The slip opinion is the first version of an opinion released by the Chief Clerk of the Supreme Court. Once an opinion is selected for publication by the Court, it is assigned a vendor-neutral citation by the Chief Clerk for compliance with Rule 23- 112 NMRA, authenticated and formally published. The slip opinion may contain deviations from the formal authenticated opinion.
1 IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
2 Opinion Number:
3 Filing Date: May 18, 2026
4 NO. S-1-SC-40535
5 STATE OF NEW MEXICO, 6 Plaintiff-Respondent, 7 v.
8 BRANDON VILLALOBOS, 9 Defendant-Petitioner.
10 ORIGINAL PROCEEDING ON CERTIORARI 11 James L. Sanchez, District Judge
12 Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender 13 Allison H. Jaramillo, Assistant Appellate Defender 14 Santa Fe, NM 15 for Petitioner
16 Raúl Torrez, Attorney General 17 Santa Fe, NM 18 Serena R. Wheaton, Assistant Solicitor General 19 Albuquerque, NM
20 for Respondent 1 OPINION
2 VIGIL, Justice.
3 {1} First and foremost, this appeal presents the question of whether a defendant’s
4 constitutional right to a speedy trial is violated in circumstances where, as here, the
5 defendant is incarcerated and awaiting trial for a period just short of six years, and a
6 sizable portion of the delay is attributable to the neglect of assigned defense counsel
7 in timely scheduling and properly arranging the defendant’s competency evaluation.
8 Under the disturbing facts of this case, we hold that Defendant Brandon Villalobos—
9 who has an intellectual disability and was fifteen years of age at the time of the
10 underlying incident, his arrest, and the start of his extended pretrial incarceration—
11 was deprived of his speedy trial rights. See generally State v. Ochoa, 2017-NMSC-
12 031, ¶¶ 5, 13, 406 P.3d 505 (characterizing a defendant’s speedy trial right as one
13 adjudged “on a case-by-case basis”). We take this opportunity to clarify the
14 application of our speedy trial caselaw in instances where defense counsel is
15 negligent and the defendant has an intellectual disability impacting their ability to
16 guide the litigation and assert their right to a speedy trial. As explained herein, we
17 reverse the contrary holdings reached by the district court and the Court of Appeals.
18 State v. Villalobos, A-1-CA-39820, mem. op. ¶¶ 4-32 (N.M. Ct. App. July 24, 2024)
19 (nonprecedential). 1 {2} Before considering the facts and circumstances of this case, we pause briefly
2 to address the precedential impact on the matter at hand of this Court’s split opinion
3 in State v. Gurule—our most recent foray into the constitutional speedy trial realm.
4 2025-NMSC-010, 563 P.3d 775 (filed Dec. 7, 2023). In Gurule, this Court grappled
5 with a broader question than that framed here: how best to evaluate trial delays
6 caused by the pendency of a criminal defendant’s competency proceedings. Id. ¶¶
7 24-30. A narrow majority of the Gurule Court concluded, as a general proposition,
8 “that delays due to competency evaluations are chargeable to the defendant,”
9 expressly rejecting the notion that individual “periods of procedural delay should be
10 parsed from within [a] larger category of delay for competency determinations.”
11 2025-NMSC-010, ¶¶ 27-28. This approach stemmed from the Court’s stated
12 rationale that “the process of adjudicating competence is [itself undertaken] ‘for the
13 benefit of the defendant.’” Id. ¶ 28 (quoting State v. Mendoza, 1989-NMSC-032, ¶
14 9, 108 N.M. 446, 774 P.2d 440).
15 {3} Significantly for our purposes, the defendant in Gurule did not have an
16 intellectual disability that positioned him similarly to the defendant in this case. See
17 id. ¶¶ 6-7. Further, the Gurule majority took pains to contrast and distinguish the
18 very situation presented in the appeal at hand—in which our speedy trial analysis
19 turns on competency-related delays that are attributable largely to neglect on the part 1 of defense counsel. Id. ¶¶ 29-30. In the process, the Gurule majority recognized, at
2 least implicitly, the continued viability of two case precedents that took a decidedly
3 different approach to that adopted in Gurule in resolving a similar but distinct speedy
4 trial question, one arising in the context of a defense attorney’s neglect. We refer to
5 State v. Serros, 2016-NMSC-008, 366 P.3d 1121, and State v. Stock, 2006-NMCA-
6 140, 140 N.M. 676, 147 P.3d 885, each deservedly viewed as “an important, well-
7 reasoned part of our speedy trial jurisprudence in cases when [as here] the delay is
8 extraordinary and the defendant is held in custody.” Serros, 2016-NMSC-008, ¶ 43.
9 As a preliminary matter, we emphasize that, by necessity, our ensuing speedy trial
10 analysis here is influenced more by the teachings of Serros and Stock than those of
11 Gurule. To be sure, Gurule remains good law but law whose reach does not extend
12 to the facts of this case. That being so, we have no occasion to address Defendant’s
13 concern that the speedy trial analysis laid out in Gurule is “unworkable.”
14 I. BACKGROUND
15 {4} On February 18, 2014, the then fifteen-year-old Defendant—who has an
16 intellectual disability with an IQ of sixty-four—was arrested and then charged with
17 first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in connection with the alleged
18 killing of twelve-year-old A.M., while the two were playing together near 1 Defendant’s home. Defendant is indigent and was at all times represented by
2 appointed counsel.
3 {5} Defendant’s arraignment on March 21, 2014, was notable in two respects.
