State v. Ortiz

2017 NMCA 006, 10 N.M. 764
New Mexico Court of Appeals·Decided September 19, 2016·No. S-1-SC-36150; Docket 34,017·Published·Cited by 30 cases

Opinion

OPINION

KENNEDY, Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

{1} Defendant was charged with concealing his identity and attempting to disarm a peace officer. The district court convicted him of both charges in a bench trial. Defendant appeals, arguing that the evidence produced at trial was insufficient to support a guilty verdict beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to each element of each charge. We conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support Defendant’s convictions, and we affirm.

II. BACKGROUND

{2} Officer Standridge was dispatched to the Grand Motor Inn in Deming, New Mexico at approximately 6:00 a.m. When she arrived on the scene, she observed Defendant “jumping back and forth over the fence” of a nearby auto center. She testified that such behavior was “pretty suspicious in the area for that hour of the day.” She approached Defendant and informed him that she was investigating reports of a male subject acting suspiciously. She then asked for Defendant’s name and identification, which Defendant declined to give. Officer Standridge conducted apat-down of Defendant, during which she discovered a temporary paper ID card issued by the state of New Mexico in his pocket. 1 Throughout Officer Standridge’s encounter with Defendant, his behavior was “bizarre,” and he kept trying to pull away from her. Officer Standridge then placed Defendant in the back of her patrol car and took him to the Deming Police Department.

{3} Officer Robert Chavez came into contact with Defendant at the Deming Police Department when Defendant began hitting his head against the wall and door of the holding cell. Defendant did not heed orders to stop this behavior, and he eventually developed a large, bleeding lump on his head. When several officers entered the holding cell to prevent him from causing any more injury to himself, Defendant became aggressive toward the officers, and he was subdued only after he was tasered and restrained by multiple officers.

{4} Officer Chavez, accompanied by an officer trainee, then took Defendant to the hospital to address Defendant’s injuries. Defendant was transported in the back seat of Officer Chavez’s patrol car with his hands handcuffed behind his back. The clear partition separating the front seat from the back seat was open to allow air to flow from the front seat to the back seat. Officer Chavez’s shotgun lock had been removed after causing an electrical fire in his patrol car. Officer Chavez had his shotgun, which was not locked in place, propped up against the seat so that the barrel of the shotgun was visible and accessible to Defendant in the back seat through the partition.

{5} When they arrived at the hospital, the officer in training exited the patrol car and went to remove Defendant from the back seat. The officer in training yelled out to Officer Chavez stating, “he has your gun!” At that point, Officer Chavez exited the car. He observed Defendant grasping the barrel of Officer Chavez’s shotgun through the open partition with both hands — while both hands were still handcuffed behind Defendant’s back — and attempting to pull it through the partition. The officers struggled with Defendant, ultimately removing the gun from his hands, extracting him from the car, and taking him into the hospital.

{6} Defendant was charged with concealing identity contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-22-3 (1963), 2 as well as attempting to commit the felony of disarming a peace officer contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-22-27(A)(1) (1997) and NMSA 1978, Section30-28-1 (1963). The district court held a bench trial on August 2, 2013. At the close of the State’s case, Defendant moved for a directed verdict on the grounds that the State did not proffer evidence sufficient to sustain a conviction for attempting to disarm a peace officer. In response, the State acknowledged that Section 3 0-22-27(A)(l) was inapplicable, but maintained that the evidence was sufficient to sustain a conviction under Section 30-22-27(A)(2). Later in this opinion we discuss the difference between these two sections.

{7} Noting that it was clear that Officer Chavez was acting in the scope of his duties and that the shotgun was intended for Officer Chavez’s use, the district court found that Defendant was “going after” the shotgun through the open partition. Accordingly, the district court denied Defendant’s motion for directed verdict. Defendant then testified on his own behalf. During his testimony, Defendant admitted that he was under the influence of alcohol and methamphetamine when he encountered Officers Standridge and Chavez. Defendant nonetheless claimed that he remembered giving Officer Standridge his name and informing Officer Standridge that he had only a temporary paper copy of his identification. Defendant also claimed that he never requested to be taken to the hospital and that he never wanted to be transported to the hospital. Because of this reluctance to go to the hospital, Defendant claimed that he grabbed on to anything that he could reach in order to try and prevent the officers from removing him from the patrol car. Defendant insisted that he was not trying to use the shotgun against anyone and insinuated that at the time of the incident, he was not actually aware that what he was grabbing on to was a shotgun.

{8} During closing arguments, both parties argued the merits of the concealing identity charge as well as whether the evidence proffered was sufficient to sustain a conviction under Section 30-22-27(A)(2). The parties argued for two opposing sets of facts. The State argued that Defendant gave no identification and intended to grab the shotgun thereby depriving Officer Chavez of its use. Defendant insisted that he gave his identification when asked and that he did not have the requisite intent to deprive Officer Chavez of the use of the shotgun when he grabbed it. The district court acknowledged the conflicting evidence. It discounted Defendant’s testimony due to his intoxication and found Defendant guilty of concealing his identity. With regard to the attempt to disarm a police officer charge, the district court noted that it was appalled by the fact that Defendant was transported in a unit in which the partition was open and the shotgun was unsecured and acknowledged that once Defendant laid hands on the shotgun, “that changed the picture entirely.” The district court held that, whether Defendant availed himself of the opportunity to grab the gun in order to prevent removal from the car or for other reasons, the State proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Defendant attempted to remove the shotgun from its place in the front seat, thereby depriving Officer Chavez of its use. Thus, the district court found Defendant guilty of attempting to disarm a police officer under Section 30-22-27(A)(2). Defendant appealed.

III. DISCUSSION

A. Standard of Review

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

State v. Ortiz, 2017 NMCA 006, 10 N.M. 764 (N.M. Ct. App. 2016).

2017 NMCA 006 (State v. Ortiz) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related

Untitled Case
D. New Mexico, 2026
State v. Chavez
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2025
State v. Ahkee
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2024
State v. Oden
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2024
State v. Villalobos
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2024
State v. Benally
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2024
State v. Garnier
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2023
State v. Vasquez-Salas
538 P.3d 40 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 2023)
State v. Easley
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2023
State v. Guillen
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2021
State v. Aguilar
2021 NMCA 018 (New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2021)
State v. Lyster
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2020
State v. Aragon
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2020
State v. White
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2020
State v. Jackson
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2019
Wright, Sr. v. Martinez
D. New Mexico, 2019
State v. Rees
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2019
State v. Ordonez
New Mexico Supreme Court, 2019
State v. Chester
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2019
State v. Moreno
New Mexico Court of Appeals, 2018