Opinion ID: 6219164
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The second Breit prong

Text: {42} The second prong of the Breit test focuses on the effect of the official’s conduct on the defendant, “regardless of the [official’s] intent,” to determine whether the official knows that its conduct is improper. McClaugherty, 2008NMSC-044, ¶ 26. As we stated in McClaugherty, “[w]e cannot overemphasize or overstate that this is an objective standard, not a subjective one: the belief of the [official] regarding his or her own conduct is irrelevant in this analysis.” Id. ¶ 27. “[T]here must be a point at which lawyers [and judges] are conclusively presumed to know what is proper and what is not.” Id. ¶ 49 (first alteration in original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Or said another way, “Breit’s knowledge test [is] satisfied by presuming knowledge on the part of” the official if the rule is of the kind “that every legal professional, no matter how inexperienced, is charged with knowing.” Id. ¶¶ 49-50 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Under this standard, the law presumes that the judge here knew “that [counsel’s] conduct [was] improper and prejudicial.” Breit, 1996-NMSC-067, ¶ 32. {43} We again focus on the motion for mistrial or continuance following the lunch break. By this time, Seeger’s inaction had created a “presumption of prejudice” against Defendant because there had been no meaningful adversarial testing of the prosecution’s case or effective cross-examination. Hildreth, 2019-NMCA-047, ¶ 14. The concept that there is a “presumption of prejudice” to a defendant in such circumstances is not new to New Mexico. See Grogan, 2007-NMSC-039, ¶ 12 19 (including lack of meaningful adversarial testing of the prosecution’s case and effective cross-examination as circumstances under which there is a presumption of prejudice to a defendant (citing Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted))). Further, this is no subtle point of law—effective assistance of counsel requires more than an attorney simply being present at trial. See Cronic, 466 U.S. at 659 (“[I]f counsel entirely fails to subject the prosecution’s case to meaningful adversarial testing, then . . . the adversary process itself [is] presumptively unreliable.”). Given the judge’s knowledge of Seeger’s inaction, coupled with the new information relayed to the judge that the CD contained statements from the State’s two witnesses who had testified the morning of the trial as well as Defendant and our case law regarding when prejudice is presumed and when it is an abuse of discretion to deny a continuance, we know of no calculus by which to justify the judge’s refusal to grant a continuance, mistrial, or sanctions— let alone allow the trial to proceed to its end. {44} We conclude that the law clearly presumes that the judge knew it would be improper to proceed with trial under the circumstances. The second prong of Breit is met.