4 First, the arraignment court imposed a $500,000 cash-only bond. The inability of
5 Defendant’s family to post the bond began what would become a nearly six-year
6 period of pre-conviction incarceration for Defendant. And second, Defendant’s
7 arraignment counsel raised the issue of Defendant’s competency to stand trial,
8 advising the arraignment court, “I do not believe that he understands his rights nor
9 the charges against him.”
10 {6} Following Defendant’s arraignment, there ensued a long series of
11 competency-related status conferences, during which the competency issue
12 remained unresolved for three years and three months, until June 30, 2017, when the
13 district court determined after a hearing that Defendant was competent to stand trial.
14 In assigning fault for the extended duration of the competency determination
15 process, the district court pointed to Defendant’s then-replaced trial counsel in
16 delaying the scheduling and holding of the defense-generated competency
17 evaluation. As we will see, it is this aspect of the extraordinary delay in bringing this
18 prosecution to trial that served to unreasonably extend the timeline of this case. 1 {7} At the State’s request, a status conference was held on October 8, 2014. At
2 the status conference, Defense counsel said he had contacted a psychiatrist and
3 needed sixty days to have a competency evaluation completed. A status conference
4 was held, once again, on the State’s request, on March 27, 2015. Defense counsel
5 reported that no evaluation had been done. From March 27, 2015, to November 20,
6 2015, the State did nothing to move the case forward. The district court sua sponte
7 held status conferences in May 2015, July 2015, and November 2015. Each time,
8 defense counsel stated he had failed to initiate Defendant’s competency evaluation.
9 At the November status conference, defense counsel stated the psychologist
10 “indicated to me she was having some difficulty with the Public Defender’s
11 Office . . . . I have not been able to contact her since.” The parties and the district
12 court collectively agreed upon another psychologist, Dr. Barry Fields, to complete
13 Defendant’s competency evaluation.
14 {8} At the next status conference on May 6, 2016, defense counsel told the district
15 court that he did not know what happened with Dr. Fields’s evaluation even though
16 the court had ordered the evaluation occur within thirty days. The court asked
17 defense counsel if he could get the evaluation by July 25, 2015, and defense counsel
18 stated, “I don’t know.” The court then issued an order on May 10, 2016, that the
19 competency evaluation be completed within thirty days of May 6, 2016, and “if an 1 evaluation is not provided to the Parties within that time, that the [c]ourt will set a
2 hearing to show cause as to why the evaluation was not completed, and all Parties,
3 including Dr. Barry Fields who has been hired to conduct the evaluation, will be
4 required to appear before the [c]ourt.”
5 {9} On June 16, 2016, the State requested a status conference. The status
6 conference was held on June 27, 2016. Defense counsel admitted to the court that he
7 misplaced necessary discovery for Defendant’s evaluation, and this was the reason
8 the previous psychologist was unable to perform the evaluation. Defense counsel
9 admitted, “my office misplaced that discovery” and “the evaluation not getting it
10 done with the psychologist is my fault.”
11 {10} Thus, from November 20, 2015, through June 27, 2016, defense counsel was
12 directly at fault for delaying Defendant’s competency evaluation. On October 5,
13 2016, the district court ordered Dr. Fields to provide his notes to the State’s
14 psychologist for an independent competency evaluation. Then, at a competency
15 hearing on December 2, 2016, the district court found Defendant incompetent to
16 stand trial and ordered Defendant be committed to the New Mexico Behavioral
17 Health Institute (NMBHI) in Las Vegas, New Mexico, for treatment to attain
18 competency to stand trial. Defendant received treatment at NMBHI from January 1 18, 2017, to around March 7, 2017. From March to June 2017, Defendant was
2 awaiting a new competency hearing, and the case sat for another three months.
3 {11} On March 31, 2017, new defense counsel entered his appearance for
4 Defendant and a June 6, 2017, date was initially set for the competency hearing. The
5 competency hearing was held on June 30, 2017, where the court determined that
6 Defendant was competent to stand trial. At a subsequent hearing, the district court
7 found, “Ninety-nine percent of th[e] delay [in obtaining the competency evaluation]
8 was caused by prior defense counsel.”
9 {12} Defendant’s first trial began December 16, 2019, and resulted in a mistrial.
10 Following Defendant’s second trial, February 4, 5, 6, 7, and 10, 2020, a jury
11 acquitted Defendant of first-degree murder but convicted him of second-degree
12 murder and tampering with evidence. Following an amenability hearing, September
13 9, 10, and 23, 2020, where Defendant was found “not amenable to treatment and
14 rehabilitation,” then twenty-two-year-old Defendant was sentenced as an adult to an
15 aggregate prison term of eighteen years, with presentence confinement credit of
16 nearly seven-and-a-half years. 1 II. DISCUSSION
2 A. Speedy Trial Analysis and the Governing Standard of Review
3 {13} In determining whether a defendant has been deprived of their constitutional
4 right to a speedy trial, we invoke the quartet of factors set out in Barker v. Wingo,
5 407 U.S. 514, 530 (1972), “balancing the length of delay, the reason for delay, the
6 defendant’s assertion of the right to a speedy trial, and the prejudice to the
7 defendant.” Ochoa, 2017-NMSC-031, ¶ 4. In weighing these factors, we consider
8 “the unique circumstances of each case in light of ‘the [s]tate and the defendant’s
9 conduct and the harm to the defendant from the delay.’” Serros, 2016-NMSC-008,
10 ¶ 5 (quoting State v. Garza, 2009-NMSC-038, ¶ 13, 146 N.M. 499, 212 P.3d 387).
