Case Name: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Martin LYNCH, Defendant-Appellant
Court: Supreme Court of New Mexico
Jurisdiction: New Mexico
Decision Date: 2003-07-09
Citations: 134 N.M. 139
Docket Number: No. 26,252
Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Martin LYNCH, Defendant-Appellant.
Judges: WE CONCUR: RICHARD C. BOSSON and EDWARD L. CHAVEZ, Justices.
Reporter: New Mexico Reports
Volume: 134
Pages: 139–152

Head Matter:
2003-NMSC-020
74 P.3d 73
STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Martin LYNCH, Defendant-Appellant.
No. 26,252.
Supreme Court of New Mexico.
July 9, 2003.
John Bigelow, Chief Public Defender, Susan Roth, Asistant Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellant.
Patricia A. Madrid, Attorney General, Athur W. Pepin, Asistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellee.

Opinion:
OPINION
MINZNER, Justice.
{1} Defendant appeals from an order of the district court denying his motion to dismiss an amended criminal information charging him with first-degree murder. Defendant contends the district court erred in ruling that the district attorney's decision to charge him with first-degree murder, following the Court of Appeals' reversal of his conviction for second-degree murder, was not contrary to federal and state constitutional protections against double jeopardy and prosecutorial vindictiveness. Defendant initially appealed the order of the district court to the Court of Appeals. See State v. Apodaca, 1997-NMCA-051, ¶ 17, 123 N.M. 372, 940 P.2d 478 (holding defendant has a constitutional right to appeal from an order denying a double jeopardy objection to an indictment). The Court of Appeals certified the matter to us on the ground that language in State v. Martinez, 120 N.M. 677, 678, 905 P.2d 715, 716 (1995), appeared to be inconsistent with the portion of Aticle II, Section 15 of the New Mexico Constitution that provides protection against double jeopardy. See Alexander v. Delgado, 84 N.M. 717, 718, 507 P.2d 778, 779 (1973) (holding that the Court of Appeals is bound by Supreme Court precedent); NMSA 1978, § 34-5-14(0) (1966). We accepted certification and now reverse the district court's order denying Defendant's double jeopardy claim. We do not reach the issue of prosecutorial vindictiveness.
I
{2} The following facts appear to be undisputed. In April 1996, Defendant and Kim Gurley, who was then separated from her husband Richard Gurley, were living together. On the night of April 15, Defendant and Richard argued during a telephone conversation. Following this argument, Richard and his brother drove to the house where Defendant and Kim were living. Richard pounded on the door and front windows, yelling for Defendant to come out and fight. After the door to the home was opened, Richard grabbed Defendant and pulled him from the house, throwing him to the ground. The two men exchanged punches. Defendant fatally stabbed Richard during the fight.
{3} The State filed a criminal complaint that night, which described the crime as "Murder in the First Degree Open Charge," and stated that Defendant had killed Richard "by an act greatly dangerous to the lives of other[s]." See NMSA 1978, § 30-2-1 (A)(3) (1994). At the preliminary hearing, however, the magistrate judge bound Defendant over for trial on the offense of second-degree murder. On April 30, 1996, the State filed a criminal information charging Defendant with second-degree murder, contrary to Section 30-2-l(B).
{4} Defendant was tried before a jury in January 1997, and convicted of second-degree murder. Defendant successfully appealed his conviction. State v. Lynch, No. 18,368, slip op. (N.M.Ct.App. Dec. 16, 1998). The Court of Appeals reversed Defendant's conviction on the ground that the district court's denial of a requested instruction on self-defense or defense of a dwelling as an element of the second-degree murder instruction was potentially confusing to the jury, contrary to State v. Parish, 118 N.M. 39, 878 P.2d 988 (1994). Lynch, No. 18,368, slip op. at 5.
{5} On remand to the district court, Defendant was scheduled to be retried for second-degree murder on July 19, 1999. On defense counsel's motion, trial was continued until September 27, 1999. The prosecutor then spoke with Ginger Dickinson, the girlfriend of Kim Gurley's step-father, for the first time. In that interview, Dickinson said that prior to the killing she had heard Defendant say that he had learned in prison how to kill a person by stabbing him with a single thrust and that he was going to kill Richard in this way. On August 6, 1999, the State filed an amended criminal information charging Defendant with premeditated first-degree murder, contrary to Section 30-2-l(A).
