Albuquerque Criminal Lawyer Blog

In State v. Toms, the New Mexico Court of Appeals addressed the foundational requirements for admission of breath alcohol score results in a DWI trial. The Court in Toms reiterated the ruling in the 2007 New Mexico Supreme Court case of State v. Martinez. In addition, the Court expanded on Martinez in addressing the proper procedural grounds by which a defendant may attack the foundation of the breath alcohol results.

The Court first stated that calibration of the machine by the officer was not enough. Though calibration of the machine is a measure to insure the accuracy of the breath alcohol score, it is insufficient to establish the foundation for admission of the score into evidence at trial. In addition, as stated in Martinez, the State must prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the machine has been properly certified and the certification is current at the time of the test. The State in short must show that the machine has been properly certified, the certification is current, and the machine was certified by the Scientific Laboratory Division of the Department of Health (SLD).

Failure to fully establish the foundation for admission of the breath alcohol score will render the evidence inadmissible. These foundational requirements are meant to insure the accuracy of the breath alcohol scores and to protect defendants against unreliable or inaccurate tests results. The State argued that the defendant must raise the issue prior to trial. Effectively, the State argued that the defendant was obligated to alert the State to weaknesses in its case prior to trial in essence providing the State with the opportunity to cure the defect.

Fortunately, the Court disagreed. This foundation is the State's responsibility, not the defendant's. The Court expressly expanded on Martinez to address the State's argument. The Court stated that the defendant has no obligation to raise the deficiency in the State's case via pre-trial motion as the trial court and the State had suggested. The Court stated that the state has the burden of laying the foundation for the breath alcohol test results and that the Court would not "require the defense to file a pretrial motion simply to advise the prosecution that it may have a defect in its proof or some problem in establishing the appropriate evidentiary foundation."

DWI is enforced very vigorously in New Mexico for good reason. DWI is a threat to the safety of all of us and our families who drive New Mexico roads. However, on occasion, DWI is perhaps enforced a little too vigorously as was the recently invalidate practice of arresting drivers who were sleeping in their cars, and the continuing practice of arresting and prosecuting drivers at breath alcohol levels below .08. Fortunately, the Court in State v. Tom has not shifted the burden of prosecution to the defendant him or herself by placing the responsibility of foundational elements to the defendant. After all, the defendant should not carry the burden of prosecuting him or herself despite the efficiencies that would come from such a requirement.

Parrish Collins
Albuquerque Attorney
www.CollinsAttorneys.com

The New Mexico Court of Appeals addressed the constitutionality of a "reach-in" search of a defendant on a busy street in the recent case of State v. Williams. The court found that the search was an unlawful invasion of privacy under the circumstances and therefore and illegal search and seizure under the 4th Amendment.

In a nutshell, there was a felony warrant outstanding on the defendant. The officer legally pulled the defendant over in his car. The officer legally placed the defendant under arrest due to the warrant. The officer then pulled out the defendant's waist-band on his pants looking in and seizing crack cocaine in the defendant's pants. The search and seizure was conducted in broad daylight on a busy city street. The defendant argued the search constituted an illegal strip. The Court disagreed that it was a strip search. However, the Court still found the search to be unreasonable under the circumstances and therefore unconstitutional.

The issue that arose was not whether the officer was entitled to search the defendant. All parties agreed that the officer had the right to search the defendant. However, the manner of the search was found to be unreasonable and unconstitutional under the 4th Amendment. The Court recognized that there are situations where the suspect's sense of modesty and privacy are overridden by exceptional circumstances. However, the cases all indicated that reasonable steps must be taken to protect the suspect's privacy. The Court stated that there was must a proper balance between the immediate need to search the suspect and the invasion of privacy and embarrassment associated with a public search.

In State v. Williams, the search was conducted in broad daylight during rush hour. No evidence was presented by the State showing that appropriate steps were taken to lessen the invasion of the defendant's privacy or that the situation dictated an immediate search in the manner it was conducted. In fact, according to the Court, the trial court did not consider at all the reasonableness of the location or the manner of the search.

Because the State failed to show the reasonableness of the search, or necessity under the circumstances, the search was found to be illegal and the crack cocaine was suppressed. Many will take objection to the ruling. The ruling may seem to run against common sense. However, the New Mexico courts are very protective of constitutional rights often extending protections well beyond the federal courts in similar situations. And the simple fact is the officer could have waited and conducted a full strip search once the suspect was taken to jail. The search as conducted simply was not necessary and some very basic steps could have protected both the defendant's right to privacy as well as the officer's seizure of evidence.

