State v. Kessler

CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedJanuary 7, 2019
DocketA-1-CA-35217
StatusUnpublished

This text of State v. Kessler (State v. Kessler) 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. Kessler, (N.M. Ct. App. 2019).

Opinion

This memorandum opinion was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished memorandum opinions. Please also note that this electronic memorandum opinion may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official paper version filed by the Court of Appeals and does not include the filing date.

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

2 STATE OF NEW MEXICO,

3 Plaintiff-Appellant,

4 v. NO. A-1-CA-35217

5 DANIEL KESSLER,

6 Defendant-Appellee.

7 APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF BERNALILLO COUNTY 8 Jacqueline D. Flores, District Judge

9 Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General 10 Santa Fe, NM 11 Walter M. Hart, III, Assistant Attorney General 12 Albuquerque, NM

13 for Appellant

14 Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender 15 J.K. Theodosia Johnson, Assistant Appellate Defender 16 Santa Fe, NM 17 MJ Edge, Assistant Appellate Defender 18 Albuquerque, NM

19 for Appellee

20 MEMORANDUM OPINION

21 VANZI, Chief Judge. 1 {1} The State appeals the district court’s November 23, 2015 order granting

2 Defendant Daniel Kessler’s motion to exclude, claiming that exclusion of the

3 State’s witness was an abuse of discretion under the circumstances. We hold that

4 the district court did not abuse its discretion by excluding the witness.

5 BACKGROUND

6 {2} Defendant was indicted for trafficking methamphetamine on January 19,

7 2012, and arraigned on February 3, 2012. On February 16, 2012, the State filed a

8 notice of intent to call witnesses, listing four chemists who worked for

9 Albuquerque Police Department (APD), one of whom was Guy Walton. The notice

10 did not contain any contact information for the chemists. On December 2, 2013,

11 the State filed an amended notice of intent to call witnesses that listed three of the

12 four chemists, but not Mr. Walton. The amended notice did not provide any

13 contact information for the chemists.

14 {3} The case was delayed for a significant period due to Defendant’s failure to

15 appear from August 15, 2014, until July 12, 2015. During that period, the case was

16 reassigned to the Honorable Jacqueline Flores and became subject to the case

17 management requirements of the Second Judicial District Court’s special calendar

18 rule, see LR2-400.1(A)-(B) NMRA (recompiled and amended as LR2-308

19 NMRA), which required the district court to sanction parties for discovery

20 violations. See LR2-400.1(D)(4). On July 20, 2015, the State filed another

2 1 amended notice of intent to call witnesses, listing Mr. Walton as the only chemist.

2 The notice stated, “[Mr. Walton is] believed to be retired at this time, contact

3 information not presently known[.]” That same day, the State filed a notice of

4 status of the case, which stated, “If the State cannot get in contact with [Mr.

5 Walton], the State will retest the drugs.” On August 12, 2015, the court issued a

6 scheduling order setting Defendant’s deadline for pretrial witness interviews for

7 October 23, 2015, and trial for November 30, 2015.

8 {4} On November 2, 2015, Defendant filed a motion to exclude the State’s

9 chemists, claiming that he could not conduct pretrial interviews with them because

10 the State never provided Mr. Walton’s contact information, in violation of LR2-

11 400.1(D), or had any of the other chemists retest the alleged drugs. Defense

12 counsel claimed that “[b]ecause of the inability to locate [Mr.] Walton to issue a

13 subpoena for, or conduct a pretrial interview, undersigned counsel cannot provide

14 effective assistance of counsel and [D]efendant cannot know all issues that need to

15 be raised by motion.” Additionally, defense counsel claimed that she could not

16 “perform effective follow-up defense investigation without interviewing the above-

17 [S]tate witnesses.” In response, the State admitted that the alleged drugs had not

18 been retested by the other chemists but claimed that it did not violate LR2-

19 400.1(D) because it did not have a current address for Mr. Walton after he retired.

20 The State also pointed out that Defendant never responded to the State’s August

3 1 17, 2015 email in which the State accepted responsibility for arranging pretrial

2 interviews and asked Defendant if he wanted to interview any of the State’s

3 witnesses. The court held a hearing on the motion on November 17, 2015. At the

4 hearing, the State again argued that it did not violate any rules because it did not

5 have any contact information to provide for Mr. Walton. The State explained that it

6 asked other prosecutors if they knew where Mr. Walton was when the State filed

7 its latest witness list, but none of the other prosecutors had his contact information.

8 However, the State admitted that other prosecutors were able to contact Mr.

9 Walton successfully in the past. The State also admitted that it could have located

10 him but chose not to because Defendant never requested a pretrial interview. The

11 district court pointed out that the rules of discovery required the State to provide

12 Mr. Walton’s address on its witness list. After the State told the court that it had

13 the capability and resources to assign an investigator to find Mr. Walton when it

14 filed its witness lists, the district court excluded the witness without further

15 discussion. The court did not explain its decision to exclude the witnesses or

16 mention any consideration of the factors identified in State v. Harper, 2011-

17 NMSC-044, ¶¶ 16-20, 150 N.M. 745, 266 P.3d 25, i.e., the culpability of the State,

18 prejudice to Defendant or the court, or the availability of lesser sanctions.

19 {5} The court subsequently entered an order granting Defendant’s motion to

20 exclude, which stated,

4 1 The Court finds that the State was in violation of LR2-400.1 . . . 2 by not ascertaining the current contact information of chemist Guy 3 Walton and including this in State’s Witness List.

4 IT IS THEREFORE ORDERED that Defendant’s Motion to 5 Exclude Witnesses is well-taken, and Guy Walton’s testimony is 6 excluded from trial.

7 The court did not discuss the Harper factors or explain its decision to exclude in its

8 order. This appeal followed.

9 {6} On April 27, 2017, our Supreme Court decided State v. Le Mier, 2017-

10 NMSC-017, 394 P.3d 959. Given Le Mier’s holding that “[c]ourts must evaluate

11 the considerations identified in Harper—culpability, prejudice, and lesser

12 sanctions—when deciding whether to exclude a witness and must explain their

13 decision to exclude or not to exclude a witness within the framework articulated in

14 Harper,” Le Mier, 2017-NMSC-017, ¶ 20, and given that Le Mier was decided

15 after the district court’s decision, we remanded this case “for the limited purpose of

16 allowing the [district] court to provide a written explanation of its decision to

17 exclude the witnesses within the framework articulated in Harper, as clarified by

18 Le Mier.”

19 {7} In response to our order for limited remand, the district court entered an

20 order with specific findings regarding the circumstances surrounding its decision to

21 exclude the State’s witnesses, which generally included the factual background

22 described above and which we discuss in more detail below. In its order, the

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Related

State v. Harper
2011 NMSC 044 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 2011)
State v. Hutchinson
661 P.2d 1315 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1983)
State v. McDaniel
2004 NMCA 022 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2004)
State v. Le Mier
2017 NMSC 17 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 2017)
State v. Lopez
410 P.3d 226 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2017)
State v. Lopez
2018 NMCA 2 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2017)
State v. Ewing
641 P.2d 515 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 1982)

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Bluebook (online)
State v. Kessler, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-kessler-nmctapp-2019.