State v. Yates

• Decision Date: 25 July 2008
• Docket Number: No. 27,289.,No. 27,290.,No. 27,288.,27,290.,27,288.,27,289.
• Citation: 192 P.3d 1236,2008 NMCA 129
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Scott YATES, Defendant-Appellee, State of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Alberto Savedra, Defendant-Appellee, State of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jose Lozano, Sr., Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Court of Appeals of New Mexico

192 P.3d 1236

2008 NMCA 129

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Scott YATES, Defendant-Appellee, State of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Alberto Savedra, Defendant-Appellee, State of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Jose Lozano, Sr., Defendant-Appellee.

No. 27,290.

No. 27,288.

No. 27,289.

Court of Appeals of New Mexico.

July 25, 2008.

Certiorari Granted, No. 31,288, September 15, 2008.

Gary K. King, Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, Max Shepherd, Assistant Attorney General, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellant.

Gary C. Mitchell, P.C., Gary C. Mitchell, Ruidoso, NM, for Appellees Yates and Lozano.

Thomas E. Lilley, P.C., Thomas E. Lilley, Roswell, NM, for Appellee Savedra.

OPINION

ALARID, Judge.

{1} New Mexico law favors the prompt disposition of criminal charges. N.M. Const. art. II. § 14. To carry out the policy favoring prompt disposition of criminal charges, our Supreme Court has adopted for each trial court a so-called "six-month rule." Rules 5-604(B), 6-506(B), 7-506(B), 8-506(B) NMRA. Each of the three cases before this Court involves a similar fact pattern: the State files a criminal complaint including a misdemeanor DWI charge against each Defendant in magistrate court, knowing and intending that if the Defendant exercises his right to a trial, the complaint will be dismissed and refiled in district court; a triggering event as defined by Rule 6-506(B)¹ occurs, starting the running of the six-month² rule; thereafter, but prior to the expiration of the period within which the case must be tried under Rule 6-506(B), the State dismisses the magistrate court proceeding and institutes a criminal prosecution in district court on the same underlying charges;³ after the point in time that the case would be subject to dismissal under Rule 6-506(E), but prior to the point in time that the case would be subject to dismissal under the literal language of Rule 5-604(B), each Defendant moves to dismiss the case, arguing that his trial has not occurred within the time limits of Rule 6-506(B);⁴ the district court grants the motion and the State appeals.⁵

{2} The Rules of Criminal Procedure for each court of limited jurisdiction, including the Rules of Criminal Procedure for the Magistrate Courts, include a rule expressly addressing how the six-month rule is to be applied where the State files charges, dismisses those charges, and then refiles the same charges:

If a citation or complaint is dismissed without prejudice and the charges are later refiled, the case shall be treated as a continuation of the same case, and the trial on the refiled charges shall be commenced within the unexpired time for trial pursuant to Rule 6-506 NMRA, unless the court, after notice and a hearing, finds the refiled complaint should not be treated as a continuation of the same case.

Rule 6-506A(D) (emphasis added), cf. Rule 7-506A(D), Rule 8-506A(D). Each of these rules of court adopts a default rule by which the six-month rule clock is not automatically reset by the dismissal and refiling. Under these rules, resetting the six-month rule clock upon the refiling of the same charges is the exception, not the norm. Prosecutors may do as they wish by voluntarily dismissing charges brought in magistrate court, Rule 6-506A(A), but in view of Rule 6-506A(D) prosecutors should not expect to routinely be relieved of the sixth-month rule consequences triggered by the first prosecution.

{3} There is no provision in the Rules of Criminal Procedure for the District Courts analogous to Rule 6-506A(D). Instead, the rules governing the six-month rule consequences of sequential prosecutions in district court have been created by judicial decision, beginning with the Supreme Court's opinion in State ex rel. Delgado v. Stanley, 83 N.M. 626, 495 P.2d 1073 (1972). The default rule developed for district courts through case law is the mirror image of the default rule adopted through rule-making for courts of limited jurisdiction: in district court, the refiled case will be deemed a new prosecution and the six-month rule will be reset, unless it appears that the State dismissed the first prosecution for a "bad" reason. State v Bolton, 1997-NMCA-007, ¶ 11, 122 N.M. 831, 932 P.2d 1075.