Parrish Collins
Albuquerque Attorney
www.CollinsAttorneys.com

Receipt of a target letter means that you are the subject of a felony criminal investigation. More specifically, it means that your case and your charges have been set for a grand jury investigation. The target letter will provide all the particulars regarding the alleged crimes, the statues, the time and location of the grand jury proceedings. What the target letter does not provide is an explanation of the process or your rights in the process.

In the past, it was said that the grand jury would indict a ham sandwich. The truth of this adage led the New Mexico Supreme in Jones v. Murdoch to set forth an accused procedural rights for introducing exculpatory evidence at grand jury. In addition to what has turned out to be a very limited right to present exculpatory evidence, the accused has a right to testify on his or her own behalf at grand jury. In the past, most attorneys would rarely if ever allow a client to testify at grand jury. There is a small trend toward allowing clients to testify. Some research has indicated that jurors are more balanced in their judgment than the ham sandwiches would have you believe.

On the other hand, the risks are great. Any testimony and/or admissions given at grand jury is under oath and may later be used at trial in the case of indictment. Worse yet, the attorney for the accused is allowed only minimal participation. The attorney may not present evidence, examine state witnesses or even question his or her own client. Essentially the attorney is limited to whispering in the client's ear for guidance. Clearly, this is not looked upon favorably by jurors as few like seeing a lawyer whispering into the ear of an alleged felon. As a result, the attorney will typically simply sit and observe fingers crossed hoping the client does tank the defense so early in the game.

Despite the studies showing that grand jurors might be more open minded than thought in the past, favorable outcomes are quite rare while damage to the defense and the client are more the norm. And in the end, the grand jury remains a rubber stamp except in rare and exceptional cases. Energy is arguably better spent working on a defense or possible favorable dispositions than fighting the grand jury. Any risk of harming the defense before felony charges have even been filed seems ill advised for ham sandwiches, soups and salads alike.

Parrish Collins
Albuquerque Attorney
www.CollinsAttorneys.com

Broad discovery is fundamental to due process in the defense of criminal charges. The New Mexico Court of Appeals addressed the issue in State v. Ortiz. The court stated that a defendant is entitled to all discovery that might reasonably relate to the defense. The defendant need not know in advance that the records, documents or other evidence are helpful, but only that they might possibly be helpful to the defense.

Ortiz involved a DWI stop. The officer stated in grand jury testimony that he stopped the defendant due to erratic driving behavior. Through discovery, the State provided a videotape of the incident. However, the video was missing 6 minutes of footage. The defendant insisted that the State provide the excised portion of the tape. The State refused stating that the missing portion was irrelevant to the case. The defendant also requested the officer's cell phone records for the missing 6 minute period. Again, the State refused stating that the officer had an expectation of privacy in his personal cell phone records.

The district court ordered the State to provide both the missing video footage as well as the officer's cell phone records for the six minute period. The State refused. The Court, exercising its discretionary authority for discovery violations, suppressed all evidence arising from the DWI stop which resulted in dismissal of the case. The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's dismissal of the case.

The Court of Appeals reiterated the liberal discovery standard in criminal cases. The court cited United States v. Lloyd, a 1993 D.C. Circuit Court case, as follows: the "materiality standard...is not a heavy burden; rather, evidence is material as long as there is a strong indication that it will play an important role in uncovering admissible evidence, aiding witness preparation , corroborating testimony or assisting impeachment or rebuttal."

The Court agreed with the district court that both the missing video footage and the officer's cell phone records during the missing 6 minutes might play a role in the defense. It was not up to the defendant to prove the materiality of the evidence. Instead, the defendant had the right to obtain and review the evidence for its materiality. The court indicated that liberal discovery was fundamental to the defendant's due process rights and his right to a fair trial.

The Court's ruling as well as the liberal rules of discovery are essential to the defense. In addition, they reflect plain common sense. A defendant would hardly be entitled to any discovery if it were required that he or she first show the materiality of the evidence before obtaining it. The materiality of evidence often cannot be known until it has been reviewed. In many cases, a review of the evidence may find that it is immaterial or otherwise inadmissible. But due process dictates that all potentially material or relevant evidence be disclosed. Only then can a determination of admissibility be undertaken. It takes little imagination to envision potential abuse of a less stringent discovery rule.

Parrish Collins
Albuquerque Attorney
www.CollinsAttorneys.com

The New Mexico Supreme Court recently addressed the applicability of the misdemeanor arrest rule to DWI/DUI arrests in City of Santa Fe v. Martinez. The case involved a tip from a mall employee who observed the defendant attempting to unlock several different vehicles in the mall parking lot before he finally ventured upon his own vehicle and drove away. The mall employee contacted the police providing the defendant's drivers license number.

A Santa Fe police officer traced the license to the defendant's home. The police officer went to the defendant's home where he found the defendant inside extremely intoxicated. The defendant voluntarily opened the door and allowed the officer into the home. He admitted drinking and having driven the vehicle earlier.