11 No single speedy trial factor is necessary or dispositive or is imbued with “any
12 ‘talismanic quality,’ and each can be assigned different significance or different
13 weight in the ‘difficult and sensitive balancing process’ that must take place.” Work
14 v. State, 1990-NMSC-085, ¶ 11, 111 N.M. 145, 803 P.2d 234 (quoting Barker, 407
15 U.S. at 533). We defer to the district court’s factual findings in evaluating a speedy
16 trial claim, while weighing each factor de novo. State v. Spearman, 2012-NMSC-
17 023, ¶ 19, 283 P.3d 272. To properly assess the speedy trial claim advanced by
18 Defendant in this case, we consider each of the Barker factors in turn. 1 B. A Proper Application of the Barker Factors Demonstrates That 2 Defendant’s Right to a Speedy Trial Was Violated
3 1. Length of delay
4 {14} The initial Barker factor, the length of delay, serves “a dual function: it acts
5 as a triggering mechanism for considering the four Barker factors if the delay crosses
6 the threshold of being ‘presumptively prejudicial,’ and it is an independent factor to
7 consider in evaluating whether a speedy trial violation has occurred.” Serros, 2016-
8 NMSC-008, ¶ 22 (quoting Garza, 2009-NMSC-038, ¶¶ 21, 23). This Court has
9 “established benchmarks for presumptively prejudicial delay according to the
10 complexity of a case: one year for a simple case, [fifteen] months for a case of
11 intermediate complexity, and [eighteen] months for a complex case.” Id. The district
12 court found that Defendant’s case is complex, a determination unchallenged on
13 appeal.
14 {15} Both sides agree, as they must, that the nearly six-year delay between (then
15 teenage) Defendant’s arrest and the commencement of (now adult) Defendant’s
16 second trial had “become presumptively prejudicial irrespective of the case’s
17 complexity.” Id. ¶ 23; id. ¶¶ 24, 26 (“[A]n extraordinary delay, like the [four-year-
18 three-month] delay in [Serros], weighs heavily in favor of a defendant’s speedy trial
19 claim, bearing in mind that no single factor is dispositive of whether a violation has
20 occurred.”); State v. Maddox, 2008-NMSC-062, ¶¶ 12, 37, 145 N.M. 242, 195 P.3d 1 1254 (treating a twenty-eight-month delay as “extraordinary” and evaluating all four
2 Barker factors in detail to determine whether the unique facts significantly tempered
3 the prejudice to the defendant), abrogated on other grounds by Garza, 2009-NMSC-
4 038, ¶¶ 47-48. But see Ochoa, 2017-NMSC-031, ¶¶ 15, 17 (determining that a two-
5 year delay in a complex case, “while sufficient to trigger the speedy trial analysis,
6 . . . was not extraordinary” and thus weighed only slightly against the state). In view
7 of the foregoing, and considering the State’s candid concession that the length of
8 delay factor weighs strongly in Defendant’s favor, “‘the burden of persuasion shifts
9 to the State to show that, considering the four factors as a whole, the defendant’s
10 constitutional rights have not been violated.’” Maddox, 2008-NMSC-062, ¶ 12
11 (quoting State v. Urban, 2004-NMSC-007, ¶ 11, 135 N.M. 279, 87 P.3d 1061).
12 2. Reasons for the delay
13 {16} Two distinct time periods account for roughly three-quarters of the lengthy
14 (nearly six-year) pre-trial delay1 in this case: (1) the three-year-three-month delay
15 between Defendant’s arraignment on March 21, 2014, and his competency hearing
16 on June 30, 2017, during which the issue of Defendant’s competency remained
There is no dispute that the aggregate speedy trial delay period here is 1
properly measured from the date of Defendant’s arrest (February 18, 2014) to the commencement of Defendant’s second trial (February 4, 2020). 1 unresolved and (2) the fourteen-month pendency period—from May 16, 2018, to
2 July 23, 2019—of the State’s unsuccessful interlocutory appeal from the district
3 court’s partial grant of Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence. We focus our
4 attention on these two time periods, which we examine in reverse order.
5 a. The State’s interlocutory appeal
6 {17} A delay attributable to a party’s unsuccessful pursuit of an interlocutory
7 appeal is generally chargeable to the appealing party for speedy trial purposes only
8 in circumstances where the appeal bears on a “‘clearly tangential or frivolous’” issue
9 or where “‘the charged offense [is not] sufficiently serious to justify restraints that
10 may be imposed on the defendant pending the outcome of the appeal.’” State v.
11 Flores, 2015-NMCA-081, ¶ 28, 355 P.3d 81 (quoting United States v. Loud Hawk,
12 474 U.S. 302, 315-16 (1986)). Neither of these criteria is met in this case, in which
13 the severity of the child-on-child homicide prosecuted here is all too clear on its face.
14 And the fact that a justice of this Court dissented on the merits of the State’s earlier
15 interlocutory appeal, State v. Villalobos, S-1-SC-37103, dispositional order (N.M.
16 June 24, 2019) (nonprecedential) (Nakamura, C.J., dissenting), speaks volumes
17 against a determination that the prior appeal was in any way tangential or frivolous.
18 See generally Montes v. Nat’l Buick GMC Inc., 2023 UT App 47, ¶ 26, 530 P.3d 544
19 (“Given that . . . our own esteemed colleague disagrees with [and dissents from] our 1 resolution, this case clearly does not involve a frivolous appeal.”), rev’d on other
2 grounds, 2024 UT 42, 562 P.3d 688.
