State v. Buecker

New Mexico Court of Appeals·Decided October 18, 2023·Unpublished

Opinion

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1 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

2 Opinion Number: _____________________ 3 Filing Date: October 18, 2023 4 No. A-1-CA-39288 5 STATE OF NEW MEXICO, 6 Plaintiff-Appellee, 7 v.

8 KOREY BUECKER a/k/a KOREY 9 WILSON BUECKER,

10 Defendant-Appellant.

11 APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF LEA COUNTY 12 William G.W. Shoobridge, District Court Judge

13 Raúl Torrez, Attorney General 14 Maris Veidemanis, Assistant Attorney General 15 Santa Fe, NM

16 for Appellee

17 Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender 18 Kathleen T. Baldridge, Assistant Appellate Defender 19 Santa Fe, NM

20 for Appellant 1 OPINION 2 ATTREP, Chief Judge. 3 {1} Following a conditional plea, Defendant Korey Buecker appeals the district 4 court’s denial of his motion to suppress. Defendant argues the district court erred by 5 denying his suppression motion on two grounds. First, Defendant contends he was 6 subjected to a de facto arrest without probable cause. Specifically, Defendant 7 challenges his lengthy detention in a patrol car with handcuffs while a limited 8 number of law enforcement officers conducted a nighttime investigation of gunshots 9 fired and a roving domestic violence incident. Considering the totality of the 10 circumstances—including that probable cause for Defendant’s arrest arose within 11 ten minutes of the challenged detention—we conclude the intrusion upon 12 Defendant’s Fourth Amendment right to privacy was outweighed by the 13 government’s substantial justification for the intrusion. We accordingly affirm the 14 district court’s determinations that Defendant’s detention was reasonable and he was 15 not subjected to an unlawful de facto arrest. Second, Defendant contends the waiver 16 of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966), and his confession 17 were not voluntary. Because Defendant has not advanced a developed or well- 18 supported argument why the district erred, and we are otherwise satisfied that 19 Defendant’s waiver and confession were voluntary, we affirm the district court on 20 this basis as well.

1 BACKGROUND 2 {2} The following background is derived from the facts as found by the district 3 court after the suppression hearing, which Defendant does not challenge, as well as 4 officer testimony at the suppression hearing and various lapel camera footage 5 received by the district court. See Rule 12-318(A)(4) NMRA (providing that the 6 brief in chief “shall set forth a specific attack on any finding, or the finding shall be 7 deemed conclusive”); State v. Lopez, 2005-NMSC-018, ¶ 22, 138 N.M. 9, 116 P.3d 8 80 (providing that in the absence of findings from the district court, “we must draw 9 from the record to derive findings based on reasonable facts and inferences and 10 determine whether those facts and inferences support the conclusion reached by the 11 court” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). 12 {3} Officers Jorge Soriano and Crystal Marin of the Hobbs Police Department 13 responded to a nighttime report of a “roving domestic” involving a woman yelling 14 out of a truck pulling a box trailer in the 1300 block of East Llano Drive in Hobbs, 15 New Mexico. Upon arriving, the officers did not find a woman or a truck. Shortly 16 thereafter, the officers responded to another call—this time reporting gunshots in the 17 1300 block of East Green Acres Drive, only a couple of streets away. Driving down 18 East Green Acres Drive, the officers saw an unoccupied truck with a box trailer 19 parked in the road in front of a house but still running. The officers then saw 20 Defendant emerge from the side yard of the house. Upon being approached and told

1 that he was going to be patted down, Defendant stated that he had two knives on his 2 person. The officers recovered the two knives, but no firearm. 3 {4} After being told that the officers were investigating a report of shots fired, 4 Defendant said that he too had heard the shots. Defendant then gave confusing and 5 contradictory answers to the officers’ questions about the truck. Defendant told the 6 officers that the truck belonged to his father, but denied driving the truck. Defendant 7 claimed his father had been driving the truck, but when asked where his father was, 8 Defendant responded that he should be at home in another part of the city. Defendant 9 then claimed not to know who had been driving the truck or how it had gotten to the 10 house on East Green Acres Drive. Officer Marin explained that the situation was 11 “very concerning” given the report of a possible domestic involving Defendant’s 12 father’s truck followed shortly thereafter by a report of gunshots in the area. 13 {5} Meanwhile, other officers had arrived and begun investigating, searching in 14 the dark with flashlights, apparently for shell casings, gunshot victims, and/or 15 witnesses. One officer spoke with a neighbor who stated he heard gunshots and then 16 saw a woman run into the house on East Green Acres Drive and a man run to the 17 side of the house. Around this time, a shell casing was found in the yard of the house 18 on East Green Acres Drive, where officers had located Defendant. The district court 19 found, “Following [the] spent casing being discovered, Officer Soriano made the 20 decision that due to the nature of the separate calls about a roving domestic and shots

1 fired, Defendant would be handcuffed in the back of his patrol car for the pendency 2 of the investigation.” Officer Soriano explained to Defendant that he needed to help 3 out with the investigation in order to expedite it. 4 {6} After detaining Defendant in the backseat of his patrol car, Officer Soriano 5 called in the license plate of the truck to dispatch and joined in the search. A little 6 over eight minutes later, Officer Soriano spoke on the telephone with the registered 7 owner of the truck, Defendant’s father, who informed Officer Soriano that his truck 8 was missing, that his son did not have permission to be driving it, that there were 9 two firearms in the truck, and that he wanted to report the truck as stolen and to press 10 charges. By this point, Defendant had been handcuffed and in the backseat of Officer 11 Soriano’s patrol car for just over ten minutes. 12 {7} Approximately forty-five minutes after Defendant was handcuffed and placed 13 in the patrol car, Detective Ahmaad White began speaking with Defendant. 14 Following an advisement of rights under Miranda, Defendant confessed to taking 15 his father’s truck without permission and discharging his father’s 9 mm handgun, 16 which was missing from the truck. After explaining to Defendant’s parents, who 17 were on scene by this time, that Defendant faced charges for unlawful taking of a 18 motor vehicle, negligent discharge of a firearm, and possession of a firearm by a 19 felon, Detective White formally arrested Defendant—approximately one hour after 20 Defendant was handcuffed and placed in the patrol car.

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