State v. Anderson

2001 NMCA 027, 24 P.3d 327, 130 N.M. 295
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedMarch 20, 2001
Docket20,730
StatusPublished
Cited by14 cases

This text of 2001 NMCA 027 (State v. Anderson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Anderson, 2001 NMCA 027, 24 P.3d 327, 130 N.M. 295 (N.M. Ct. App. 2001).

Opinion

OPINION

SUTIN, J.

{1} Terry Anderson (Defendant) appeals his conviction for aggravated stalking. This appeal requires our analysis of what nexus the State must prove between the possession of an object determined by a jury to be a deadly weapon and the commission of the crime of stalking. We reverse.

BACKGROUND

{2} Defendant began a pattern of bothering Victim in mid-1996, when they both attended regular meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous. As time went on, he left strange telephone messages and made repeated “hang-up” telephone calls to her home, after she asked him not to talk to her. Defendant stared at Victim during entire meetings, whispered her name throughout one meeting, grabbed her arm as she left one evening, and ultimately was banned in December 1997 from the meeting location because of his conduct. After that, he regularly waited for and watched her from outside the property from which he was restricted.

{3} In August 1998, Victim found a strange note that she assumed was from Defendant on her door suggesting that if she did not go to a certain location at a specific time the writer would leave town. The next day, Victim saw Defendant walking in her neighborhood. A few minutes later, she heard someone knocking on her door and she immediately called the police, naming Defendant as a probable stalker. Two deputy sheriffs responded to the police dispatch resulting from Victim’s call.

{4} The first deputy to respond stopped Defendant within a block of Victim’s residence. After taking Defendant’s name, he conducted a pat-down search that produced a can of mace. Then, the deputy asked Defendant whether he had any other weapons. He responded that he had a stick, which the deputy removed from Defendant’s bag. The bag also contained clothing and hygiene items.

{5} Based on his conduct and possession of the stick, Defendant was convicted of the crimes of aggravated stalking, battery, and criminal trespass. The aggravated stalking conviction was based on Defendant’s possession of a deadly weapon, namely, the stick in his bag.

{6} Victim testified that she at first had an uneasy feeling about Defendant, was angry at his conduct, and felt fearful, sensing that something was not right with him. As time went on, she was angry, frustrated, scared, and fearful based on Defendant’s calls, staring, and lurking. She felt threatened by his behavior and felt afraid because she did not know what he was capable of.

{7} The stick was a round, 14-inch long, one-inch in diameter piece of wood. Defendant testified in a pretrial suppression hearing that he used the stick not as a weapon but, as a homeless person, to sift through trash in dumpsters. He did not testify at trial.

{8} During trial, Defendant moved for a directed verdict, arguing as he does here that the State failed to prove a nexus between the alleged deadly weapon and the alleged crime of stalking. In closing argument, Defendant conceded that he committed harassment, a lesser-included offense of stalking. He suggested further that the jury might properly convict him of stalking, a lesser-included offense of aggravated stalking. Defendant argued though that a conviction of aggravated stalking would be improper because the court erred in not instructing the jury that in order to convict for aggravated stalking they must find a specific relationship to exist, i.e., a nexus, between the possession of the stick, even assuming that it was a weapon, and the stalking.

Standard of Review

{9} Whether the State is required to prove a nexus between the stick and the stalking beyond the elements set out in the aggravated stalking statute is a question of law which we review de novo. State v. Rowell, 121 N.M. 111, 114, 908 P.2d 1379, 1382 (1995) (interpretation of a statute is an issue of law, not a question of fact).

DISCUSSION

Stalking

A. Stalking consists of a person knowingly pursuing a pattern of conduct that would cause a reasonable person to feel frightened, intimidated or threatened. The alleged stalker must intend to place another person in reasonable apprehension of death, bodily harm, sexual assault, confinement or restraint or the alleged stalker must intend to cause a reasonable person to fear for his safety or the safety of a household member. In furtherance of the stalking, the alleged stalker must commit one or more of the following acts on more than one occasion:

(1) following another person, in a place other than the residence of the alleged stalker;
(2) placing another person under surveillance by being present outside that person’s residence, school, workplace or motor vehicle or any other place frequented by that person, other than the residence of the alleged stalker; or
(3) harassing another person.

NMSA1978, § 30-3A-3 (1997).

Aggravated Stalking

{10} Aggravated stalking is stalking when “in possession of a deadly weapon.” Section 30-3A-3.1(A)(3). Under UJI 14-333 NMRA 2001, a defendant may be found guilty of aggravated stalking if, at the time of commission of the offense of stalking, the defendant “was in possession of a deadly weapon.”

The Jury Determination

{11} The district court did not give UJI 14-333 to the jury in this case. Instead, the court substituted its own definition of deadly weapon, instructing the jury that in order to find Defendant guilty of aggravated stalking, the State was required to prove that at the time of the stalking Defendant “was in possession of an instrument or object, which, when used as a deadly weapon can cause death or very serious injury.” And in another, separate instruction the jury was given a definition of deadly weapon: “A deadly weapon is an instrument or object which, when used as a weapon, could cause death or very serious injury.” The jury was not instructed in the language of the statute or UJI 14-333 that the crime of aggravated stalking consisted of “stalking when in possession of a deadly weapon.”

{12} By convicting Defendant of aggravated stalking, the jury necessarily made two findings: first, Defendant committed the crime of stalking; and second, the stick in his bag was an instrument or object which, when used as a weapon, could cause death or very serious injury. This in effect was a determination that the stick was a “deadly weapon.” The stalking thereby automatically became “aggravated.”

{13} The issue before us is whether the jury determinations are sufficient to convict for aggravated stalking without additional proof by the State that Defendant possessed the stick with the intent to use it as a weapon. In order to decide this issue, we find it helpful to examine our deadly weapon law.

I. New Mexico Deadly Weapon Law

A. Deadly Weapon Defined

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2001 NMCA 027, 24 P.3d 327, 130 N.M. 295, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-anderson-nmctapp-2001.