3 {18} Nor do we accept Defendant’s invitation to “give less deference to the [s]tate’s
4 interlocutory appeal in a juvenile case . . . where the clock is ticking on a child’s
5 amenability to treatment” than is typically accorded the state in a criminal appeal
6 involving an adult defendant. (Emphasis added.) Granted, this Court has long
7 recognized “the conundrum” created by the so-called aging-out of a juvenile
8 defendant and this state’s need for “a legislative solution to the sentencing gaps
9 created by the Delinquency Act[, NMSA 1978, §§ 32A-2-1 to -33 (1999, as amended
10 through 2025),] and the criminal justice system.” State v. Jones, 2010-NMSC-012,
11 ¶¶ 55, 57, 148 N.M. 1, 229 P.3d 474. But the appropriate remedy for addressing
12 these concerns does not lie in ignoring the vital “assurance that motions to suppress
13 evidence . . . are correctly decided through orderly appellate review[, a process that]
14 safeguards both the rights of defendants and the rights of public justice.” Flores,
15 2015-NMCA-081, ¶ 28 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). We choose
16 not to mitigate one problem while creating another.
17 {19} In all, we weigh neutrally the fourteen-month delay resulting from the State’s
18 interlocutory appeal. Id. ¶ 29 (weighing a sixteen-month delay caused by the state’s
19 interlocutory appeal neutrally in the absence of a defense showing that “the appeal 1 was brought in ‘bad faith’ or for a ‘dilatory purpose’”) (quoting Loud Hawk, 474
2 U.S. at 316).
3 b. The delayed competency proceedings
4 {20} Defendant stands on firmer footing when it comes to the second of his two
5 major speedy trial claims that involves the even more protracted three-year-three-
6 month time period during which the issue of Defendant’s competency remained
7 open. As will be shown below, the combined force of Stock and Serros necessarily
8 makes this so.
9 {21} Before exploring these two well-reasoned cases, we discuss the proper start
10 date of the competency-resolution time period. Both the district court and the Court
11 of Appeals measured the commencement of this time period from the date of
12 Defendant’s arraignment, March 21, 2014. This is because, as the Court of Appeals
13 explained, it was then and there that Defendant’s arraignment counsel signaled her
14 belief that Defendant’s intellectual disability would prevent him from understanding
15 “his rights or the charges against him.” Villalobos, A-1-CA-39820, mem. op. ¶ 7.
16 The State now makes clear its preference—albeit without couching that preference
17 in terms of a cognizable legal argument—that the competency inquiry be viewed as
18 starting not at the time the issue was “arguably raised” at Defendant’s arraignment
19 but rather some six-and-a-half months later, at a status conference held on October 1 8, 2014—the date on which, in the State’s unexplained and unsupported view, the
2 defense “formally raised” the competency issue.
3 {22} From a procedural perspective, we see no reason to entertain the State’s
4 undeveloped suggestion and be sent down a proverbial rabbit hole. See Lee v. Lee
5 (In re Adoption of Doe), 1984-NMSC-024, ¶ 2, 100 N.M. 764, 676 P.2d 1329
6 (cautioning that “to present an issue on appeal for review, [a party] must submit
7 argument and authority as required by rule” (first emphasis added)); Elane
8 Photography, LLC v. Willock, 2013-NMSC-040, ¶ 70, 309 P.3d 53 (“We will not
9 review unclear arguments, or guess at what a party’s arguments might be.” (text
10 only) 2 (citation omitted)). But even were we to consider the merits of the State’s
11 vaguely stated concerns, it still would not be clear that adherence to the later October
12 8, 2014, start date now suggested by the State was warranted, much less required.
13 See State v. Garcia, 2000-NMCA-014, ¶¶ 4-5, 128 N.M. 721, 998 P.2d 186
14 (indicating that while a defendant may be considered “competent for purposes of
15 arraignment” even where defense counsel expresses doubt at arraignment as to the
16 defendant’s competency, defense counsel’s input on the issue nonetheless serves to
2 “(Text only)” indicates the omission of nonessential punctuation marks— including internal quotation marks, ellipses, and brackets—that are present in the text of the quoted source, leaving the quoted text otherwise unchanged. 1 inform the court “that the issue was likely to recur throughout the pretrial
2 proceedings”).
3 {23} Having established the start date of March 21, 2014, for this critical,
4 competency-related portion of the speedy trial clock, we turn to the twin cases of
5 Serros and Stock the wisdom of which informs much of our analysis here. This
6 Court’s opinion in Serros described at length how the unanimous Court of Appeals
7 opinion authored by Judge Pickard in Stock had successfully forged a new and
8 “compelling” approach to analyzing the reasons-for-the-delay factor in criminal
9 prosecutions that are burdened by extraordinary delays occasioned by defense
10 counsel’s neglect. 2016-NMSC-008, ¶¶ 36, 38. 3 The Serros Court noted and praised
11 Stock’s attributes, highlighting two in particular:
12 First, the Court acknowledged “the general rule that a defendant must 13 be held accountable for the actions of his or her attorneys,” but it 14 reasoned that the delays in the defendant’s case, which had not been 15 requested or consented to by the defendant, amounted to “neglect” by 16 his attorneys. As such, the delays could not be held against the 17 defendant for speedy trial purposes because they were “unreasonable 18 and unnecessary” and “solely attributable to defense counsel.”
19 Second, Stock concluded that the “extraordinary delay was 20 partially attributable to the State” because the State had done “little or
The unanimous Serros opinion signals that the rule announced therein may 3
be applicable to any defense-counsel-caused delay that is “extraordinary” and involves a defendant who “is detained while awaiting trial,” and this irrespective of whether the delay concerns a competency evaluation. 2016-NMSC-008, ¶ 38. 1 nothing to ascertain what was happening in the case or to move the case 2 forward.” The Court observed, “It is ultimately the state’s duty to make 3 sure that defendants are brought to trial in a timely manner.” The Court 4 therefore concluded that while the delay was “technically attributable 5 to the defendant, because it was occasioned by his counsel pursuing or, 6 more accurately, failing to pursue, the issue of his competency,” the 7 reasons for the delay weighed against the State because of its “failure 8 to monitor the case and ensure that steps were being taken to bring the 9 defendant to trial in a timely manner.” Thus the Court held on the one 10 hand that the delays occasioned by defense counsel did not weigh 11 against the defendant, and it held on the other hand that the particularly 12 egregious delay weighed against the State because of its failure to push 13 the case to trial.
