Court Opinion

ID: 9601747
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:49:37.575843+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:47:22.788957
License: Public Domain

SUTIN, Judge (concurring in part and dissenting in part). I concur in the reversal and dissent for failure to discharge defendant. David DeRuyver, now 20 years of age, rests comfortably in the State Penitentiary. He comes from a broken home. He attended school through the tenth grade. He enlisted in the military under the assumed name of his deceased brother who died in infancy, went AWOL, but decided to re-enlist. He had to do so under a different name. He reviewed newspapers of 1958, the year of his birth, and found the name of an infant who had died that year — “John R. Cook.” David obtained the infant’s birth certificate for purposes of re-enlisting in the military. He entered the military and obtained an identification card in the name of “John R. Cook,” then “left” or “deserted” the military. He married and fathered two children. David learned the art of issuing worthless checks. He was indicted on ten counts stated in the alternative — issuing checks with insufficient funds, or in the alternative, forgery. The State and David presented testimony to the jury on both issuing worthless checks and forgery. Thereafter, the State elected to send the forgery charges alone to the jury. The charges of issuing worthless checks were dismissed. David was found guilty of all ten forgery charges. The trial court entered severe consecutive sentences which would have kept David imprisoned for many years. Upon motion made, the sentence was lightened to shorter consecutive sentences. It is obvious that if David serves a number of years in the penitentiary, he will emerge as a confirmed criminal. He will so serve anyway. For unknown reasons, David obtained “joinder of Criminal Cause No. 30167 which involves violent offenses.” He was convicted and sentenced concurrently with the forgery sentence. To me, the trial court should have denied consolidation. The record of the Criminal Cause No. 30167 does not appear. In my dissent in State v. Helker, 88 N.M. 650, 655, 545 P.2d 1028, 1033 (Ct.App.1975), I said: Helker is 19 years of age. He received three consecutive sentences in the State Penitentiary. * * * His life, as well as his liberty, are subject to the rack and the stake. We do not know what factors caused his departure from normal life. Was it his environment? His family? His schools? His church? His society? David needs rehabilitation, not prison. Judges and lay persons shout: “Throw him in the penitentiary! Let him rot there!” — except, of course when it is their own son. The slow but sure decay of family life has cast thousands of children in the penitentiary, a relic of the middle ages. The news media and society have the freedom to continue to harass these comments of an appellate judge, but I shall continue to blame David’s family and society for his imprisonment. When we sit in judgment in the last quarter of the 20th century, we should seek rehabilitation of youngsters, not the destruction of their spirits and desire to move into the flow of a good society. The Supreme Court in its infinite wisdom will deny publication of this opinion. For additional authorships that hold David free from forgery, see, People v. Hodgins, 85 Mich.App. 62, 270 N.W.2d 527 (1978); Winston v. Warden, Nevada State Prison, 86 Nev. 33, 464 P.2d 30 (1970); Dunlap v. State, 169 Tex.Cr.R. 198, 332 S.W.2d 727 (1960). A. Double jeopardy prevents retrial on issuing worthless checks. The majority opinion remains silent on the issue of double jeopardy. The district attorney, having misplayed, the record of the trial, may seek to play the record a second time. Upon the impaneling of the jury, double jeopardy attached. State v. Mazurek, 88 N.M. 56, 537 P.2d 51 (Ct.App.1975). David’s right not to be put in jeopardy twice for the same offense is constitutionally protected. State v. Spillmon, 89 N.M. 406, 553 P.2d 686 (1976); State v. Sedillo, 88 N.M. 240, 539 P.2d 630 (Ct.App.1975). David must be discharged.