Court Opinion

ID: 9930777
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-07 17:08:30.884399+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T11:25:22.121007
License: Public Domain

This decision of the New Mexico Court of Appeals was not selected for publication in
the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Refer to Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the
citation of unpublished decisions. Electronic decisions may contain computer-
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          IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

No. A-1-CA-40473

STATE OF NEW MEXICO,

      Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

PHILLIP JONES,

      Defendant-Appellant.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF DOÑA ANA COUNTY
Richard M. Jacquez, District Court Judge

Raúl Torrez, Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM
Jonathan D. Gardner, Assistant Attorney General
Albuquerque, NM

for Appellee

Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender
Thomas J. Lewis, Assistant Appellate Defender
Santa Fe, NM

for Appellant

                              MEMORANDUM OPINION

DUFFY, Judge.

{1}    Defendant was charged with one count of failure to register as a sex offender,
contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 29-11A-5 (2007), based on a prior conviction in the
State of Louisiana for indecent behavior with juveniles. Defendant filed a motion to
dismiss, arguing that the elements of the Louisiana offense are not precisely the same
as the elements of any New Mexico sex offense, and the State had not provided any
information concerning the conduct underlying the Louisiana conviction. After a hearing,
the district court denied Defendant’s motion. We reverse based on the State’s failure to
establish that Defendant’s Louisiana conviction is equivalent to an offense that would
require Defendant to register as a sex offender in New Mexico.

BACKGROUND

{2}    The circumstances at issue in this case mirror a 2013 New Mexico Supreme
Court case, State v. Hall, 2013-NMSC-001, 294 P.3d 1235, and we begin with a brief
discussion of Hall as it provides the framework for our review.

{3}      In Hall, the defendant was convicted of a sex crime in California and later moved
to New Mexico, where he was charged with failure to register as a sex offender under
the New Mexico Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), NMSA 1978,
§§ 29-11A-1 to -10 (1995, as amended through 2013). Hall, 2013-NMSC-001, ¶ 1.
SORNA requires a person to register as a sex offender if they have been convicted of
“any of twelve enumerated New Mexico offenses or their equivalents in any other
jurisdiction.” Id. ¶ 6 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted); see § 29-11A-3(H),
(I). At issue in Hall was how to determine what constitutes an equivalent offense in
another jurisdiction. 2013-NMSC-001, ¶ 1. The Court held that “[w]hen the elements of
the out-of-state sex offense are precisely the same elements of a New Mexico sex
offense, the inquiry is at an end.” Id. ¶ 18. But, “when the elements are dissimilar, courts
should consider the defendant’s underlying conduct to determine whether the
defendant’s conduct would have required registration in New Mexico.” Id. To make this
determination, New Mexico courts may consider “facts that were found by a jury beyond
a reasonable doubt, or the equivalent.” Id. ¶ 23.

{4}     Turning to the case at hand, Defendant was previously convicted of the crime of
indecent behavior with juveniles in Louisiana in 2007. In 2021, the State charged
Defendant with one count of failure to register as a sex offender, a fourth degree felony.
See § 29-11A-4(P). Defendant filed a motion to dismiss, arguing as a matter of law that
the State had not established that Defendant was previously convicted of an equivalent
offense that would subject him to SORNA’s registration requirements. See State v.
Foulenfont, 1995-NMCA-028, ¶ 6, 119 N.M. 788, 895 P.2d 1329 (stating that the district
court has authority to decide a purely legal issue raised in a motion by the defendant
before trial). The State’s written response to Defendant’s motion to dismiss argued only
that Defendant had previously pleaded guilty to another failure to register charge in a
2017 New Mexico case. The State attached as exhibits to its response Defendant’s
guilty plea and the judgment and sentence from the 2017 case.

{5}     At the evidentiary hearing on Defendant’s motion, the State presented testimony
from Catherine Garcia, the Special Programs Supervisor with the Department of Public
Safety (DPS). Ms. Garcia testified generally regarding her duties, her training and
experience, her familiarity with the process of determining whether an out-of-state
conviction was equivalent in general (a process known as “translation”), and her work
on Defendant’s translation. Ms. Garcia stated that before charging Defendant with
failure to register as a sex offender based on an out-of-state conviction, DPS first
considered whether the out-of-state conviction is equivalent to any New Mexico crime
requiring registration. She testified that when making Defendant’s translation, she
reviewed the judgment and sentence, police report, and case law from Louisiana,
though Ms. Garcia was not questioned about the substance of those documents, and
they were not entered into evidence or made part of the record. Ms. Garcia also testified
that her initial translation of Defendant’s out-of-state conviction was that it was
equivalent to criminal sexual contact of a minor in the second degree, but later
downgraded the translation to criminal sexual contact in the fourth degree. See NMSA
1978, § 30-9-13(B), (D) (2003) (stating what conduct constitutes criminal sexual contact
of a minor in the second and fourth degrees, respectively).

{6}   At the conclusion of the hearing, the district court denied Defendant’s motion to
dismiss the case, orally ruling that Defendant’s previous out-of-state conviction had
been properly translated to a violation of New Mexico law. Defendant later entered into
a conditional plea agreement that reserved his right to appeal the denial of his motion to
dismiss.