14 Serros, 2016-NMSC-008, ¶¶ 36-37 (brackets and citations omitted). In
15 circumstances where both of the above-quoted criteria are present—that is, delay-
16 causing neglect on the part of defense counsel and a contributory failure on the part
17 of the prosecution to diligently monitor the progress of its case—the Serros Court
18 “agree[d] that it may be appropriate to shift the [speedy trial] focus to the [s]tate’s
19 efforts to bring the case to trial, at least when the record demonstrates that the
20 defendant did not affirmatively cause or consent to the delay.” Id. ¶ 38.
21 {24} Distilling Stock to its essence, this Court’s opinion in Serros “adopt[ed] and
22 extend[ed] Stock’s two-part approach for determining whether the reasons for the
23 delay in such a case should weigh against a defendant or the [s]tate” in the following
24 manner: “We first consider whether [the d]efendant is to blame for the delays in [a
25 particular] case because [they have] personally caused or acquiesced to the delay in 1 [the] case. If not, then we consider whether the [s]tate has met its obligation to bring
2 [the d]efendant’s case to trial.” Serros, 2016-NMSC-008, ¶ 43 (emphasis added).
3 {25} A proper application of this two-prong Serros/Stock approach to the facts of
4 this case unquestionably weighs in favor of Defendant. As to the first requirement,
5 there is little room for debate that prolonged neglect on the part of defense counsel
6 was the primary source of the extraordinary delays stemming from Defendant’s
7 competency proceedings; indeed, the district court expressly found this to be the
8 case, acknowledging “the defense attorney’s failure to push the competency
9 evaluation expeditiously” and defense counsel having single-handedly caused
10 almost all of the competency-related delays. Nor is there any indication or contention
11 that then-teenage Defendant who has an intellectual disability was capable of
12 providing meaningful input regarding the planning or scheduling of his own
13 competency evaluation or, by extension, that Defendant had the ability to have
14 “personally caused or acquiesced to the delay in his case.” Serros, 2016-NMSC-008,
15 ¶ 43.
16 {26} Moreover, looking at the reasons for the delay as a whole under the two-step
17 approach we adopted in Serros, it is reasonable to conclude that the State “shares
18 blame for the extraordinary delay in this case” based on its demonstrated “failure to
19 push the case to trial.” See id. ¶¶ 37, 73. Notable for its absence is any assertion in 1 the State’s briefing herein that it took reasonable steps to meet its “obligation to
2 monitor and move the case forward.” Id. ¶ 41. By way of example, one way for the
3 State to have moved the case forward would have been to express appropriate
4 concerns over the repeated delay in the progress of the case during any of the long
5 series of status conferences held on the competency issue. As this Court made clear
6 in Serros, “[W]e do not deem it unfair to impose upon the prosecution the burden of
7 monitoring the progress of [a criminal] case and, at some point, alerting the trial
8 court of potential speedy trial consequences.” Id. ¶ 96.
9 {27} Perhaps best illustrative of the State’s failures in this regard was the lead
10 prosecutor’s silence in response to defense counsel’s belated revelation during the
11 status conference of June 27, 2016—more than two years into the competency
12 evaluation process—that the then long-overdue status of Defendant’s competency
13 evaluation was counsel’s own doing, the result of his law “office [having]
14 misplaced” some of the discovery materials provided by the State. And all this was
15 despite counsel’s insistence during the preceding status conference held on May 6,
16 2016, that he did not know and could not explain “what’s happened” with his
17 retained psychologist that would have prevented the psychologist from evaluating
18 Defendant. 1 {28} It is well to emphasize, as Serros teaches, that “at some point [speedy trial]
2 delay simply becomes intolerable” and that, in result, the prosecution is “uniquely”
3 cloaked with the duty—“as the [s]tate’s representative—to ensure that the accused
4 is prosecuted in a manner consistent with the Constitution.” 2016-NMSC-008, ¶¶
5 97-98. As Serros goes on to explain:
6 This is no less true for the right to a “speedy and public trial” under the 7 Sixth Amendment [of the United States Constitution] than it is for the 8 right to counsel and confrontation under that same amendment, and the 9 rights against self-incrimination under the Fifth Amendment and 10 against unreasonable searches and seizures under the Fourth 11 Amendment. The [s]tate must ensure that justice is done.
12 Id. ¶ 97.
13 {29} It is fair to say that the State failed to meet that responsibility here and, in
14 doing so, allowed a teenage defendant with an intellectual disability to languish in
15 jail for some three years and three months while his competency proceedings inched
16 along at a glacial pace. This does not mean that the entire thirty-nine-month
17 competency-delay period is properly chargeable to the State. As Defendant candidly
18 and appropriately concedes on appeal, roughly eight-and-a-half months of the
19 competency-related delay is properly weighed neutrally or against Defendant.
