Opinion ID: 1197787
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Meadors' Double Jeopardy Claim

Text: The jury found Meadors guilty of aggravated battery, negligent use of an explosive, and negligent arson. At sentencing, Meadors argued that because the three convictions arose out of the same conduct, punishment for each of these convictions would unconstitutionally subject him to double jeopardy. [9] The trial court agreed with Meadors that it could not punish him for both negligent use of an explosive and negligent arson. Accordingly, the court merged [10] those two offenses for punishment purposes. The court sentenced Meadors to four years imprisonment for aggravated battery and two years imprisonment for negligent arson. On appeal, Meadors argues that he can only be punished for one of these offenses, and that the trial court's sentence unconstitutionally subjected him to multiple punishments for the same offense. In Swafford, this Court analyzed in detail the protections against multiple punishments that are embodied in the Double Jeopardy Clause. [11] The defendant's convictions for criminal sexual penetration, incest, and assault with intent to commit a felony arose out of the same criminal transaction, and on appeal he argued that he had been punished more than once for the same offense. Swafford began its analysis by noting that there are two distinct contexts in which the multiple punishment issue arises: (1) where the defendant is charged with multiple violations of a single criminal statute; and (2) where the defendant is charged with violations of multiple criminal statutes. 112 N.M. at 8, 810 P.2d at 1228. Like this appeal, Swafford involved the latter and referred to it as a double description case. Id. The Swafford Court articulated a two-part test for determining whether convictions under different criminal statutes constitute multiple punishments. The first inquiry is whether the conduct giving rise to the different charges is unitary. Id. at 13, 810 P.2d at 1233. Whether conduct is unitary depends upon whether the two events are sufficiently separated by either time or space as well as the quality and nature of the acts or ... the objects and results involved. Id. at 13-14, 810 P.2d at 1233-34. The Swafford Court held that, under the facts of that case, the crimes of assault and rape were not unitary because evidence indicated that the defendant had bound the victim, struck her several times, and verbally abused her before sexually assaulting her. On the other hand, the Court found that the crimes of incest and rape were unitary because the same conduct [i.e. the sexual contact] precipitated both the incest and [rape] offenses. 112 N.M. at 15, 810 P.2d at 1235. We agree with Meadors that there was absolutely no separation of time or place; all of the charges and convictions arose out of the same conduct of dousing Walker with gasoline and lighting him on fire. Accordingly, we conclude that the conduct which gave rise to all three convictions was unitary, and we move on to Swafford `s second prong. See 112 N.M. at 14, 810 P.2d at 1234; State v. Gonzales, 113 N.M. 221, 224, 824 P.2d 1023, 1026 (1992). Under the second prong of the Swafford analysis, the trial court must determine whether the legislature intended to create separately punishable offenses. 112 N.M. at 14, 810 P.2d at 1234. The first analytical step under the second prong is to consider whether there is a clear expression of legislative intent to create separately punishable offenses. Both parties to this appeal seem to concedeand we agreethat there is no such clear expression here. We therefore proceed to the next step, which is an analysis of the statutory elements of the crimes pursuant to Blockburger. Unless each crime contains a statutory element that the other does not, one offense subsumes the other, and there cannot be multiple punishments. Id. Applying the Blockburger analysis, we find that the crime of aggravated battery includes an elementintent to injurethat the crime of negligent arson does not include. Likewise, conviction for negligent arson requires proof that the defendant either recklessly started a fire or recklessly caused an explosion, neither of which are statutory elements of battery. Thus, a presumption arises that the legislature intended to punish these offenses separately. However, before examining whether Meadors has rebutted this presumption, we will consider Meadors' argument regarding State v. Rodriguez, 113 N.M. 767, 833 P.2d 244 (Ct.App.), cert. denied, 113 N.M. 636, 830 P.2d 553 (1992). In Rodriguez, the Court of Appeals faced the issue of whether the offenses of arson and dangerous use of explosives should be punished separately. Id. at 769, 833 P.2d at 246. Applying Swafford `s methodology, the Court concluded that the conduct giving rise to both offenses was unitary. The Court also determined that there was no clear expression of legislative intent to punish the offenses separately. Id. at 770, 833 P.2d at 247. At this point the Rodriguez Court encountered a problem that Swafford had not fully addressed. In considering whether each statutory offense included an element that the other did not, the Rodriguez Court noted that both of the statutes were compound criminal statutes written in the alternative. Id. For example, the offense of dangerous use of an explosive consists of maliciously exploding, attempting to explode or placing any explosive with