Court Opinion

ID: 9787195
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 00:12:25.067528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:36:53.325464
License: Public Domain

SERNA, Justice (dissenting). {16} I respectfully dissent. This case involves a petition for writ of habeas corpus and whether Earnest’s incarceration violates his federal constitutional rights, specifically his right of confrontation under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. The United States Supreme Court has explained that “it is ‘sounder, in adjudicating habeas petitions, generally to apply the law prevailing at the time a conviction became final than it is to seek to dispose of [habeas] cases on the basis of intervening changes in constitutional interpretation.’ ” Teague v. Lane, 489 U.S. 288, 306, 109 S.Ct. 1060, 103 L.Ed.2d 334 (1989) (quoting Mackey v. United States, 401 U.S. 667, 689, 91 S.Ct. 1160, 28 L.Ed.2d 404 (1971) (Harlan, J., dissenting in part)) (alteration in original). “Habeas corpus always has been a collateral remedy, providing an avenue for upsetting judgments that have become otherwise final. It is not designed as a substitute for direct review. The interest in leaving concluded litigation in a state of repose, that is, reducing the controversy to a final judgment not subject to further judicial revision, may quite legitimately be found by those responsible for defining the scope of the writ to outweigh in some, many, or most instances the competing interest in readjudicating convictions according to all legal standards in effect when a habeas petition is filed.” Id. (quoting Mackey, 401 U.S. at 682-83, 91 S.Ct. 1160 (Harlan, J., dissenting in part)). The writ is not designed “simply to review the record for errors of the trial court; rather, habeas corpus inquiry is directed to the fairness of the entire proceeding, and a writ will lie when violations of the petitioner’s constitutional rights rendered the judgment void by depriving the court of its jurisdiction.” Manlove v. Sullivan, 108 N.M. 471, 476 n. 3, 775 P.2d 237, 242 n. 3 (1989) (citation omitted). {17} The majority, relying on State v. Ulibarri, 1999-NMCA-142, ¶ 22, 128 N.M. 546, 994 P.2d 1164, aff'd, 2000-NMSC-007, 128 N.M. 686, 997 P.2d 818, appears to treat the question in this case as whether, in the exercise of this Court’s “inherent power,” we should give retroactive effect to Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 124 S.Ct. 1354, 158 L.Ed.2d 177 (2004). I respectfully disagree. This case involves an analysis of federal constitutional law, not, as in Ulibarri, state constitutional law. While it is within this Court’s discretion to make our own rulings prospective or retroactive, it is within the discretion of the Supreme Court, and not the courts of New Mexico, to make the Court’s interpretation of the Sixth Amendment in Crawford retroactive. I recognize that the majority limits its retroactive application of Crawford to the specific facts of this case and to this one habeas petitioner. Nevertheless, even for this one petitioner’s claim of a violation of his federal constitutional rights, I believe we must defer to the Supreme Court’s retroactivity analysis. This Court has not adopted the analysis in Crawford as a matter of independent state constitutional law. In resolving a federal constitutional claim, we are bound by Crawford as a matter of federal supremacy; the fact that we have done what is required of us and applied Crawford in our own cases does not transform the matter into an issue of state law or invest this Court with discretion over Crawford’s retroactivity. {18} The Supreme Court has stated that “[u]nless they fall within an exception to the general rule, new constitutional rules of criminal procedure will not be applicable to those cases which have become final before the new rules are announced.” Teague, 489 U.S. at 310, 109 S.Ct. 1060. “Application of constitutional rules not in existence at the time a conviction became final seriously undermines the principle of finality which is essential to the operation of our criminal justice system.” Id. at 309, 109 S.Ct. 1060. New rules of procedure ... generally do not apply retroactively. They do not produce a