20 Subtracting these months results in a significant, unreasonable, State-caused, 1 competency-related delay of over two-and-a-half years.4 See Serros, 2016-NMSC-
2 008, ¶ 29 (“As the length of delay increases, negligent or administrative delay
3 weighs more heavily against the [s]tate.”); Garza, 2009-NMSC-038, ¶ 26 (“The
4 degree of weight we assign against the [s]tate for negligent delay is closely related
5 to the length of delay: [O]ur toleration of such negligence varies inversely with its
6 protractedness, and its consequent threat to the fairness of the accused’s trial.”
7 (second alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).
8 {30} Regrettably, the unfair impact of the delay is heightened in the unfortunate
9 circumstances of this case and considering that Defendant, a teenager with an
10 intellectual disability who, as indicated above, has now aged out of the juvenile
11 system and has been held in custody throughout the entirety of the extended
12 proceedings. See § 32A-2-20(F) (providing that an individual charged as a youthful
13 offender who receives a juvenile sentence may be committed to the care of the
14 Children, Youth and Families Department until the age of twenty-one); see also,
15 e.g., United States v. Roberts, 515 F.2d 642, 646 (2d Cir. 1975) (recognizing that a
It also appears that an additional period of delay can safely be chargeable to 4
the State: the roughly six-week period between the December 17, 2019, declaration of a mistrial in Defendant’s first trial based on a statement made by a State’s witness and the February 4, 2020, start date of Defendant’s second trial. See Villalobos, A- 1-CA-39820, mem. op. ¶ 21. 1 speedy trial “delay not patently unreasonable in length may nonetheless be
2 intolerably long” in circumstances where the defendant loses “the right to be
3 considered for youthful offender treatment” and the “notable advantages” such
4 treatment provides); Interest of A.M., 2025 PA Super 171, 23, 343 A.3d 341
5 (“conclud[ing] that the loss of rehabilitative benefits constitutes a colorable basis of
6 concern that a [j]uvenile [c]ourt must weigh in analyzing . . . Barker’s balancing test
7 in the context of a delinquency proceeding”); see generally Rebecca Rosefelt, Note,
8 Children in Limbo: The Need for Maximum Limits for Juvenile Pretrial Detention,
9 28 Minn. J. Int’l L. 239, 244 (2019) (observing that “[t]he lack of emotional support
10 paired with the stress of detention has irreversible effects on the psychological
11 development of children”).
12 {31} In the end, the reasons-for-the-delay factor weighs heavily against the State in
13 this matter, as it did in Serros. See Serros, 2016-NMSC-008, ¶¶ 74-75 (emphasizing
14 that its holding was “based on the [s]tate’s conduct, . . . which we h[e]ld contributed
15 to the extraordinary delay in th[at] case” and indicating that the defendant therein
16 “did not affirmatively cause or acquiesce in [any of] the delays”); see generally
17 Flores, 2015-NMCA-081, ¶¶ 10, 37 (“dividing the nearly sixty-two month delay in
18 [that complex] case into digestible portions” and concluding that the reasons-for-
19 the-delay factor weighed heavily in the defendant’s favor in circumstances where 1 “at least thirty-six months of it was attributable to the [s]tate’s negligence and
2 administrative burdens”). To rule otherwise under the circumstances of this case
3 would further the unfortunate reality that, “[a]s a group, criminal defendants with
4 serious mental disabilities spend longer periods of time in jail awaiting a disposition
5 of their charges . . . as compared to others charged with comparable offenses.” Henry
6 Dulgacz, Jail and Prison Conditions, in Representing People with Mental
7 Disabilities: A Criminal Defense Lawyer’s Best Practices Manual 225, 228
8 (Elizabeth Kelley ed., 2018). There is no place in our jurisprudence for such a callous
9 and counterintuitive outcome.
10 3. Assertion of the right
11 {32} Borrowing a page from Barker, this Court in Work made clear some thirty-
12 five years ago that no single Barker factor “is either a necessary or a sufficient
13 condition to a finding that there has been a deprivation of the right to a speedy trial”
14 and that each factor “can be assigned different significance . . . [and] must be
15 evaluated on a spectrum of significance” in the “‘difficult and sensitive balancing
16 process’” entailed in a speedy trial analysis. Work, 1990-NMSC-085, ¶ 11 (quoting
17 Barker, 407 U.S. at 533). The efficacy of the assertion-of-the-right factor hinges in
18 particular on the commonsense premise that “[t]he more serious the [speedy trial]
19 deprivation, the more likely a defendant is to complain” about it and, thus, that a 1 defendant’s assertion of the right is generally “entitled to strong evidentiary weight
2 in determining whether the defendant is being deprived of the right.” Barker, 407
3 U.S. at 531-32. But that premise loses viability in circumstances where, as here, a
4 defendant’s intellectual disability affects their ability to make decisions bearing on
5 when and how to assert their right to a speedy trial.
6 {33} Our Court of Appeals recognized this reality in Stock, concluding that the
7 assertion-of-the-right factor plays a far less significant role in a court’s speedy trial
8 calculus in cases involving a defendant with an intellectual disability. 2006-NMCA-
9 140, ¶¶ 30-33. This is reflected in several passages of the Stock opinion, including
10 language expressing the Court’s “unwilling[ness] to put a great deal of weight on [a
11 d]efendant’s failure to assert his [speedy trial] right under the circumstances” where
12 the defendant has an intellectual disability and its recognition of the inherent
13 unfairness of “put[ting] great emphasis” on the assertion-of-the-right factor in view
14 of a defendant’s cognitive disability. Id. ¶¶ 30, 33 (observing that “the district court
15 credited an expert report that stated that [the d]efendant has the intellectual capacity
16 of a twelve-year-old” and questioning, as did the district court, “whether a twelve-
17 year-old could even understand the concept of a speedy trial or of continuances”).
