Opinion ID: 1224510
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: did the state impermissibly compromise the integrity of the grand jury proceeding by allowing a police officer to describe depraved mind murder?

Text: {20} Defendant must show demonstrable prejudice by prosecutorial conduct in order to warrant dismissal of an indictment. Hewitt, 108 N.M. at 184, 769 P.2d at 97. [D]efendant must show the conduct complained of infringed upon the independent judgment of the grand jurors and that the result would have been different had the conduct in question not occurred. Id. In Hewitt, the Court of Appeals noted that [p]erjury, deceit, or malicious overreaching that subverts a grand jury proceeding constitutes conduct that infringes upon the independent judgment of the jurors. Id. {21} Defendant contends that the prosecutor, by asking a police detective to provide an example of depraved mind murder, impermissibly intruded upon the traditionally independent role of the grand jury. The detective described depraved mind murder as when a subject that fires into, for example, a crowd of people if there's more than one person.... if that person sees the other people there, knows its likely that somebody else may get shot, takes a chance, and just fires into a group of people anyway. And ... in this case someone died as a result of that. See NMSA 1978, § 30-2-1(A)(3) (1994) (Murder in the first degree is the killing of one human being by another ... by any act greatly dangerous to the lives of others, indicating a depraved mind regardless of human life.). The trial court concluded that there was no reasonable probability of a different outcome, and thus, no actual prejudice to Defendant by the detective's statements. Statements by a prosecutor to the grand jury explaining the law ... are proper so long as the statements are not in conflict with the charge given to the grand jury by the court ... or are not otherwise incorrect statements of the law or improper. Hewitt, 108 N.M. at 184, 769 P.2d at 97 (citations omitted). {22} Defendant does not appear to contend that the example given by the detective was inaccurate; rather, he asserts that it was too similar to the present case, and thus impermissibly intruded upon the independent role of the grand jury. As we stated previously, dismissal of a grand jury indictment is limited to cases of clear prosecutorial misconduct of the grand jury process. See Lay, 886 P.2d at 453 (Dismissal of an indictment on the basis of governmental misconduct is an extreme sanction that should be utilized infrequently.). We have previously noted that second degree murder may be distinguished, in part, from depraved mind murder by the number of persons subjected to the risk of death. State v. Brown, 1996-NMSC-073, ¶ 14, 122 N.M. 724, 931 P.2d 69. Additionally, the Court of Appeals has stated that depraved mind murder may be illustrated as shooting into a crowd. State v. Johnson, 103 N.M. 364, 368, 707 P.2d 1174, 1178 (Ct. App.1985). The grand jury received appropriate advice regarding the definition of depraved mind murder. The fact that the shooting in this case approximates the prototypical example of depraved mind murder cannot be said to prejudice Defendant. We agree with the trial court's finding that there is no reasonable probability of a different outcome, and thus no demonstrable prejudice to Defendant.