State v. Lopez

2008 NMCA 111, 191 P.3d 563, 144 N.M. 705
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedJune 5, 2008
Docket27,143
StatusPublished
Cited by21 cases

This text of 2008 NMCA 111 (State v. Lopez) 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. Lopez, 2008 NMCA 111, 191 P.3d 563, 144 N.M. 705 (N.M. Ct. App. 2008).

Opinion

OPINION

PICKARD, Judge.

{1} Defendant appeals his convictions for battery on a peace officer and resisting an officer. Both convictions arise out of a protracted ear and foot chase in which Defendant punched the officer in the face twice. Defendant contends that he may be convicted only of battery on a peace officer and that his conviction for resisting an officer violates double jeopardy. Defendant also contends that the evidence is insufficient to support his convictions. We hold that Defendant’s conduct was not unitary and reject his double jeopardy claim. We also reject his claim that the evidence is insufficient.

BACKGROUND

{2} Officer Roberto Gutierrez of the Las Cruces Police Department testified that on August 14, 2005, he saw a brown truck traveling 80 to 90 miles per hour in a 30-mile-per-hour zone. He turned on his lights and siren and pursued the truck for about a mile until it pulled into an apartment complex and stopped. He parked behind the truck. Defendant got out of the truck, and the officer told him to get back into the truck. Defendant ran away. The officer began chasing him on foot through the complex. Defendant lost his footing and fell on his hands. The officer instructed him to get on the ground, but Defendant caught himself and ran away. Defendant jumped over a rock wall with a four- to five-foot drop and landed face first on the pavement. The officer again instructed him to stay there, but Defendant attempted to get up and run away again. Defendant continued to run and the officer pursued him instructing him to stop. The officer drew his taser and tasered Defendant, but it did not affect him. The officer tasered Defendant again, and this time it did slow Defendant down.

{3} Defendant turned to face the officer, “taking a defensive attack posture,” meaning he blew his chest up, clenched his fists, and began walking toward the officer. Defendant then punched him twice in the face while wearing a horseshoe shaped ring, drawing blood. The officer dry tasered Defendant, which means that because the cartridge on his taser was empty, he used the residual electricity to control Defendant by driving it into his skin. The officer then attempted to physically maneuver Defendant to the ground, and they wound up wrestling on the ground.

{4} Defendant broke free, began running again, and at some point stopped, turned, and faced the officer a second time in an aggressive manner. Defendant walked toward the officer in a “very fast” and “hasty” manner. The officer drew his baton and held it in a show of force, struck Defendant on the leg, and yelled at him to get on the ground. Defendant again ran away. Defendant then faced the officer a third time. The officer attempted an “arm bar takedown,” which led to the two men wrestling and Defendant attempting to hit the officer. Once again, Defendant ran away.

{5} Defendant tripped on a concrete walkway as he ran. Eventually, the officer caught up with him and struck him on the leg with his baton, ordering him to get on the ground. Defendant grabbed onto a five- or six-foot chain link fence as the officer continually struck him on the lower back and legs. Other officers arrived and one of them tasered Defendant as he ran away. It took five or six officers to eventually take him into custody.

{6} Defendant admitted running away from the officer because he had an active arrest warrant for failure to pay fines, but disputed other facts. He denied jumping walls and fences and denied punching the officer or wrestling with him. Defendant claimed that the blood on the officer was Defendant’s own blood, not the officer’s.

{7} With these facts in mind we turn to the analysis in this case.

DISCUSSION

Double Jeopardy

{8} We generally apply a de novo standard of review to the constitutional question of whether there has been a double jeopardy violation. State v. Andazola, 2003-NMCA-146, ¶ 14, 134 N.M. 710, 82 P.3d 77. There are two types of double jeopardy cases involving potential multiple punishment: (1) when a defendant is charged with multiple violations of the same statute based on a single course of conduct, referred to as “unit of prosecution” cases, and (2) when a defendant is charged with violations of multiple statutes for the same conduct, referred to as “double description” cases. State v. DeGraff, 2006-NMSC-011, ¶ 25, 139 N.M. 211, 131 P.3d 61. This is a double description case.

{9} In a double description ease, we first ask whether the conduct underlying the offenses is unitary. State v. LeFebre, 2001-NMCA-009, ¶ 16, 130 N.M. 130, 19 P.3d 825. If it is, then we ask whether the legislature intended to impose multiple punishment for the unitary conduct. Id. To determine whether conduct is unitary, we consider whether the defendant’s acts are separated by sufficient “indicia of distinctness.” Swafford v. State, 112 N.M. 3, 13, 810 P.2d 1223, 1233 (1991). Indicia of distinctness are present when “two events are sufficiently separated by either time or space (in the sense of physical distance between the places where the acts occurred).” Id. at 13-14, 810 P.2d at 1233-34. “Conduct is unitary if it is not sufficiently separated by time or place, and the object and result or quality and nature of the acts cannot be distinguished.” LeFebre, 2001-NMCA-009, ¶ 17, 130 N.M. 130, 19 P.3d 825. If time and space considerations are not determinative, “resort must be had to the quality and nature of the acts or to the objects and results involved.” Id.; see State v. Barrera, 2001-NMSC-014, ¶ 36, 130 N.M. 227, 22 P.3d 1177 (stating that “[djistinctness may also be established by the existence of an intervening event, the defendant’s intent as fvinced by his or her conduct and utterances, the number of victims, and the behavior of the defendant between acts” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). Movement or relocation of a victim tends to establish that acts involved in a continuous criminal episode are separate and distinct. See Herron v. State, 111 N.M. 357, 361-62, 805 P.2d 624, 628-29 (1991).

{10} Applying these factors, we conclude that Defendant’s conduct was not unitary. The facts indicate that Defendant’s act of fleeing was punctuated by a distinct change in character and quality when he stopped fleeing, turned toward the officer in an attack posture, came back to the officer, and punched him twice in the face, drawing blood. We recognize that the Double Jeopardy Clause is not fragile, and it cannot be avoided by the simple expedient of dividing conduct into a series of temporal and spatial units. State v. Frazier, 2007-NMSC-032, ¶ 23, 142 N.M. 120, 164 P.3d 1; see LeFebre, 2001-NMCA-009, ¶¶ 17-18, 130 N.M. 130, 19 P.3d 825 (holding that where a defendant attempted to escape officers in his car and then on foot, the defendant’s conduct was unitary because it all constituted an attempt to get away). However, in this case, we conclude that Defendant’s conduct in returning to the officer and punching him in the face constituted a change from his act of fleeing sufficient to determine that the two offenses were not unitary.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2008 NMCA 111, 191 P.3d 563, 144 N.M. 705, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-lopez-nmctapp-2008.