had observed narcotics in the residence. When she arrived, Officer De La O parked a couple houses away and walked to the residence to find Defendant, who appeared to be sleeping, slumped over in the yard. Officer De La O recognized Defendant from previous encounters and, based on this, believed he might have used or been in possession of drugs.
{3} Officer De La O approached Defendant and tried to rouse him "to make sure that he was okay, since [she] didn't know the circumstances." She explained, "Being that he could be under the influence of narcotics, I didn't want to just walk away in case he was overdosed, and there were also children in the neighborhood across the street." She began "calling out to him, trying to wake him up." Defendant did not wake up the first time she called out but started to wake up the second time. Defendant "seemed a little out of it," but when Officer De La O asked if he was okay, he said he was "fine." By that point, Officer Gomez had also arrived on scene, and the two officers continued to ask Defendant if he was okay to ensure he was "alert and oriented" before they left.
{4} During this time, the officers observed an open container on the ground next to Defendant containing a green leafy substance, which Officer De La O recognized as spice or marijuana, and bulges in Defendant's knee-high socks. In response to Officer Gomez asking what was in his socks, Defendant twice removed folded pieces of paper from his socks and consumed them. Officers then gained control of Defendant, handcuffing him, and Officer De La O recovered an additional paper containing heroin from Defendant's socks. As Defendant was being escorted to the patrol unit, he pulled away from the officers and began to run. Defendant was brought to the ground by Officer Gomez. Defendant then kicked Officer De La O as the officers tried to regain control of him. At some point, officers called for emergency services to check out Defendant, given his consumption of the heroin packets.
{5} Defendant also testified at the suppression hearing to the following. On the day in question, Defendant was unconscious in a chair outside the residence, and he had not eaten or slept in a week. He testified that officers did not ask him about his well-being but instead their first question to him was, "what's in your sock?" During his testimony,Defendant admitted to possessing spice and heroin, consuming two packets of heroin, and trying to run after being handcuffed.
{6} Defendant's motion to suppress argued that—although the officers stated they were performing duties as "community caretakers"—the community caretaker exception to the warrant requirement did not apply in this case because the officers were, in reality, motivated to investigate a drug crime. After hearing testimony from Officer De La O and Defendant, as outlined above, the district court denied the motion. Defendant later entered a no contest plea to all charges and, as relevant to this appeal, stipulated to the factual basis for battery upon a peace officer (Count 3) and resisting, evading or obstructing an officer (Count 4) as follows. As for Count 3, "[D]efendant was allegedly uncooperative throughout the encounter, and is alleged to have kicked one of the officers as she was trying to detain him." As for Count 4, "when the officers were beginning to arrest [D]efendant . . . he also ran away from the officers."
{7} Defendant initially contends that the district court misunderstood its fact-finding role in denying the motion to suppress. In light of this, Defendant then invites this Court to reweigh the evidence and determine that the officers were primarily motivated to investigate drug crimes, not to provide emergency aid. We first explain why Defendant has misapprehended the district court's ruling and this Court's role on appeal. Next, upon applying the required standard of review, we detect no error in the district court's denial of the motion to suppress.
{8} Defendant first contends that the district court "refused to consider the evidence that indicated the officers' primary motivation was to investigate for criminal activity" and "failed to exercise its fact-finding discretion[.]" Defendant thus posits that "the [district] court's implicit finding of a primary motivation of community caretaking is not entitled to the deference of substantial evidence review." These contentions are not supported by our review of the record or the applicable law. In arguing the suppression motion, defense counsel requested the district court draw the inference that the officers' motivation was a drug investigation. In support, counsel pointed to various facts, including that Officer De La O parked down the street and walked to the house (instead of running), recognized the house as a known drug house, and surmised Defendant might be in possession of drugs based on her prior encounters with him. The district court rejected defense's argument, emphasizing that the officers were responding to a welfare check dispatch and that Officer De La O's testimony was "reasonable." The district court made clear its belief that the inferences defense counsel wished the court to draw were not "supported by the evidence." The court denied the motion, stating that "there's been sufficient testimony that would substantiate that there was a response to a call concerning the well-being of the individual." Contrary to Defendant's characterization, the record demonstrates that the district court considered the evidence and exercised its fact-finding discretion in rejecting defense's requested inferences.
Moreover, Defendant's suggested approach on appeal, which would have this Court parse the district court's oral pronouncements and draw inferences contrary to the district court's decision, runs afoul of our well-established practice of employing presumptions and inferences in favor of a district court's suppression ruling. See State v. Jason L., 2000-NMSC-018, ¶¶ 10-11, 129 N.M. 119, 2 P.3d 856 ().
{9} We turn now to Defendant's substantive challenge of the suppression ruling. Defendant below and on appeal disputes the applicability of the community caretaker exception—and in particular, the emergency assistance doctrine1 branch of that exception—to justify the officers' actions. Because Defendant preserved a state constitutional claim and because our constitution already has been construed to provide greater protections than the federal constitution in this situation, we examine the suppression issue here under the New Mexico Constitution only.
{10} In State v. Ryon, 2005-NMSC-005, ¶¶ 29-39, 137 N.M. 174, 108 P.3d 1032, our Supreme Court articulated a three-prong test to determine whether the emergency assistance doctrine excused a warrantless, nonconsensual entry into a home.
First, the police must have reasonable grounds to believe that there is an emergency at hand and an immediate need for their assistance for the protection of life or property. Second, the search must not be primarily motivated by intent to arrest and seize evidence. Third, there must be some reasonable basis, approximating probable cause, to associate the emergency with the area or place to be searched.
Id. ¶ 29 (alterations, internal quotation marks, and citations omitted). Once lawfully present, "officers may expand the scope of the intrusion, if probable cause or reasonable suspicion arises," and "may also seize evidence of a crime that is in plain view or arrest a suspect if there is probable cause." Id. ¶ 38. Although the Ryon test was later modified under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution, it was retained under Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution. See State v. Yazzie, 2019-NMSC-008, ¶¶ 23, 44-48, 437 P.3d 182.
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