Opinion ID: 2570390
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Preservation of Defendant's Appellate Argument

Text: {21} Defendant failed to properly preserve the claim he now argues on appeal. The State, without further analysis, notes Defendant raises this argument for the first time on appeal. Defendant's only response is that he believes his objections speak for themselves. Defendant argues that his objection to the testimony as hearsay was enough to be sufficiently clear to the trial court. We disagree. {22} Defense counsel objected to Lausell's testimony merely as hearsay. The trial court stated that it did not understand Defendant's objection and asked defense counsel if he was contesting what Esther Beckley said was the truth. Defense counsel replied that he was contesting Beckley's truthfulness, but he argued that it did not give the State the right to come in and utilize hearsay, and that he was objecting on that basis. The State responded that the testimony was admissible as either prior inconsistent or prior consistent statements, and the trial court ruled that the testimony was clearly admissible under [Rule] 11-801. Thus, the State properly countered Defendant's hearsay objection with a reference to Rule 11-801, which the court clearly understood; the State was arguing, and the trial court accepted, that the testimony was not hearsay because it was consistent with the declarant's testimony and [was] offered to rebut an express or implied charge against the declarant of recent fabrication or improper influence or motive. See Rule 11-801(D)(1)(b). [1] {23} At this point, in order to preserve the argument, Defendant had to alert the trial court that he believed that the declarant had an improper motive that predated the time she made the statement to Lausell. Defense counsel did not argue to the trial court at that time that Beckley had a motive to lie which predated her statements to Lausell. During Lausell's testimony regarding the statements Beckley made to him concerning the robberies and murders, defense counsel did not object or request the trial court to exclude that portion of Lausell's testimony based on this theory of Beckley's motive to lie to Lausell. {24} Thus, Defendant did not alert the trial court to the specific nature of his general hearsay objection, even after the State and the trial court clearly believed the testimony was admissible under Rule 11-801. In order to properly preserve this claim on appeal, Defendant had to argue that he believed that Beckley had a motive to lie before she made the statements to Lausell. {25} The question of when a motive to lie arises is a question the trial court answers, reviewable by an appellate court under the abuse of discretion standard. Brown, 1998-NMSC-037, ¶ 32, 126 N.M. 338, 969 P.2d 313. In Brown, this Court recounted that Defendants objected to the introduction of [a prior consistent statement] arguing that [the declarant] had a motive to fabricate, which arose before he told the witness his story. Id. ¶ 34. Because the defendants made the proper argument at trial, the trial court in Brown was then able to consider and rule on the argument, rejecting the defendants' claims that the motive to lie predated the time the declarant made the statement to the witness. Id. {26} The Court of Appeals, in Casaus, 1996-NMCA-031, ¶ 19, 121 N.M. 481, 913 P.2d 669 recognized that Rule 11-801(D)(1)(b) requires trial courts to determine not only whether `improper influence or motive' exists but also when the motive originated. In Casaus, the Court of Appeals concluded that the testimony was inadmissible because the prior consistent statement did not pre-date the improper influence or motive, and determined that the defendant raised the motive to lie in his opening statements, showing that the motive arose two weeks before the statements were made. Id. ¶ 20. In contrast, defense counsel did not mention in opening statements that Beckley's motive to lie was to convince Lausell not to leave her; rather, defense counsel implied that she was lying to police in order to protect Lausell, and that after Lausell turned her into the police, she was coerced by the threat of the death penalty to continue telling the same story. Because Defendant did not alert the trial court to his specific theory that Beckley was lying when she made the statements to Lausell, the trial court never had the opportunity to determine when the motive to lie would have arisen. {27} While it may be proper for a defendant to have multiple theories of the crime, Defendant, in order to preserve an argument for appeal, must alert the trial court as to which theory is at issue in order to allow the trial court to rule on the objection. On appeal, Defendant argues that Beckley's motive to lie to Lausell arose from an initial motive to keep him from leaving her, and Lausell's testimony was therefore inadmissible under the premotive requirement discussed in Tome and Casaus. Defendant did not present this argument to the trial court when defense counsel objected to Lausell's testimony, and because of the multiple motives alleged by defense counsel, the trial court could not have assumed which motive to lie defense counsel was referring to when he objected to Lausell's testimony merely as hearsay. Defense counsel maintained throughout the trial that Lausell was actually the murderer in this case; it is paradoxical for Beckley to lie to Lausell in order to keep him by telling him she committed these crimes with Defendant if, in fact, she committed the crimes with Lausell. She would not reasonably tell her accomplice that she committed these very crimes with another person. Thus, if Defendant wanted to assert a new motive and theory of Beckley's statements to Lausell, that Lausell was not involved with the crimes and therefore knew nothing about them and that Beckley was lying to Lausell in order to impress him, he had to inform the trial court of this theory in order to fairly invoke a ruling by the court. As discussed further below, the trial court had instead been repeatedly presented with Defendant's theory that Lausell himself committed the crimes. {28} A trial is first and foremost to resolve a complaint in controversy, and the rule [of preservation] recognizes that a trial court can be expected to decide only the case presented under issues fairly invoked. State v. Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, ¶ 14, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1; accord Rule 12-216(A) NMRA 2000 (establishing that in order for an appealing party to preserve a question for review it must appear that a ruling or decision by the district court was fairly invoked). We require parties to assert the legal principle upon which their claims are based and to develop the facts in the trial court primarily for two reasons: (1) to alert the trial court to a claim of error so that it has an opportunity to correct any mistake, and (2) to give the opposing party a fair opportunity to respond and show why the court should rule against the objector. Gomez, 1997-NMSC-006, ¶ 29, 122 N.M. 777, 932 P.2d 1. [I]t is the responsibility of counsel at trial to elicit a definitive ruling on an objection from the court. It is also trial counsel's duty to state the objections so that the trial court may rule intelligently on them and so that an appellate court does not have to guess at what was and what was not an issue at trial. State v. Lucero, 116 N.M. 450, 453, 863 P.2d 1071, 1074 (1993). {29} Because Defendant failed to properly preserve this issue and instead is introducing a new argument on appeal, we review this claim for fundamental error. Cf. State v. Chamberlain, 112 N.M. 723, 730, 819 P.2d 673, 680 (1991) (Failure to make a timely objection to alleged improper argument bars review on appeal, unless the impropriety constitutes fundamental error.). We first determine whether the trial court erred in admitting Lausell's testimony under the arguments Defendant made at trial.