{6} Defendant filed a motion to dismiss the first-degree murder charge, alleging that the charge violated his double jeopardy rights and constituted prosecutorial vindictiveness. The district court denied Defendant's double jeopardy claim without a hearing. However, the court ordered an evidentiary hearing on the claim of prosecutorial vindictiveness, reasoning that the circumstances surrounding the State's filing of a greater charge against Defendant — more than three years after the offense was committed and following a successful appeal — raised a presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness. Following the hearing, the court determined that the State had overcome the presumption of prosecutorial vindictiveness by proving that newly-discovered evidence led to the filing of the greater charge against Defendant. Defendant subsequently moved twice for reconsideration of the court's denial of his double jeopardy claim. The court denied both motions.
{7} Defendant appealed the district court's denial of his double jeopardy claim to the Court of Appeals. In certifying this matter, the Court of Appeals noted that Defendant's double jeopardy argument appeared meritorious based on the plain language of Article II, Section 15 of the New Mexico Constitution, but was inconsistent with this Court's interpretation of the substantially similar double jeopardy statute, NMSA 1978, § 30-1-10 (1963), in Martinez. State v. Lynch, No. 21,108 (N.M.Ct.App. Mar. 23, 2000) (order certifying matter to the Supreme Court). In Martinez, we stated that the language upon which Defendant now relies precludes retrial of a greater offense "only after an acquittal of that offense." 120 N.M. at 678, 905 P.2d at 716.
II
{8} Under State v. Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1, we first analyze Defendant's double jeopardy claim under the federal constitution. If Defendant's rights are protected under the federal constitution, we will not examine Defendant's state constitutional claim. Id. ¶ 19. If the federal constitution does not protect the asserted right, we analyze Defendant's claim under the state constitution. Id.
Ill
{9} The federal double jeopardy clause has been said to embody three separate protections: (1) protection against a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal; (2) protection against a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction; and (3) protection against multiple punishments for the same offense. See, e.g., Justices of Boston Mun. Court, v. Lydon, 466 U.S. 294, 306-07, 104 S.Ct. 1805, 80 L.Ed.2d 311 (1984). In discussing the policies which underlie the double jeopardy clause, the United States Supreme Court has stated:
The constitutional prohibition against 'double jeopardy' was designed to protect an individual from being subjected to the hazards of trial and possible conviction more than once for an alleged offense.... The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.
Serfass v. United States, 420 U.S. 377, 387-88, 95 S.Ct. 1055, 43 L.Ed.2d 265 (1975) (quoting Green v. United States, 355 U.S. 184, 187-88, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199 (1957)).
{10} The amended information is not a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal under the federal double jeopardy clause. The jury did not acquit Defendant of first-degree murder; that charge was dismissed before trial started. Serfass, 420 U.S. at 391, 95 S.Ct. 1055 (stating that "the history of the Double Jeopardy Clause and its terms demonstrate that it does not come into play until a proceeding begins before a trier 'having jurisdiction to try the question of the guilt or innocence of the accused' ") (quoting Kepner v. United States, 195 U.S. 100, 133, 24 S.Ct. 797, 49 L.Ed. 114 (1904)). Nor would Defendant's conviction on second-degree murder charges impliedly acquit Defendant of first-degree murder, because second-degree murder was the highest degree of crime charged against him. This is analogous to Montana v. Hall, 481 U.S. 400, 403-04, 107 S.Ct. 1825, 95 L.Ed.2d 354 (1987), where the United States Supreme Court held that a defendant who had been convicted under a statute not yet in effect at the time of the alleged conduct could be retried after reversal on appeal for a related offense. See also Lowery v. Estelle, 696 F.2d 333, 340—42 (5th Cir.1983) (holding that a conviction for a lesser offense that is subsequently set aside on appeal does not prevent prosecution of a greater charge not considered at the first trial, because there had been no acquittal of the greater offense at the first trial); cf. Green, 355 U.S. at 191, 78 S.Ct. 221 (holding that the double jeopardy clause prohibits retrial on an offense of which a defendant has been impliedly acquitted in a previous trial). The amended information also does not involve a second prosecution "for an allegedly different offense in the face of . an unreversed conviction for another offense arising out of the same transaction," United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 124, 86 S.Ct. 773, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966), because Defendant's conviction for second-degree murder has been reversed. Finally, Defendant has not been punished more than once for the same offense.
