State v. Perea

2001 NMCA 002, 16 P.3d 1105, 130 N.M. 46
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedNovember 13, 2000
DocketNo. 20,382
StatusPublished
Cited by17 cases

This text of 2001 NMCA 002 (State v. Perea) 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. Perea, 2001 NMCA 002, 16 P.3d 1105, 130 N.M. 46 (N.M. Ct. App. 2000).

Opinion

OPINION

KENNEDY, Judge.

{1} Defendant Paul Perea appeals his conviction for “Contributing to delinquency of minor” (CDM), a fourth degree felony pursuant to NMSA 1978, § 30-6-3 (1963, as amended through 1990). He argues that he should have been convicted of the more specific misdemeanor crime of “Selling or giving alcoholic beverages to a minor; possession” pursuant to NMSA 1978, § 60-7B-1 (1993, as amended through 1998). In light of the Supreme Court’s latest ease on this issue, we reject Defendant’s contentions.

{2} Defendant also argues that insufficient evidence supported his conviction; that showing the jury and later admitting a photograph depicting the injury to the youth whose face he was charged with cutting was reversible error; that disclosure of his previous conviction for manslaughter was reversible error; that the combined effect of all of the errors resulted in cumulative error; that the CDM statute is unconstitutionally vague; and that he received ineffective assistance of counsel. Not persuaded by Defendant’s arguments, we affirm his conviction.

STATEMENT OF FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

{3} On May 10, 1997, Defendant arrived early at the Fernandez household for sixteen-year-old Julie Fernandez’s birthday party. Julie’s seventeen-year-old brother, Manuel, had been at the house all day. He had been drinking beer and punch spiked with Everclear. After the other guests arrived, Defendant accompanied Manuel and two other minors to a store to buy more alcohol. When they arrived at the store, Defendant purchased alcohol. There is conflicting evidence as to whether Manuel accompanied Defendant into the store. Once the group arrived back at the house where the party was underway, Manuel carried the alcohol into the house and drank some of it.

{4} The jury convicted Defendant of CDM after being instructed that the State had to prove the following elements beyond a reasonable doubt:

1. The defendant, Paul Perea, agreed to obtain alcoholic beverages for Manuel Fernandez;
2. This caused Manuel Fernandez to commit the offense of Minor in Possession of Alcoholic Beverages, which makes it a violation of law for a minor to buy, attempt to buy, receive, possess, or permit himself to be served with alcoholic beverages;
3. Manuel Fernandez was under the age of 18;
4. This happened in New Mexico on or about the 10th day of May, 1997.

{5} Defendant was also charged with Aggravated Battery. This charge arose from an argument in the car between Manuel and another of the minors (Santana) on the return trip from buying the liquor. The argument concerned Manuel’s belief that he had paid a disproportionate share of the money for the liquor compared to Santana. In the course of the argument, Defendant is alleged to have cut Santana’s face with a knife. When the group returned to Manuel’s house, Santana was taken to the hospital, and the party continued.

{6} At trial, the prosecution entered a photograph of Santana’s cut face into evidence. It also stated in its closing argument that Defendant was “a convicted felon, charged with a serious violent offense.” The jury convicted Defendant of CDM and hung on the Aggravated Battery charge. This appeal followed.

DISCUSSION

Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor

A. Preservation of General/Specific Argument

{7} The general/speeifie rule states that if one statute deals with a subject in general and comprehensive terms, and another statute addresses part of the same subject matter in a more specific manner, the latter controls. See State v. Cleve, 1999-NMSC-017, ¶ 17, 127 N.M. 240, 980 P.2d 23. If both a general and a specific statute address the same criminal conduct, the specific statute should govern “ ‘to the extent of compelling the state to prosecute under [it].’” Id. (quoting State v. Blevins, 40 N.M. 367, 369, 60 P.2d 208, 210 (1936)).

{8} Defendant did not make the general/speeifie argument to the district court, but instead raises it for the first time on appeal. To bring his claim before this Court, Defendant relies on State v. McNeece, 82 N.M. 345, 481 P.2d 707 (Ct.App.1971), in which we found the district court had wrongly convicted the defendant under the “inapplicable general statute” instead of a more specific statute for possession of marijuana. Id. at 345, 481 P.2d at 707. We found that “conviction and sentence of [a] defendant under an inapplicable statute [is] a question of jurisdiction” that may be raised for the first time on appeal. Id. at 346, 481 P.2d at 708. McNeece and its jurisdictional emphasis may have been superceded: the Supreme Court may have since removed this sort of case from the umbrella of jurisdictional error. See State v. Orosco, 113 N.M. 780, 782-83, 833 P.2d 1146, 1148-49 (1992). Error that was formerly described as jurisdictional will now be permitted to be raised for the first time on appeal when it falls under the definition of “fundamental” error, such as when there is a miscarriage of justice, when the question of guilt is so doubtful that it would shock the conscience of the court to allow the conviction to stand, or when substantial justice has not been done. See id. at 784, 833 P.2d at 1150. In our view, even if not jurisdictional, permitting a criminal conviction under a statute that the Legislature did not intend to apply to a particular set of facts and under a statute that exacts substantially greater punishment than the Legislature intended is precisely the sort of situation in which there would be a miscarriage of justice and in which substantial justice would not be done. Under current ease law, it may be more appropriate to define the error that results from a conviction under a general rather than a specific statute as fundamental error. Both jurisdictional error and fundamental error may be raised for the first time on appeal, and therefore we address Defendant’s general/specific argument on its merits. See Rule 12-216 NMRA 2000 (allowing the appellate court to consider jurisdictional questions, or in its discretion, questions involving fundamental error despite the fact that they were not preserved at the district court level).

B. Application of the General/Specific Rule

{9} In Cleve, 1999-NMSC-017, ¶ 27, 127 N.M. 240, 980 P.2d 23, the Supreme Court recapitulated the reasoning of the prior decision in State v. Yarborough, 1996-NMSC-068, ¶¶ 26-29, 122 N.M. 596, 930 P.2d 131 (holding that the New Mexico Legislature “intended to preempt involuntary manslaughter when the predicate offense is a misdemeanor contained within the Motor Vehicle Code”). The Cleve Court stated that “an inquiry under the general/specific statute rule should always focus primarily on whether the Legislature intended that the specific law operate as an exception to the general law and whether the Legislature intended that certain criminal conduct be charged under one special law to the exclusion of other more general laws.” Cleve, 1999-NMSC-017, ¶ 27, 127 N.M. 240, 980 P.2d 23.

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State v. Perea
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Bluebook (online)
2001 NMCA 002, 16 P.3d 1105, 130 N.M. 46, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-perea-nmctapp-2000.