{4} We are presented with two obvious, but mutually inconsistent, alternatives: (1) follow Rule 6-506A(D) by treating the triggering event as defined by Rule 6-506(B)(1) in the first-filed case as the triggering event in the second case; or (2) apply Rule 5-604(B)(1) literally, disregarding any triggering event that occurred in magistrate court and treating the "arraignment, or waiver of arraignment, in the district court" as the triggering event. The first alternative seems to us to be consistent with the policies underlying the six-month rule and with Rule 6-506A(D), yet is inconsistent with the literal language of Rule 5-604(B)(1), which refers to "arraignment, or waiver of arraignment, in the district court." (Emphasis added). The second reading is consistent with the language employed by the drafters of Rule 5-604(B)(1), yet it requires us to disregard Rule 6-506A(D), and seems to us to violate the spirit of the six-month rule and to invite prosecutors to manipulate the overlapping magistrate-district court criminal jurisdiction by filing charges in magistrate court secure in the knowledge that if the defendant declines to enter into a plea agreement in magistrate court, the period during which the six-month rule was running in magistrate court will not count against the State if and when charges are dismissed and refiled in district court.

{5} To break this analytical stalemate, we look to a basic principle of law: treat like cases alike. Benavidez v. Sierra Blanca Motors, 122 N.M. 209, 214, 922 P.2d 1205, 1210 (1996). The interests served by the six-month rule are substantially the same when a case is filed in magistrate court, dismissed, and refiled in magistrate court and when a case is filed in magistrate court, dismissed, and refiled in district court. Similarly-situated defendants ought to be afforded similar rights. The principle that like should be treated alike inclines us to afford all defendants whose prosecutions are initiated in magistrate court the benefit of Rule 6-506A(D), regardless of whether the State refiles the charges in magistrate court or district court. Applying the default rule incorporated in Rule 6-506A(D), we hold that the refiled charges in Defendants' cases are presumptively a continuation of the original magistrate court prosecutions for purposes of the six-month rule.

{6} By an appropriate showing, Rule 6-506A(D) allows the State to overcome the presumption that a refiled case continues the original prosecution. In the cases now before us, the State justifies its dismissals of Defendants' cases by reference to an informal, but apparently uniform, policy of prosecutors in the Fifth Judicial District applicable to misdemeanor DWI charges originally filed in magistrate court. Pursuant to this policy, when it becomes apparent to the prosecutor that the defendant will not enter into a plea agreement, the prosecutor dismisses the magistrate court prosecution and refiles the charges in district court.⁶ The State argues that the policy followed by prosecutors in the Fifth Judicial District is necessary because DWI defendants invariably exercise their statutory right to a trial de novo in district court, NMSA 1978, § 35-13-2(A) (1975), requiring the State to retry any case in which the State prevails in magistrate court. As we understand the State's position, the State maintains that the district court should have applied Rule 5-604(B) to determine the triggering event for purposes of the six-month rule without regard to the prior occurrence of a triggering event under Rule 6-506(B) and without regard to the policy incorporated into Rule 6-506A(D). Under the State's approach, the period expended in plea negotiations will never count against the State because the six-month rule clock automatically will be reset when the State refiles the case in district court, and the six-month period will not begin to run until a new triggering event as defined by Rule 5-604(B) occurs, regardless of the period of time that had expired under Rule 6-506 while the case was pending in magistrate court.

{7} We do not question the legitimacy of the State's interest in avoiding the burdens of successive trials in magistrate court and district court. See State v. Ahasteen, 1998-NMCA-158, ¶ 23, 126 N.M. 238, 968 P.2d 328 (observing that "trying the case in district court at the outset would avoid duplication of efforts, conserve the State's resources, and promote judicial economy"). The State's articulation of an interest that is legitimate when considered in isolation does not end our inquiry, however. Here, the State's chosen method of advancing its interest in avoiding duplicative trials conflicts with the interest advanced by Rule 6-506(B). Accordingly, we must balance the concededly legitimate interests furthered by the Fifth Judicial District policy against the important interests furthered by the six-month rule.⁷

{8} In balancing competing interests, we think it appropriate to consider solutions other than the one adopted by the State. Most obviously, the State could avoid successive trials by adopting a policy of initiating misdemeanor DWI prosecutions in district court, rather than magistrate court.⁸ Alternatively, the State could monitor misdemeanor DWI cases filed in magistrate court to insure that they are dismissed and refiled in district court with sufficient time remaining for the district court to dispose of the case within six months of the triggering event in magistrate court.⁹ Either of these approaches would further the State's interest in avoiding successive trials without sacrificing the interests furthered by the six-month rule. Indeed, the problem of sequential, duplicative trials seems to us largely to be one of the State...