{11} The amended information does not implicate any of the three protections embodied in the federal double jeopardy clause. In addition, prosecuting Defendant for first-degree murder does not add to the number of trials Defendant may be required to face. See, e.g., United States v. Scott, 437 U.S. 82, 90-91, 98 S.Ct. 2187, 57 L.Ed.2d 65 (1978) (holding that the double jeopardy clause does not bar a second trial where a defendant has successfully appealed his or her conviction of an offense on grounds other than insufficiency of the evidence). Therefore, requiring Defendant to face first-degree murder charges does not greatly increase the expense or ordeal associated with trial. For these reasons, we conclude that retrial of Defendant for first-degree murder does not violate the federal double jeopardy clause.
IV
A
{12} Article II, Section 15 of the New Mexico Constitution reads:
No person shall be compelled to testify against himself [or herself] in a criminal proceeding, nor shall any person be twice, put in jeopardy for the same offense; and when the indictment, information or affidavit upon which any person is convicted charges different offenses or different de-_ grees of the same offense and a new trial is granted the accused, he [or she] may not again be tried for an offense or degree of' the offense greater than the one of which he [or she] was convicted.
We also have a double jeopardy statute, which similarly reads:
When the indictment, information or com-plaint charges different crimes or different degrees of the same crime and a new trial is granted the accused, he [or she] may not, again be tried for a crime or degree of the crime greater than the one of which he [or she] was originally convicted.
Section 30-1-10. Defendant contends that the final clause of Article II, Section 15 and Section 30-1-10 bar the State from trying him for first-degree murder following his successful appeal.
{13} Before analyzing the merits of Defendant's claim under Article II, Section 15 of the New Mexico Constitution, we determine whether Defendant properly preserved this claim as required by Rule 12-216(A) NMRA 2003. Under Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, ¶ 22, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1, we must first determine whether the provision under which the claim is made has been held to provide greater protection than its federal counterpart. In order to preserve a claim based on a state constitutional provision that has not been interpreted more broadly than its federal analog, a party must give the trial court an opportunity to rule on the claim by "asserting] in the trial court that the state constitutional provision at issue should be interpreted more expansively than the federal counterpart and providing] reasons for interpreting the state provision differently from the federal provision." Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, ¶ 23, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1. Though Article II, Section 15 has been interpreted to provide greater protection than its federal counterpart in certain areas, see State v. Nunez, 2000-NMSC-013, ¶30, 129 N.M. 63, 2 P.3d 264 (successive prosecutions); State v. Breit, 1996-NMSC-067, ¶32, 122 N.M. 655, 930 P.2d 792 (prosecutorial misconduct), it has not previously been construed to provide greater protection than its federal counterpart in the circumstances of this case. Defendant was therefore required at trial to argue that Article II, Section 15 provided greater protection than the federal double jeopardy clause and provide reasons for interpreting Article II, Section 15 differently than the federal double jeopardy clause.
{14} We conclude that Defendant preserved this claim. In Defendant's motion for reconsideration, he specifically alleged that distinct language within the state constitutional provision justified interpreting it differently than the federal double jeopardy clause. His motion quoted the final clause of Article II, Section 15, which is distinct from the language in the federal double jeopardy clause. This motion and his prior motion provided the factual basis necessary for the trial court to rule on this issue.
