State v. Ortiz

CourtNew Mexico Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 13, 2018
DocketS-1-SC-36061
StatusUnpublished

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

Bluebook
State v. Ortiz, (N.M. 2018).

Opinion

This decision was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of non-precedential dispositions. Please also note that this electronic decision may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official paper version filed by the Supreme Court.

1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

2 Filing Date: August 13, 2018

3 STATE OF NEW MEXICO,

4 Plaintiff-Appellee,

5 v. NO. S-1-SC-36061

6 CARLOS ORTIZ, 7 n/k/a Jesus Suarez,

8 Defendant-Appellant.

9 APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF BERNALILLO COUNTY 10 David N. Williams, District Judge

11 Law Works LLC 12 John A. McCall 13 Albuquerque, NM

14 for Appellant

15 Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General 16 Maris Veidemanis, Assistant Attorney General 17 Santa Fe, NM 1 for Appellee

2 DECISION

3 DANIELS, Justice.

4 {1} Defendant Jesus Suarez appeals his convictions for felony murder and related

5 offenses arising from a deadly home invasion. He argues that there is insufficient

6 evidence to support his convictions and that he received ineffective assistance of

7 counsel because his trial counsel did not attempt to have the court join this prosecution

8 for trial, before one jury, with a separate prosecution charging Defendant with

9 murdering another victim in a separate home invasion on the same day, a case we have

10 addressed on this date in a separate decision, State v. Suarez, S-1-SC-36080.

11 {2} We conclude that substantial evidence supports Defendant’s convictions and

12 that the record before us fails to establish a prima facie case of ineffective assistance

13 of counsel. We affirm Defendant’s conviction by nonprecedential decision. See Rule

14 12-405(B) NMRA (“The appellate court may dispose of a case by non-precedential

15 order, decision or memorandum opinion . . . [where t]he issues presented have been

16 previously decided by the Supreme Court or Court of Appeals . . . [or t]he presence

17 or absence of substantial evidence disposes of the issue . . . [or t]he asserted error is

18 not prejudicial to the complaining party . . . [or t]he issues presented are manifestly

2 1 without merit.”). But we also address an issue not raised by appellate counsel and

2 reverse Defendant’s conviction for aggravated burglary, the predicate felony for his

3 felony murder conviction, on double jeopardy grounds.

4 I. BACKGROUND

5 {3} The charges against Defendant arose from a homicide committed in

6 Albuquerque, New Mexico, on February 25, 2013. Victim Robert Kinter was at home

7 with his girlfriend Peri Schindler in their two-bedroom house where he kept a lockbox

8 and safe in his bedroom.

9 {4} At approximately 1:30 a.m., Schindler saw Kinter asleep in his bedroom before

10 going to her separate bedroom to sleep. After she went to her bedroom, she saw

11 chunks of plaster fly into the room and heard people kicking in the front door to the

12 house and yelling, “APD. Where’s the money? Where’s the money?” A surveillance

13 camera in the living room facing the front door captured footage of two men breaking

14 the front door open and entering the house. Schindler testified that neither of them was

15 authorized to enter the house.

16 {5} After the two men entered the house, Schindler heard gunshots and smelled

17 gunpowder, and then one of the men entered her bedroom and stared at her for a

18 minute with a gun in his hand before returning to Kinter’s bedroom. The same person

19 returned to her bedroom and again stared at her with a gun in his hand. As he left her

3 1 bedroom the second time, he said, “You never saw me.” Schindler waited in her

2 bedroom to hear the sound of a car drive away before checking on Kinter. She yelled

3 to him, but when he did not respond, she went to his bedroom, where he “was faced

4 down in a pool of blood.” She then contacted the police.

5 {6} When police arrived, officers escorted Schindler out of the house. The front

6 door was found to be damaged and its doorjamb was broken. A white cell phone was

7 on the floor in Kinter’s bedroom near the closet with its battery exposed. At trial,

8 Schindler testified that the phone belonged neither to her nor to Kinter. The phone was

9 registered to Defendant’s sister, who lived in Albuquerque. After police obtained a

10 search warrant for the phone, an agent from the Drug Enforcement Administration

11 extracted photographs, text messages, and printouts of phone numbers from the phone.

12 A detective testified at trial that the investigation showed that Defendant had used the

13 phone. Several messages sent to and from the phone mentioned the name “Jesus.”

14 Listed in the phone as a contact was “Abuela,” which was the name of Defendant’s

15 only emergency contact in a police database. The detective also identified Defendant

16 in several photographs retrieved from the phone.

17 {7} Police testified at trial that they found .45 caliber bullets and casings in Kinter

18 and Schindler’s house. Forensic pathologist Dr. Ross Zumwalt, who supervised

19 Kinter’s autopsy, testified that the cause of Kinter’s death was gunshot wounds and

4 1 that the manner of death was a homicide.

2 {8} Several days after the shooting of Kinter, police apprehended Defendant in the

3 front yard of the house where he lived and found a .45 caliber pistol underneath a bush

4 next to Defendant. A forensic firearm examiner testified at trial that the bullets and

5 casings found at the crime scene were fired from that pistol.

6 {9} Schindler tentatively identified Defendant as one of the two intruders from a

7 pretrial photographic array. At trial, she explained that her initial identification had

8 been expressed as tentative because of Defendant’s warning to her at the time of the

9 murder, but at trial she testified that she was certain Defendant was the person who

10 entered her bedroom with the handgun. The other intruder was identified as Luis

11 Vargas-Rivera.

12 {10} At trial, the jury found Defendant guilty of felony murder, conspiracy to

13 commit felony murder, aggravated burglary by use of a deadly weapon, conspiracy

14 to commit aggravated burglary by use of a deadly weapon, armed robbery, conspiracy

15 to commit armed robbery, and intimidation of a witness. The jury also made special

16 findings that Defendant used a firearm to commit aggravated burglary by use of a

17 deadly weapon, armed robbery, and intimidating a witness.

18 {11} The district court sentenced Defendant to concurrent prison terms of life for

19 felony murder, nine years for conspiracy to commit felony murder, ten years for

5 1 aggravated burglary, three years for conspiracy to commit aggravated burglary, three

2 years for conspiracy to commit armed robbery, and four years for intimidation of a

3 witness. The court also imposed a consecutive prison sentence of eleven years for

4 armed robbery, for a total sentence of life plus eleven years in prison.

5 {12} Because he received a life sentence, Defendant appealed his convictions directly

6 to this Court. See N.M. Const. art. VI, § 2 (“Appeals from a judgment of the district

7 court imposing a sentence of death or life imprisonment shall be taken directly to the

8 supreme court.”); State v. Smallwood, 2007-NMSC-005, ¶ 6, 141 N.M. 178, 152 P.3d

9 821.

10 II. DISCUSSION

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State v. Ortiz, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ortiz-nm-2018.