18 {34} In a similar vein, this Court in Serros also weighed in on the assertion-of-the
19 right factor, drawing a critical distinction “between [the d]efendant agreeing to the 1 [s]tate’s requests to extend the time for commencing his trial and [the d]efendant’s
2 attorneys agreeing to such requests.” 2016-NMSC-008, ¶ 79. Ultimately concluding
3 that the defendant therein “asserted his right to a speedy trial throughout the
4 proceedings in the best way he knew,” the Serros Court upheld the district court’s
5 determination that the defendant “did not agree to the requests [made by his
6 successive attorneys] to extend the time for commencing his trial” and ultimately
7 weighed the assertion-of-the-right factor in the defendant’s favor, even though his
8 trial attorneys “did not further [the d]efendant’s efforts.” Id. ¶¶ 79, 83.
9 {35} The respective situations presented in Stock and Serros were well summed up
10 by this Court in State v. Castro: “The Stock defendant’s mental capacity affected his
11 ability to assert his right to a speedy trial, and the Serros defendant adamantly and
12 continuously asserted his right; therefore, both were blameless, and it would be
13 unfair to hold them accountable for the delays caused by their attorneys.” 2017-
14 NMSC-027, ¶ 13, 402 P.3d 688. Under this synopsis of the law, Defendant’s
15 intellectual disability herein prevented him from asserting his right to a speedy trial,
16 as was the case in Stock, 2006-NMCA-140, ¶ 11, and as in Serros, there was no
17 evidence in the case at hand that Defendant “acquiesce[d] in the delays,” 2016-
18 NMSC-008, ¶ 74. 1 {36} Putting aside the distinctions in approach between Serros and Stock and more
2 conventional speedy trial cases, the basic methodology used in evaluating the
3 assertion-of-the-right factor remains largely unchanged under the cited cases’
4 analyses. Under the tenets of both cases, we still “accord weight to the frequency
5 and force of the defendant’s [or their attorney’s] objections to the delay[, and we]
6 also analyze the defendant’s [or their attorney’s] actions with regard to the delay.”
7 Serros, 2016-NMSC-008, ¶ 76 (second alteration in original) (internal quotation
8 marks and citation omitted) (“The timeliness and vigor with which the right is
9 asserted may be considered as an indication of whether a defendant was denied
10 needed access to a speedy trial over his objection or whether the issue was raised on
11 appeal as an afterthought.” (text only) (citation omitted)).
12 {37} Yet, we must also bear in mind the flexible nature of the assertion-of-the-right
13 factor, one that may be satisfied by “a single [defense] demand for a speedy trial.”
14 Ochoa, 2017-NMSC-031, ¶ 42. As our colleagues on the Utah Supreme Court
15 recently recognized, for the assertion-of-the-right “factor to weigh in a defendant’s
16 favor, a defendant should, at the very least, manifest his desire to be tried promptly,”
17 State v. Hintze, 2025 UT 3, ¶ 62, 567 P.3d 506 (text only) (citation omitted), a
18 standard that “does not require that a defendant use specific words or manifest that 1 desire in one particular way, so long as the defendant demonstrates a desire for a
2 speedy trial.” Id.
3 {38} Here, Defendant filed a demand for a speedy trial when his counsel entered
4 his initial appearance in April 2014; reasserted that demand upon the State’s
5 unsuccessful interlocutory appeal of the suppression issue; and twice moved for
6 dismissal on speedy trial grounds, once before the start of Defendant’s first trial and
7 again after a mistrial was declared. These defense efforts, all told, were sufficient
8 for us to weigh this factor in Defendant’s favor.
9 4. Prejudice and balancing the Barker factors
10 {39} As for the fourth and final factor, this Court recognized in Serros that,
11 “[o]rdinarily, a defendant bears the burden of proof on this factor by showing
12 ‘particularized prejudice’ when claiming a speedy trial violation.” 2016-NMSC-008,
13 ¶ 86 (citation omitted). However, Serros also quoted the following passage from
14 Garza: “[I]f the length of delay and the reasons for delay weigh heavily in [the]
15 defendant’s favor and [the] defendant has asserted his right and not acquiesced to
16 the delay, then the defendant need not show prejudice for a court to conclude that
17 the defendant’s right has been violated.” 2016-NMSC-008, ¶ 86 (quoting Garza,
18 2009-NMSC-038, ¶ 39). 1 {40} Despite the textual reality that the passage quoted above identifies only the
2 first two of the Barker/Garza factors—the length and reasons for the delay—as
3 needing to weigh heavily in a defendant’s favor in order to dispense with proof by
4 the defendant of particularized prejudice, Garza is generally read to require the
5 defense to make a strong evidentiary showing on all of the first three factors—
6 including the assertion-of-the-right factor—in order to avoid the need to present
7 affirmative evidence of prejudice to the defendant. See, e.g., State v. Samora, 2016-
8 NMSC-031, ¶ 23, 387 P.3d 230 (“To find a speedy trial violation without a showing
9 of actual prejudice, the Court must find that the three other Barker factors weigh
10 heavily against the [s]tate.” (citing Garza, 2009-NMSC-038, ¶ 39)).