B
{15} Interpretation of constitutional clauses begins with the language of the text. Where the constitutional clause is clear and unambiguous on its face, courts will not construe the clause. See, e.g., Hall v. Progress Pig, Inc., 259 Neb. 407, 610 N.W.2d 420, 427 (2000) ("Like statutes, constitutional provisions are not open to construction as a matter of course; construction is appropriate only when it has been demonstrated that the meaning of the provision is not clear and therefore construction is necessary."). The text of the relevant portion of Article II, Section 15 states:
[A]nd when the indictment, information or affidavit upon which any person is convicted charges different offenses or different degrees of the same offense and a new trial is granted the accused, he [or she] may not again be tried for an offense or degree of the offense greater than the one of which he [or she] was convicted.
The Court of Appeals, in certifying this case to this Court, indicated its belief that the plain language of the text conferred upon Defendant a clear and unambiguous right to not be retried for an offense greater than second-degree murder. See State v. Lynch, No. 21,108. We agree with the Court of Appeals that our state constitution confers this right upon Defendant, although the wording of the provision at issue is susceptible to different interpretations.
{16} The State argues that the phrase "again be tried" in Article II, Section 15 means that a defendant cannot be tried a second time on charges brought in the first trial for greater degrees of the offense than the defendant was convicted. Under this construction, the word "again" refers to any charges brought under the original indictment or information, so, if the original charges did not include the greater degree of offense, then there would be no bar to prosecution of that offense on retrial. We disagree. The phrase "again be tried" refers to any subsequent prosecution, regardless of whether the greater offense was charged in the original trial.
{17} This reading of Article II, Section 15 is consistent with Martinez. Our statement in Martinez, 120 N.M. at 678, 905 P.2d at 716, that Section 30-1-10 "precludes retrial of a greater offense only after an acquittal of that offense" was not intended to introduce a new principle of law into our double jeopardy jurisprudence. Instead, we were summarizing existing case law, as evidenced by our cite to State v. Sneed, 78 N.M. 615, 617, 435 P.2d 768, 770 (1967). In Sneed, we noted that the defendant's case did not involve "a situation where the defendant was acquitted of a crime or a greater degree of the crime at a prior trial," and concluded that "[t]he constitutional protection against double jeopardy does not prevent a second trial for the same offense when the defendant himself, by an appeal, has invoked the action which resulted in the second trial." 78 N.M. at 617, 435 P.2d at 770. Our statement in Martinez, relying on Sneed, was intended to do no more than summarize that holding. In retrospect, our description of Sneed in Martinez as establishing the principle that Section 30-1-10 "precludes retrial of a greater offense only after an acquittal of that offense," overstated the holding in Sneed. We now take this opportunity to clarify that we intended only to reiterate the holding in Sneed.
{18} Our holding in Martinez was based on the long-settled notion that the right to be free from double jeopardy is not an absolute right. See County of Los Alamos v. Tapia, 109 N.M. 736, 742, 790 P.2d 1017, 1023 (1990); State v. Saavedra, 108 N.M. 38, 41, 766 P.2d 298, 301 (1988). A defendant's right to be free from double jeopardy may at times be "subordinated to the countervailing interest of society in the orderly administration of justice." Tapia, 109 N.M. at 742, 790 P.2d at 1023. At the core of the public's interest in the orderly administration of justice is its interest in having the guilty punished after a fair trial. See id. It is the public's strong interest in seeing the guilty punished after a fair trial that allows the State to reprosecute a defendant who has successfully appealed his or her conviction on the basis of trial error, see United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 466, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 12 L.Ed.2d 448 (1964) ('While different theories have been advanced to support the permissibility of retrial, of greater importance than the conceptual abstractions employed to explain [this] principle are the implications of that principle for the sound administration of justice."), or where a mistrial is ordered as a matter of "manifest necessity," United States v. Jorn, 400 U.S. 470, 485, 91 S.Ct. 547, 27 L.Ed.2d 543 (1971) (plurality opinion). In Martinez, the jury was unable to reach a unanimous verdict on the attempted murder charge, thereby creating a "manifest necessity" for a mistrial. 120 N.M. at 679, 905 P.2d at 717. In addition, it was defense counsel who requested the declaration of a mistrial on the attempted murder charge. Id. According to long-es tablished United States Supreme Court precedent, "a defendant's motion for or consent to a mistrial generally forecloses any claim of double jeopardy." Id.
