Opinion ID: 2569893
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The State's Subsequent Motions

Text: {14} Fifteen days after filing its appeal, the State filed a motion in district court for voluntary dismissal of the appeal and a motion to reopen the proceedings so that Montoya could come testify to dispute and defend himself against the trial court's findings in its Order of Dismissal. The day after the motions were filed, the district court scheduled a hearing in district court on both of the State's motions. {15} Before the hearing on the merits of these motions, Defendant filed a motion in the Court of Appeals to dismiss the State's pending appeal because the State had failed to timely file a docketing statement. Determining that the State's motions were a motion for voluntary dismissal of its appeal and motion for reconsideration, which requested that the district court reopen the hearing that led to the dismissal of this case, the Court of Appeals denied Defendant's motion and remanded the matter to the district court for the limited purpose of ruling on the State's pending motions. The Court of Appeals further ordered that if the district court denied the State's motion to dismiss its appeal, the State would have twenty days from the district court's denial of that motion within which to timely file a docketing statement. {16} The district court commenced the hearing on the motions by asking if there was any objection to dismissing the State's appeal. After clarifying that there was no opposition from Defendant, the district court articulated, If there's a stipulation of that, we'll go ahead and grant the State's motion for dismissal of the appeal. The district court granted the State's motion and dismissed the pending appeal. {17} The district court then addressed the State's motion to reopen the hearing. Defendant argued against reopening the hearing on jurisdictional grounds, relying on the language of Section 39-1-1. Defendant claimed that Section 39-1-1 clearly states that motions attacking a final judgment that are not acted upon by the district court are deemed denied thirty days after their filing, and approximately sixty days had elapsed since the State filed its motion. The State responded that the district court had jurisdiction because either (1) the thirty-day time period for hearing the post-judgment motion should have been calculated from the date the Court of Appeals remanded the matter to the district court for the limited purpose of ruling on the State's pending motions or (2) the thirty-day period should have been calculated from the district court's dismissal of the State's appeal in open court. {18} The district court determined that Section 39-1-1 authorized a district court to, in its discretion, grant additional time to hear a matter raised in a timely filed post-trial motion. Because it originally set the State's motions for hearing and subsequently granted continuances within thirty days of their filing, the district court believed that it would be unjust to deny the court the opportunity to hear a timely raised matter if its docket precluded any earlier setting. The district court ruled that it had jurisdiction to consider the motion and reopened the hearing on the Breit dismissal to receive additional evidence. A full discussion of the evidence and the district court's decision are outlined in detail later in this Opinion. Montoya testified that he believed his actions at the trial were proper. The district court (1) found that Defendant had established that Montoya's conduct met the first prong of the Breit test; (2) determined that the second two prongs were not met; and (3) denied Defendant's motion to bar further prosecution. McClaugherty II, 2007-NMCA-041, ¶ 44, 141 N.M. 468, 157 P.3d 33. The district court vacated its earlier dismissal of the matter, denied Defendant's motion to bar retrial, and reinstated the case for trial. Defendant then appealed to the Court of Appeals.