the intent to injure, intimidate or terrify another, or to damage another's property. NMSA 1978, § 30-7-5 (Repl.Pamp.1994) (emphasis added). The Rodriguez Court recognized that, depending upon which version of the offense it considered, it came out with different statutory elements and different results under the Blockburger test. The Rodriguez Court also noted that there was no way to determine upon which alternative elements the jury relied because the jury instructions were also written in the alternative and the verdict forms were general rather than special. Rodriguez, 113 N.M. at 771, 833 P.2d at 248. To resolve this predicament, the Court of Appeals looked at the legal theory of the case and [d]isregard[ed] the inapplicable [statutory] elements. Id. at 772, 833 P.2d at 249. The Court of Appeals then found that the remaining elements of arson and dangerous use of explosives are identical. Id. Accordingly, the Court ruled that the offense of arson subsumed the offense of dangerous use of an explosive, and multiple punishment was therefore prohibited. The Rodriguez Court then applied this same methodology to the offenses of arson and aggravated assault, this time with a different result. The aggravated assault statute lists seven different alternative bases for conviction. After examining the theory of the case and disregarding six of the seven alternative bases for conviction, the Court determined that the statutory offenses of arson and aggravated assault each included a statutory element not found in the other. Id. While we approve of the Rodriguez Court's method of analysis, we disagree with Meadors that, under Rodriguez, the offense of aggravated battery subsumes the offense of negligent arson. In his brief to this Court, Meadors argues: Ultimately, the Court in Rodriguez found that aggravated assault did not merge with the crime of arson, because given the facts of that case it was clear that the arson involved the intent to damage property while the assault involved the intent to injure a human being.... Given the facts in this case, both the arson and the aggravated battery must have involved intent to injure a human being. Without knowing whether the defendant was convicted on one theory or the other or both, it must be assumed that the jury convicted the defendant under the theory which is more likely given the facts of the case. This argument embodies an incorrect application of Rodriguez in that it assumes that if the same element (in this case intent to injure a person) appears in both crimes, then one crime is subsumed within another. This is neither a correct statement of Rodriguez nor of Blockburger. Under Blockburger, one offense is subsumed within the other unless each statutory offense includes an element not included in the other. Even if we assume, as Meadors urges, that the jury based both convictions upon the intent to injure another person rather than the intent to destroy property, it does not affect our conclusion that aggravated battery always includes a statutory element that is never a statutory element of negligent arson and that negligent arson always includes a statutory element that is never an element of aggravated battery. We therefore need not consider the basis for the jury's conclusions. It is only when one offense might not include a statutory element that is not an element of the other that we look at the jury's verdicts. See Rodriguez, 113 N.M. at 771-72, 833 P.2d at 248-49; cf. State v. Fuentes, 119 N.M. 104, 107, 888 P.2d 986, 989 (Ct.App.1994) (concluding that the central elements of robbery, even when dissected under a Franklin/Rodriguez analysis, do not subsume the elements of aggravated battery), cert. denied, 119 N.M. 168, 889 P.2d 203 (1995). Having concluded that a presumption of legislative intent to punish the offenses separately arises, we now turn to the final step in the Swafford analysis, which is a determination of whether Meadors has rebutted this presumption. A defendant can rebut this presumption with a showing of contrary legislative intent as evidenced by the `language, history and subject of the statutes';... the particular evil addressed by each statute; ... whether the statutes are ... violated together; comparing the amount of punishment inflicted for a violation of each statute; and examining other relevant factors. Gonzales, 113 N.M. at 225, 824 P.2d at 1027 (quoting Swafford, 112 N.M. at 14, 810 P.2d at 1234). In our view the aggravated battery statute protects against the social evil that occurs when one person intentionally physically attacks and injures another. In contrast, the negligent arson statute guards against the harm to people and property that can arise when a person starts fires or uses explosives carelessly. We also find nothing in the statutory language of any of these statutes that indicates that the legislature intended not to punish negligent arson separately from battery. Moreover, we find no indication that the legislature intended that one of these offenses should be a base statute of which the other is simply a more aggravated form. See Fuentes, 119 N.M. at 108-09, 888 P.2d at 990-91 (citing People v. Robideau, 419 Mich. 458, 355 N.W.2d 592, 604 (1984)). We conclude that Meadors has failed to rebut the presumption that the legislature intended to punish the offense of aggravated battery separately from the offense of negligent arson. We therefore affirm the trial court's sentence.