{19} The statement in Martinez that may appear to be inconsistent with Article II, Section 15, and Section 30-1-10-when considered in isolation should not be taken out of context. After the statement that Section 30-1-10' "precludes retrial of a greater offense only after an acquittal of that offense," we further explained that "[w]e do not construe Section 30-1-10 to address the situation in which the state prosecutes various crimes or degrees of crimes and the jury returns a verdict on less than all of the crimes charged." Martinez, 120 N.M. at 678, 905 P.2d at 716 (emphasis added). Taken together, these two statements stand for the proposition that Section 30-1-10 precludes retrial of a greater offense only after an (implied or explicit) acquittal of that offense, provided that the greater offense was charged in the first trial. The holding in Martinez does not cover situations like the present one, where the greater offense was not charged in the first trial. Thus, the limitation placed on Section 30-1-10 in Martinez is irrelevant to our present inquiry. Perhaps the formulation in State v. Manzanares, 100 N.M. 621, 622, 674 P.2d 511, 512 (1983), that "in New Mexico, a defendant may not be tried in a second trial for a greater offense which would require the presentation of all of the evidence which was used in a first trial on a lesser included offense" states the standard more clearly.
{20} The facts in this case are very different from the facts in Martinez. In Martinez, the defendant contended that the State could not prosecute him a second time on a charge on which the jury was unable to reach a verdict in the first trial. In rejecting this claim, we stated that "[t]he State is entitled to a verdict on all charges presented in the same prosecution." 120 N.M. at 679, 905 P.2d at 717. The jury did not "return[] a verdict" as to the attempted murder charge because it was unable to unanimously agree regarding that charge. If the jury had unanimously decided that the defendant was not guilty of attempted murder, then the jury would have "return[ed] a verdict" as to that charge, thus implicating the protections of Section 30-1-10 as well as the federal constitution. In this ease, the jury did return a verdict as to all of the crimes charged in the first trial. Defendant contends that the State may not prosecute him for first-degree murder after not prosecuting him on that charge at all in the first trial. Defendant does not seek to prevent the State from receiving "a verdict on all charges presented in the same prosecution." Id. Rather, Defendant seeks to prevent the State from adding a new and greater charge in a second prosecution.
C
{21} The conclusion we reach today that Defendant may not be tried for first-degree murder upon remand to the district court is supported even more strongly by the wording of Section 30-1-10. Although the statute is largely identical to Article II, Section 15, there are some subtle differences which counsel in favor of holding that Defendant's double jeopardy rights would be violated by prosecution for first-degree murder. As a general proposition, statutes may provide greater, but not less, protection to individual rights than the constitution. Cf. United States v. Baker, 63 F.3d 1478, 1496-97 (9th Cir.1995) (holding that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution provides a minimum level of protection which Congress may expand through legislation); see also Dillon v. King, 87 N.M. 79, 85, 529 P.2d 745, 751 (1974) ("Our basic premise is that the [New Mexico] Constitution is the supreme law and each department of government must comply with it."). Applied to the present case, we interpret Section 30-1-10 to provide the same protections as Article II, Section 15, although those protections are more clearly stated in the statute.
{22} Section 30-1-10 states that "[w]hen the indictment, information or complaint charges different crimes or different degrees of the same crime and a new trial is granted the accused, he [or she] may not again be tried for a crime or degree of the crime greater than the one of which he [or she] was originally convicted." The statute omits the phrase "upon which any person has been convicted" following "indictment" at the beginning of the sentence, and adds the word "originally" before "convicted," at the end of the sentence. These changes suggest that the Legislature was attempting to articulate the protections of Article II, Section 15 as being broader than those of the federal constitution. In deleting the reference to the indictment "upon which" the conviction was obtained, the statute may refer to indictments other than the one upon which the original trial was founded. Further, in describing the conviction that sets the ceiling of the offense as the degree of the "original," the Legislature may have intended to refer to an "initial" or "first" conviction, rather than a conviction under a particular indictment. This makes the phrase "again be tried" less ambiguous. The first portion of the statutory provision applies in this case to the current indictment, the one Defendant objected to in district court. It follows that because he has been granted a new trial, he satisfies the middle portion of the statutory provision. The statute says, more clearly than the constitutional provision, that the new trial ought not concern an offense of a greater degree than the degree of which he had been convicted at the prior trial. The statute can be read in the present, referring to the current indictment and the prospective trial, and so read it limits the scope of that prospective trial, rather than as referring to the indictment upon which Defendant was convicted and providing that his protection against double jeopardy is limited to retrial under that indictment.
