Opinion ID: 1268268
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: (A) Failure of the Amended Information to Conform to the >Bind-Over Order

Text: In State v. McCrary, 97 N.M. 306, 639 P.2d 593 (Ct.App. 1982), the New Mexico Court of Appeals held that the criminal information must conform to the magistrate's bind-over order. There, the court relied on N.M. Const. art. II, § 14 which provides, in pertinent part, that [n]o person shall be held to answer for a capital, felonious or infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury or information filed by a district attorney.    No person shall be so held on information without having had a preliminary examination before an examining magistrate.    This provision of our constitution is to insure that no person is deprived of his liberty without due process of law. Thus, a defendant cannot be held for trial unless a preliminary hearing has been held at which time the accused is informed of the crime charged against him and a magistrate has determined that probable cause exists to hold him. The court in McCrary was also guided by the pronouncements of this Court in State v. Melendrez, 49 N.M. 181, 159 P.2d 768 (1945), although the issue in Melendrez was not identical to the one presented in McCrary. In deciding whether the information filed by the district attorney must charge substantially the same crime as that stated in the complaint, Melendrez held that where the crime charged in the complaint in the magistrate's court is kindred to that to which the accused is held to answer in a preliminary examination otherwise sufficient, and the information is in substantial accord with the magistrate's commitment,  the defendant has been afforded due process of law as a condition preliminary to the exercise of the power vested in the district attorney to file an information. Id. at 188, 159 P.2d at 773. (emphasis added). Thus, by requiring that the information conform to the bind-over order, the defendant is assured that his detention is based upon charges of which he has been apprised and which have been reviewed by a neutral authority. Contrary to Coates' assertion, however, the amended information in this case is not invalid by reason of its failure to conform with the magistrate's bind-over order. Here, the tapes of the preliminary hearing reveal that the magistrate heard evidence on the counts of murder, armed robbery, and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle. At the conclusion of the hearing, the magistrate, in fact, announced that he was binding defendant over on those counts. The written order, binding him over solely on the count of murder, inadvertently omitted the other two counts. NMSA 1978, Crim.P.Rule 4.1 (Repl. Pamp. 1980) states that [c]lerical mistakes in judgments, orders or other parts of the record and errors in the record arising from oversight or omission may be corrected by the court at any time.    In its order of March 8, 1983 denying defendant's motion to quash the amended information, the trial court acknowledged that the failure of the court clerk to include the counts of armed robbery and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle was a clerical error. The trial court, thereby, effectively amended the written bind-over order to conform with the announcement of the magistrate at the close of the preliminary hearing. Hence, the amended criminal information was in accord with the magistrate's bind-over order and was valid.