This memorandum opinion was not selected for publi cation in the New Mexico Reports. Please see 1 Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished memorandum opinions. Please 2 also note that this electronic memorandum opinion may contain computer-generated errors or other 3 deviations from the official paper version filed by the Court of Appeals and does not include the 4 filing date. 5 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO 6 STATE OF NEW MEXICO, 7 Plaintiff-Appellee, 8

v. NO. 30,684 9 NOHEMI HIGADERA, 10 Defendant-Appellant. 11 APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF DOÑA ANA COUNTY 12 Fernando R. Macias, District Judge 13 Gary K. King, Attorney General 14 Andrew S. Montgomery, Assistant Attorney General 15 Santa Fe, NM 16 for Appellee 17 HughW. Dangler, Chief Public Defender 18 Santa Fe, NM 19 for Appellant 20 MEMORANDUM OPINION 21 KENNEDY, Judge. 22 Defendant appeals from a judgment and sentence filed after she entered a plea 23 of no contest to residential burglary, reservi ng the right to challenge the denial of her 242 motion to suppress. We issued a calendar notice proposing to reverse, and the State 1 has responded with a memorandum in opposition. We reverse. 2 We will not overturn the trial court’s ruling on a motion to suppress if it is 3 supported by substantial evidence. See State v. Galloway , 116 N.M. 8, 9, 859 P.2d 4 476, 477 (Ct. App. 1993). In making this determination, we review the facts in the 5 light most favorable to the trial court’s ruling. Id. Nevertheless, we conduct a de 6 novo review on the ultimate issue concerning the reasonableness of an alleged 7 constitutional violation. State v. Flores , 1996-NMCA-059, ¶ 6, 122 N.M. 84, 920 8 P.2d 1038. 9 Here, Defendant argued in her docketing statement that the motion should have 10 been granted on two independent grounds: the officer lacked probable cause to arrest 11 her, and there were no exigent circumstances to support the warrantless arrest. [DS 12 7] We issued a calendar no tice that did not address the probable cause issue, because 13 we proposed to hold that the warrantless arrest was invalid under these circumstances 14 “[F]or a warrantless arrest to be reasonable the arresting officer must show that the 15 officer had probable cause to believe that the person arrested had committed or was 16 about to commit a felony and some exigency existed that precluded the officer from 17 securing a warrant.” Campos v. State , 117 N.M. 155, 159, 870 P.2d 117, 121 (1994). 18 “Exigent circumstances means an emergency situation requiring swift action to 193 prevent imminent danger to life or serious damage to property, or to forestall the 1 imminent escape of a suspect or destruction of evidence.” Id . at 158, 870 P.2d at 120 2 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted) . We consider wh ether “on the basis 3 of the facts known to a prudent, cautious, tr ained officer, the officer could reasonably 4 conclude that swift ac tion was necessary.” State v. Valdez , 111 N.M. 438, 441, 806 5 P.2d 578, 581 (Ct. App. 1990) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). 6 In the present case, we will presume that the arresting officer had probable 7 cause to link Defendant to a residential burglary and a commercial burglary that had 8 occurred the day prior to Defendant’s arre st. The officer went to a home where a 9 vehicle was parked that was involved in at least one of the prior crimes. [MIO 2-3; DS 10 3-4] The officer was let into the home by an individual and he made contact with 11 Defendant in her bedroom. [DS 4] Defendant gave consent to search the vehicle in 12 question, and no evidence was found inside. [DS 5] No missing property was seen at 13 any point, and there were no i ndications that Defendant was attempting to flee; to the 14 contrary, she was cooperative, and the i nvestigation had been taking place at her 15 residence. [DS 5] The officer arrested Defendant at this point. [DS 5] 16 In denying Defendant’s motion to suppre ss, the district court concluded that 17 “exigent circumstances are related to almost any property crime” and Defendant could 18 have destroyed evidence because she knew she was under investig ation. [RP 79-80] 194 Our calendar notice proposed to reverse becau se our case law is cl ear that there must 1 be specific, articulable facts to support exigency, and we believe that it is too 2 speculative and unfounded to conclude that all property crimes inherently involve the 3 imminent destruction of evidence. See, e.g. , State v. Duffy , 1998-NMSC-014, ¶ 70, 4 126 N.M. 132, 967 P.2d 807 (noting that “the presence of exigent circumstances must 5 be supported by specific articulable facts.”). 6 In its memorandum in opposition, the State argues that exigency is established 7 by a number of factors. First, it argues that the officer ran a check on Defendant’s 8 license plate, and it could be reasonably inferred that the officer discovered that 9 Defendant had a criminal record that in cluded failure to appear and similar acts 10 involving flight. [DS 5] Even if we assume, arguendo, that such acts might constitute 11 a type of permanent exigency, the district court did not rely on this as a basis for its 12 decision, and we decline to do so on app eal in the absence of a specific factual 13 determination. See State v. Franks , 119 N.M. 174, 177, 889 P. 2d 209, 212 (Ct. App. 14 1994) (stating that this Court may “affirm a district court ruling on a ground not relied 15 upon by the district court, [but] will not do so if reliance on the new ground would be 16 unfair to the appellant”). Second, with re spect to the partial concealment of the 17 license plate [MIO 5], this related to c oncealment of Defendant’s identity, which was 18 obviously no longer at issue. Third, the St ate argues that Defendant’s car was in the 195 driveway, and she could have us ed this car to flee in the same manner that she fled the 1 crime scene. [MIO 5] Our S upreme Court has rejected this type of inherent exigency 2 approach to automobiles. See State v. Gomez , 1997-NMSC-006, ¶¶ 33-40, 122 N.M. 3 777, 932 P.2d 1. (requiring exigent circumstan ces to justify the warrantless search of 4 an automobile, contrary to federal law). Fourth, the State argues that Defendant could 5 have sought to destroy or hi de the shoes she was wearing, items the officer believed 6 were linked to the burglary. [MIO 6] Again, in light of Defendant’s cooperation, it is 7 pure speculation to assume that she would have destroyed this evidence. Fifth, the 8 State argues that it was reasonable to assu me that Defendant knew of the location of 9 the stolen property. [MIO 6] This is true of any investigation, and we decline to adopt 10 the State’s and the district court’s conclusi on that knowing that one is the target of an 11 investigation automatically triggers exigencysufficient to dismiss the need to procure 12 a warrant. In the absence of any behavi or on Defendant’s part that transformed 13 speculation into specific, articulable facts supporting exigency, we conclude that the 14 officer did not have reasonable grounds to make the warrantless arrest. 15 For the reasons stated above, we reverse. 16 IT IS SO ORDERED. 17

18 RODERICK T. KENNEDY, Judge 1967 WE CONCUR: 1

2 CYNTHIA A. FRY, Chief Judge 3

4 TIMOTHY L. GARCIA, Judge 5