Based upon the defendant's statements, his visible intoxication, the smell of alcohol and other indicators of intoxication, the officer arrested the defendant. The defendant refused the breath alcohol test which resulted in charges for aggravated DWI.

The defendant moved to dismiss the charges for violation of the misdemeanor arrest rule which the court denied in Santa Fe Municipal Court. The defendant appealed to district court where the conviction was set aside. The City of Santa Fe appealed and the case made its way to the Supreme Court.

The misdemeanor arrest rule is a long standing rule requiring that an officer actually observe the misdemeanor offense in order to make a warrantless arrest. There is no such rule for felony arrest. The rule derived from the fact that misdemeanors are typically not as serious as felony crimes and pose a much lower risk to public safety.

The New Mexico Supreme Court determined that the misdemeanor arrest rule should not apply to DWI/DUI arrests. The court reasoned that unlike most misdemeanor offenses, DWI/DUI pose a very real, immediate and significant risk to public safety stating, "Given the compelling public interest in eradicating DWI occurrences and the potentially deadly consequences, the crime of DWI should be treated as a felony for purposes of warrantless arrests." In addition, delay in investigation and arrest on DWI results in the loss of evidence of intoxication as the person begins to sober up. The court indicated that the misdemeanor arrest rule represents a balance between the rights of the accused and public safety. In the case of DWI, the balance according to the Court falls on the side of waiver of the misdemeanor arrest rule in DWI/DUI cases.

This is a significant development in DWI/DUI enforcement. It remains to be seen how this will play out in future DWI/DUI enforcement. The rule may impact the DWI police team concept as well as the need for both the stopping officer and DWI investigating officer at trial. It is likely that there will be future activity surrounding these issues as this case is incorporated into DWI enforcement practices.

Parrish Collins
Albuquerque Attorney
www.CollinsAttorneys.com

The New Mexico Supreme Court addressed expert testimony given by police officer in DWI/DUI trials in State v. Marquez. The case involved an Albuquerque police officer who gave testimony regarding the statistical correlations between a suspect's performance on field sobriety tests and the probability of a blood alcohol score over .08.

The defendant's attorney had argued that the officer was not qualified as an expert to testify on statistical probabilities under the U.S. Supreme Court case of Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals. Interestingly, the State conceded that the testimony given by the officer was improperly admitted. Instead, the State argued that the admission of the evidence was harmless because there was sufficient legally admitted evidence for the conviction.

The case of State v. Marquez is interesting because the New Mexico Supreme Court found that the testimony was unnecessary for the conviction. The Court cited New Mexico Uniform Jury Instruction 14-4501 along with the well established New Mexico case law suggesting that the true standard is whether the defendant's ability to drive was impaired to the slightest degree.

The testimony of the officer undoubtedly would have established this without the statistical testimony. The officer testified that she saw the defendant stumble out of a bar, get in his car, almost strike another vehicle as he backed out of his parking space, and then back 60 feet into oncoming traffic on a congested and dangerous street. In addition, the officer testified that the defendant was slow to respond to questions, fumbled with his identification, was slow getting out of his vehicle, had to brace himself against his vehicle for balance and generally performed poorly on the field sobriety tests.

In light of impaired to the slightest degree standard, the statistical evidence was hardly necessary. However, the prosecutor got a little greedy perhaps and solicited the testimony anyway over the objection of the defense attorney. Basically, the officer gave testimony on statistical studies suggesting that poor performance on the field sobriety tests correlates to a high probability that the defendant's breath score exceeded the .08 limit.

The Court recognized that because of the impaired to the slightest degree standard, the breath alcohol score is not necessary for a DWI/DUI conviction in New Mexico. The Court further recognized that it is common knowledge that a breath score of over .08 is an indication of impairment. Thus, the testimony of the Albuquerque police officer, though unnecessary for a conviction, could have confused and misled the jury. In short, the testimony may have distracted the jury from its role of weighing properly admitted evidence by undue attention to the wrongfully admitted statistical evidence. In essence, the statistical evidence improperly undermined the credibility of the defendant.

Because the evidence was improperly admitted and could have confused or distracted the jury, the defendant's DWI conviction was reversed. The case was remanded for a new trial. In light of the evidence available to the State, and the Court's ruling that the breath alcohol score is unnecessary, the outcome of the new trial is likely to be the same as the first.

The case is somewhat paradoxical that the Court further restricts the bounds of admissible DWI evidence while at the same time reiterating its position that such evidence is unnecessary anyway. However, the case should prove important in cases where the evidence of intoxication is not so overwhelming as was the case here.

www.CollinsAttorneys.com