class of persons convicted of conduct the law does not make criminal, but merely raise the possibility that someone convicted with use of the invalidated procedure might have been acquitted otherwise. Because of this more speculative connection to innocence, we give retroactive effect to only a small set of “ ‘watershed rules of criminal procedure’ implicating the fundamental fairness and accuracy of the criminal proceeding.” Schriro v. Summerlin, 542 U.S. 348, 124 S.Ct. 2519, 2523, 159 L.Ed.2d 442 (2004) (quoted authority omitted). {19} Under this analysis, federal and state courts have overwhelmingly concluded that Crawford is not retroactive because, under Teague, it creates a new rule of law and does not fall within the limited exceptions to prospectivity. Murillo v. Frank, 402 F.3d 786, 790 (7th Cir.2005); Dorchy v. Jones, 398 F.3d 783, 788 (6th Cir.2005); Brown v. Uphoff, 381 F.3d 1219, 1227 (10th Cir.2004), cert. denied sub nom. Brown v. Lampert, 543 U.S. 1079, 125 S.Ct. 940, 160 L.Ed.2d 822 (2005); Mungo v. Duncan, 393 F.3d 327, 336 (2d Cir.2004), cert. denied sub nom. Mungo v. Greene, 544 U.S. 1002, 125 S.Ct. 1936, 161 L.Ed.2d 778 (2005); Evans v. Luebbers, 371 F.3d 438, 444 (8th Cir.2004) (en banc) (“[T]he Crawford Court did not suggest that this doctrine would apply retroactively and the doctrine itself does not appear to fall within either of the two narrow exceptions to Teague v. Lane’s non-retroactivity doctrine.”), cert. denied sub nom. Evans v. Roper, 543 U.S. 1067, 125 S.Ct. 902, 160 L.Ed.2d 800 (2005); People v. Edwards, 101 P.3d 1118, 1123 (Colo.Ct.App.), cert. granted, No. 04SC565, 2004 WL 2784662 (Colo.2004); State v. Tarver, 2005-0hio-3119, 2005 WL 1463240, at *3 (Ohio Ct.App. June 20, 2005); In re Markel, 154 Wash.2d 262, 111 P.3d 249, 254 (2005) (en banc). It is obvious to us ... that Crawford establishes a new rule. It discards the framework that Roberts had adopted. True enough, ... Crawford did not say that it was overruling Roberts; it emphasized that the declarant in Roberts had been subject to cross-examination. But it assuredly (and explicitly) jettisoned the Roberts standard. All of the Supreme Court’s decisions between Roberts and Crawford had applied that understanding, though some of the Justices had questioned whether it should be maintained .... A rule is “new” for retroactivity analysis unless it was dictated by earlier decisions. Crawford was not “dictated” by Roberts or Lilly [v. Virginia, 527 U.S. 116, 119 S.Ct. 1887, 144 L.Ed.2d 117 (1999)]; it broke from them. That the break takes the form of a return to an older, less flexible but historically better grounded approach does not make it less a break. All constitutional decisions find their ultimate basis in texts adopted long ago — here in the Bill of Rights (1791) and their application to the states via the fourteenth amendment (1868). Judicial rhetoric routinely invokes older norms. This does not mean that there has been no “new rule” of constitutional criminal procedure since 1868. Murillo, 402 F.3d at 790 (citations omitted). {20} For purposes of Earnest’s habeas petition, we apply the law prevailing at the time his conviction became final. Despite the majority’s inclination to apply our analysis from Earnest I, Earnest’s conviction was not final at that time; his case was still on direct review when we decided Earnest III. As a result, it is the law applied in Earnest III that is relevant. Because this Court was under a Supreme Court mandate to apply the analysis from Lee v. Illinois, 476 U.S. 530, 106 S.Ct. 2056, 90 L.Ed.2d 514 (1986), rather than Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965), I believe that our application of the law existing at the time could not be said to be unreasonable or in violation of Earnest’s federal constitutional rights. Based on my conclusion that Crawford creates a new rule, which does not apply to Earnest’s collateral attack on his conviction, his current incarceration also does not violate the federal Constitution. As a result, despite Crawford’s change in the law, Earnest’s incarceration is not illegal or unconstitutional within the meaning of Rule 5-802 NMRA 2005, and I believe there are no grounds for issuing the writ of habeas corpus.