11 {41} Judicial insistence on the use of this all-or-nothing, three-factor approach,
12 assuming it to be sound when applied to a typical speedy trial scenario, 5 is
13 unreasonable in the limited circumstances presented here as well as those presented
14 in Stock, where fairness dictates us to be “unwilling to put a great deal of weight on
15 [a d]efendant’s failure to assert his right” in view of the defendant’s intellectual
5 Without weighing in on the merits of the issue, we note the thoughtful dissent written by Judge Jane B. Yohalem of the Court of Appeals calling into question the validity of this widely-used, three-factor approach in an ordinary case. See State v. Barker, A-1-CA-40495, mem. op. ¶¶ 46-49 (N.M. Ct. App. Nov. 21, 2023) (nonprecedential) (Yohalem, J., dissenting). Any critique of that approach is best left for another case and the benefit of full briefing by the parties. 1 disability. 2006-NMCA-140, ¶ 30. Adhering to Stock’s teachings that “it would not
2 be fair [for courts] to put great emphasis” on the assertion-of-the-right factor in
3 prosecutions brought against defendants with intellectual disabilities, id. ¶ 33, we
4 conclude that prejudice resulting from a speedy trial violation is properly presumed
5 in such cases where the first two Barker factors weigh heavily in favor of the
6 defendant and, in addition, the third, assertion-of-the-right, factor weighs in the
7 defendant’s favor, no matter to what extent. 6
8 {42} Because, as previously shown, this standard was met here, we presume undue
9 prejudice even without a showing of actual prejudice. See Garza, 2009-NMSC-038,
10 ¶ 13 (“This analysis specifically rejects inflexible, bright-line approaches to
11 analyzing a speedy trial claim.”); see also Doggett v. United States, 505 U.S. 647,
12 655 (1992) (recognizing that “excessive delay presumptively compromises the
13 reliability of a trial in ways that neither party can prove or, for that matter, identify,”
14 and acknowledging that “affirmative proof of particularized prejudice is not essential
15 to every speedy trial claim”).
6 The Court of Appeals in Stock made no mention of the presumed prejudice standard, apparently as a result of the Court’s adverse holding that the “[d]efendant’s failure to timely assert his rights weigh[ed] slightly against him.” 2006-NMCA-140, ¶ 45. 1 {43} Although our speedy trial analysis could end here, we address an aspect of the
2 Court of Appeals’ opinion below that gives us pause: the Court’s refusal to consider
3 Defendant’s “characteristics”—his “youth and [intellectual] disability” to be
4 precise—“in assessing whether pretrial incarceration [was] particularly prejudicial”
5 to Defendant in this case. Villalobos, A-1-CA-39820, mem. op. ¶ 30.
6 {44} This self-limiting, hands-off approach taken by the Court of Appeals runs
7 counter to the well-established practice of New Mexico appellate courts to consider
8 the Barker factors on an ad hoc, case-by-case basis and to examine “the interests of
9 defendants which the speedy trial right was designed to protect . . . in light of the
10 specific facts and circumstances of each case.” Ochoa, 2017-NMSC-031, ¶¶ 5, 48
11 (emphasis added) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see Stock, 2006-
12 NMCA-140, ¶ 45 (recognizing that a “speedy trial analysis is not ‘mechanical’ and
13 must take into account all the relevant circumstances” (emphasis added) (citation
14 omitted)).
15 {45} Surely one might expect a criminal defendant’s young age and intellectual
16 disability to constitute relevant considerations in evaluating the fairness and efficacy
17 of a prolonged and potentially oppressive pretrial incarceration. See Garza, 2009-
18 NMSC-038, ¶ 35 (identifying the three potential sources of prejudice caused by
19 delay as (1) “oppressive pretrial incarceration,” (2) “anxiety and concern of the 1 accused,” and (3) impairment of the defense (internal quotation marks and citation
2 omitted)). And there is sufficient authority nationwide to justify such an expectation.
3 See, e.g., Khalifa v. Cash, 594 F. App’x. 339, 342-43 (9th Cir. 2014) (Pregerson, J.,
4 dissenting) (quoting Barker, 407 U.S. at 532, that “‘time spent in jail awaiting trial
5 has a detrimental impact on the individual,’” in concluding that the habeas
6 petitioner’s “three-and-a-half year pretrial incarceration and the anxiety it caused
7 him—a teenager awaiting trial for felony murder—weigh in favor of finding that
8 [the petitioner] was prejudiced by the delay”); United States v. Rogers, 781 F. Supp.
9 1181, 1189-90 (S.D. Miss. 1991) (recognizing that prejudice may arise from a
10 defendant’s advancing age and cognitive decline following an indictment, where the
11 “defendant’s impaired cognitive functions” prevented him from “meaningfully
12 assist[ing] in his defense”); State ex rel. Miller v. Craft, 337 So. 2d 1191, 1194-95
13 (La. 1976) (acknowledging that the court was left to “speculate on the degree of
14 anxiety engendered in an accused” with an apparent intellectual disability who,
15 among other things, was “incarcerated for almost two years” and concluding “that
16 the interests sought to be protected by the right to a speedy trial have been violated”).
17 Just as a defendant’s young age and intellectual disability can have a substantial
18 impact on their ability to assert their speedy trial rights, so too should those same
19 traits play a substantial role in determining whether a given defendant has suffered 1 undue prejudice in a particular case. To the extent the Court of Appeals’ opinion
2 below, Villalobos, A-1-CA-39820, mem. op. ¶ 30, may support a contrary
3 conclusion, it should not be followed.
4 III. CONCLUSION
5 {46} For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the Court of Appeals and the district
6 court and remand the matter to the district court with instructions to vacate
7 Defendant’s convictions and dismiss the indictment. In light of this disposition, we
8 have no occasion to reach the other issues raised by Defendant.
9 {47} IT IS SO ORDERED.
10 11 MICHAEL E. VIGIL, Justice
12 WE CONCUR:
13 14 JULIE J. VARGAS, Chief Justice
15 16 C. SHANNON BACON, Justice
17 18 DAVID K. THOMSON, Justice 1 2 BRYAN BIEDSCHEID, Judge 3 Sitting by designation