{23} As a historical note, there was another former jeopardy statute in effect prior to the current one. Section 30-1-10 was enacted as part of a complete re-write of the Criminal Code in 1963. The prior statute, NMSA 1941, § 42-705 (1853, repealed 1963), was repealed simultaneously. The text of that statute was quite different, and read as follows:
No person shall be held to answer on a second indictment for an offense of which he has been acquitted by the jury, upon the facts and merits on a former trial, and such acquittal may be pleaded by him in bar of any subsequent prosecution for the same offense, notwithstanding any defect in the form or in the substance of the indictment on which he was acquitted.
Id. The prior statute- specifically referred to and emphasized a prior acquittal, unlike the current statute or constitutional provision. The Legislature's choice to omit this term in the current version demonstrates that there should be times when double jeopardy attaches despite the fact that there was no acquittal, implied or otherwise, of the greater offense in the first trial.
D
{24} Our holding today should not be read to mean that there would be no bar to retrial on a higher count if the State chose to charge only one crime in the initial indictment, due to the fact that the constitutional provision applies when "the indictment, information or complaint charges different crimes or different degrees of the same crime." For example, if in the present case Defendant were only charged with second-degree murder, and no lesser-included offenses such as manslaughter, this would not operate to remove him from the protections of the constitution because Article II, Section 15 refers to plural charges. It is a well-established principle of statutory construction that words used in the plural subsume the singular. See NMSA 1978, § 12-2A-5 (1997); State ex rel. Dresden v. Dist. Court, 45 N.M. 119, 126, 112 P.2d 506, 510 (1941) (applying former version of same statute). The fact that we are interpreting the constitution, rather than a statute, in this instance, does not affect our analysis. The most important consideration for us is that we interpret the constitution in a way that reflects the drafters' intent. See Harnett v. Jones, 104 N.M. 392, 394, 722 P.2d 643, 645 (1986) ("While the rules of statutory construction govern as well the construction of constitutional provisions, we must bear in mind that such principles are merely aids to determining the intent and purpose of the framers."). Further, even if the prosecutor only charges one offense, the jury may consider any lesser included offenses as well. See State v. Stephens, 93 N.M. 458, 461, 601 P.2d 428 (1979), overruled on other grounds by State v. Contreras, 120 N.M. 486, 491, 903 P.2d 228, 233 (1995); Rule 5-611(D) NMRA 2003 ("If so instructed, the jury may find the defendant guilty of an offense necessarily included in the offense charged____"). Of course, this problem could not arise under our interpretation of Section 30-1-10, because we do not read the statute as being limited to referring to the original indictment. See infra ¶ 23.
V
{25} Defendant also challenges the district court's determination that the prosecution's filing of first-degree murder charges against him was not motivated by prosecutorial vindictiveness. Because we reverse Defendant's conviction on double jeopardy grounds, we need not address Defendant's prosecutorial vindictiveness argument. We also note that Defendant did not appeal this determination by the trial court, and this issue was not part of the Court of Appeals' certification order. Further, under federal law, the district court's decision was not a final order. United States v. Hollywood Motor Car Co., 458 U.S. 263, 270, 102 S.Ct. 3081, 73 L.Ed.2d 754 (1982).
VI
{26} We reverse the district court's determination that trying Defendant for first-degree murder following his successful appeal of a conviction for second degree murder does not violate his rights under the state double jeopardy clause. We remand the ease to the district court for proceedings consistent with this opinion.
{27} IT IS SO ORDERED.
WE CONCUR: RICHARD C. BOSSON and EDWARD L. CHAVEZ, Justices.