DISCUSSION

{7}     On appeal, Defendant argues, and the State concedes, that the elements of the
offenses are not the same; therefore, equivalency in this case turns on whether the
conduct underlying Defendant’s Louisiana conviction would constitute a violation of one
of the twelve enumerated SORNA offenses. “What constitutes an equivalent offense
under SORNA involves a question of statutory interpretation,” which is an issue of law
that we review de novo. State v. Winn, 2019-NMCA-011, ¶ 10, 435 P.3d 1247
(alteration, internal quotation marks, and citation omitted); see also UJI 14-991 NMRA
use note 1 (indicating that threshold questions of law, such as whether the sex offense
was a registerable offense, must be determined before the jury may be instructed on the
elements of failure to register as a sex offender). Because we cannot state categorically
that Defendant’s out-of-state conviction is equivalent to a registrable offense based on a
pure elements analysis, “the State must produce evidence to demonstrate that the
offenses are equivalent.” See Hall, 2013-NMSC-001, ¶ 28.

{8}      Defendant argues the State failed to produce evidence showing that the conduct
resulting in his out-of-state conviction would have resulted in a registerable offense in
New Mexico, as required by Hall. The State responds that the district court “had before
it the type of information” our Supreme Court directed trial courts to consider in Hall.
The State points to Ms. Garcia’s testimony, noting that “[s]he testified that the judgment
and sentence, Louisiana case law, and a police report indicated that Defendant had
committed an offense that would have been registrable in New Mexico if it had been
committed here.” The State concludes that the information reviewed by Ms. Garcia “is
exactly the type of information Hall directs trial courts to consider.”

{9}     The problem in this case is that this information was never presented to the
district court. While Ms. Garcia identified the documents she reviewed and gave her
assessment of equivalency, Hall requires the district court to make that determination
based on evidence in the record establishing a factual basis for the out-of-state
conviction. See 2013-NMSC-001, ¶ 22 (“A New Mexico court should consider the facts
stated in such documents when determining whether the conduct underlying the
[conviction] would have constituted a violation of one of the twelve enumerated SORNA
offenses that require sex offender registration.”). In this case, the district court was
presented with nothing more than an unsubstantiated opinion regarding equivalency,
and this is insufficient under Hall. See Winn, 2019-NMCA-011, ¶ 22 (stating that the
district court erred in considering inadmissible hearsay evidence when determining the
actual conduct underlying the defendant’s out-of-state conviction).

{10} The State argues that its failure to present evidence in response to Defendant’s
Foulenfont motion was not fatal because it needed only to assert that such evidence is
available and produce it at a later stage. The State appears to misunderstand that the
issue of equivalency is a legal issue and that it was the State’s burden to produce
evidence to demonstrate that the offenses are equivalent. See Hall, 2013-NMSC-001,
¶¶ 9, 28. We recognize that in Hall and in State v. Orr, 2013-NMCA-069, 304 P.3d 449,
the appellate courts determined that the record on appeal did not contain sufficient facts
regarding the underlying conduct and remanded to the district court for further
proceedings. See Hall, 2013-NMSC-001, ¶¶ 26, 28, 30; Orr, 2013-NMCA-069, ¶ 13. In
both of those cases, however, the initial district court decisions were made before the
Supreme Court set forth the framework for determining equivalency, and the state was
given an opportunity on remand to present evidence based on the standard articulated
in Hall. After Hall, we have held the state to its burden and have evaluated the district
court’s equivalency decision based on the evidence presented in response to the
defendant’s motion to dismiss. See Winn, 2019-NMCA-011, ¶¶ 24, 26 (reversing the
district court’s determination that the defendant’s out-of-state conviction required
registration pursuant to SORNA because the state’s evidence failed to show that the
defendant’s actual conduct would have required registration had it occurred in New
Mexico). It has been more than a decade since Hall established what is required to
show equivalency in response to a defendant’s pretrial motion to dismiss. Just as in
Winn, our evaluation of the district court’s equivalency determination is based on the
record before the district court, and for the reasons set forth above, we conclude the
State has not met its burden to demonstrate the offenses are equivalent.

{11} Finally, the State argues that the district court can be affirmed as right for any
reason because Defendant previously pleaded guilty to failure to register as a sex
offender in New Mexico. However, we must reject this argument for largely the same
reason. The documents in the record before us consists of the plea agreement and the
judgment and sentence entered in the 2017 case. Neither of these documents state
what underlying offense Defendant committed that required him to register under
SORNA, and the documents are silent as to the nature of Defendant’s conduct
underlying the offense. We cannot assume that the earlier failure to register charge was
based on Defendant’s Louisiana conviction, nor can we assume that a prior failure to
register conviction means that Defendant is guilty of failing to register in this case. As
Defendant points out, not all offenses require lifetime registration; some require
registration only for ten years. See § 29-11A-4(L)(3). Without additional details
regarding the previous offense, Defendant’s 2017 guilty plea is not conclusive in this
case.

CONCLUSION

{12} The judgment and sentence is reversed, and this case is remanded to the district
court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

{13}   IT IS SO ORDERED.

MEGAN P. DUFFY, Judge

WE CONCUR:

KRISTINA BOGARDUS, Judge

JACQUELINE R. MEDINA, Judge