Court Opinion

ID: 9793264
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:45:26.192849+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:04:14.226862
License: Public Domain

HARTZ, Judge (specially concurring). I concur in the result and in all of Judge Pickard’s opinion except for Section 2C, entitled “Conspiracy convictions.” In my view it is not necessary for us to determine whether the evidence would permit a finding that Defendant entered into four distinct agreements — one for each check. Even if there were four such agreements, Defendant could be convicted of only one conspiracy because the four forgeries would be the object of a “continuous conspiratorial relationship.” This conclusion follows once one “identif[ies] the appropriate unit of prosecution.” Herron v. State, 111 N.M. 357, 359, 805 P.2d 624, 626 (1991). Herron held that the New Mexico criminal-sexual-penetration statute, NMSA 1978, § 30-9-11, did not necessarily “punish separately each penetration occurring during a continuous attack,” id. at 361, 805 P.2d at 628, even though each penetration, viewed in isolation, would constitute a violation of the statute. Whether two penetrations constitute distinct offenses depends on such factors as the temporal proximity of the penetrations, the location of the victim during each penetration, the existence of an intervening event, the sequencing of penetrations, the defendant’s intent, and the number of victims. Id. State v. Mares, 112 N.M. 193, 812 P.2d 1341 (Ct.App.1991), followed Herron and held that even though the defendant had choked and hit the victim several times, there was only one battery. These decisions raise the question whether several closely related agreements constitute only one prosecutable conspiracy, even though each agreement viewed in isolation would constitute the offense. Model Penal Code Section 5.03 (Official Draft & Revised Comments 1985) provides helpful guidance. Subsection 5.03(3) states: Conspiracy with Multiple Criminal Objectives. If a person conspires to commit a number of crimes, he is guilty of only one conspiracy so long as such multiple crimes are the object of the same agreement or continuous conspiratorial relationship. The comment to the section claims, “The rule embodied in Subsection (3) reflects previously prevailing doctrine.” Id. at 435. This claim is certainly true with respect to multiple crimes that are the object of the same agreement. Indeed, that is the law in New Mexico, as set forth in State v. Ross, 86 N.M. 212, 214-15, 521 P.2d 1161, 1163-64 (Ct.App.1974), which the comment cites in support of the above-quoted statement. But the comment seems to stretch matters a bit when it claims that the prevailing doctrine had been that a person who conspires to commit a number of crimes is guilty of only one conspiracy if the multiple crimes are the object of the same “continuous conspiratorial relationship.” Courts have not explicitly adopted the “continuous conspiratorial relationship” test. But see People v. Bolla, 114 Ill.App.3d 442, 70 Ill.Dec. 118, 124, 448 N.E.2d 996, 1002 (1983). Nevertheless, the Model Penal Code formulation appears to capture what courts have done, if not what they have said. A number of courts have adopted multi-factor tests to determine whether the evidence establishes multiple conspiracies or a single conspiracy. United States v. Ragins, 840 F.2d 1184, 1189 (4th Cir.1988), considered the degree of overlap in the time periods covered by the alleged conspiracies, the places where the conspiracies allegedly occurred, the persons charged as co-conspirators, the nature and scope of the activities being prosecuted, and the substantive statutes allegedly violated. Although the issue in Ragins was whether double-jeopardy doctrine barred a second prosecution, an issue that raises somewhat different considerations from those pertinent to whether the evidence in a single prosecution can justify convictions for multiple conspiracies, a multi-factor approach has also been adopted in the latter context. See Sharp v. State, 569 N.E.2d 962, 969-70 (Ind.Ct.App. 1991) (factors include nature of the criminal scheme, overlapping participants, proximity in time, and the frequency, quality, and duration of the co-conspirators’ involvement in each crime); Commonwealth v. Cerveny, 387 Mass. 280, 439 N.E.2d 754, 758-59 (1982) (notes identity of the parties, objectives, and means); State v. Kamienski, 254 N.J.Super. 75, 603 A.2d 78, 98 (App.Div.1992) (looks at time, place, objective, and relationship between conspiracies); State v. Wilson, 106 N.C.App. 342, 416 S.E.2d 603, 605 (1992) (considers nature of the agreements, time intervals, participants, objectives, and number of meetings); Commonwealth v. Savage, 388 Pa.Super. 561, 566 A.2d 272, 278-81 (1989) (considers number of overt acts in common, overlap in personnel, time period, similarity in methods of operation, location of the alleged acts, extent of shared objectives, and degree of interdependence). The courts in these cases may speak in terms of deciding whether there is a single agreement, but the multi-factor approach is probably better understood as a means of determining whether there was a “continuous conspiratorial relationship.” For example, when the evidence shows repeated burglaries by the same participants in the same neighborhood over a limited period of time, there may well have been specific separate agreements with respect to each burglary. If the conclusion of the multifactor approach in such circumstances is that there was only one conspiracy, this is not because there must necessarily have been an original agreement to engage in all the burglaries; rather, the conclusion derives from the implicit view that for purposes of punishment it is proper to consider the arrangement as a single conspiracy even if there were additional agreements as the project continued. Thus, courts say that a single conspiracy may mature and expand as more conspirators and objectives are added. See Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U.S. 539, 556, 68 S.Ct. 248, 256, 92 L.Ed. 154 (1947). The notions of maturation and expansion make more sense as descriptions of a continuous conspiratorial relationship than as descriptions of a specific agreement. In other words, when one speaks of an agreement as maturing or expanding, the word “agreement” is being used to mean a type of “relationship.” One dictionary provides as the first two definitions of “agreement”: “1. act of agreeing or coming to a mutual agreement; state of being in accord. 2. the arrangement itself.” The Random House Dictionary of the English Language 29 (1971). For clarity of analysis it is essential to distinguish between (1) the act of coming to an agreement — which constitutes the offense — and (2) the arrangement (or relationship) — which fixes the unit of punishment. The comment to Model Penal Code Section 5.03 criticizes the effort to determine “whether different objectives executed over a period of time were implicit in the same ‘agreement.’ ” Model Penal Code at 439. As the comment states: Insofar as this requires inquiry into the precise time at which each objective was conceived, it is unrealistic and serves no useful purpose; indeed a finding of separately punishable conspiracies if the objectives were conceived at different times “tends to place a premium upon foresight in crime.” The courts generally avoid such inquiries and results by finding that the original agreement subsequently came to “embrace” additional objects. The Code provision avoids them more directly by its alternative test of whether all the crimes were the object of the same “continuous conspiratorial relationship.” This criterion focuses on the more significant question whether there was a single and continuous association for criminal purposes. Id. (footnote omitted). I agree that the critical issue is “whether there was a single and continuous association for criminal purposes.” This approach makes sense as policy and appears to account for the results generally reached by the courts. Moreover, this approach conforms to the language of the New Mexico conspiracy statute, NMSA 1978, § 30-28-2 (Repl.Pamp.1984), which states, “Conspiracy consists of knowingly combining with another for the purpose of committing a felony within or without this state.” I would not unduly emphasize the specific words of our statute, because New Mexico courts have freely relied on the conspiracy decisions of other jurisdictions without reference to the statutory language in those jurisdictions. E.g., Ross (relying on Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 63 S.Ct. 99, 87 L.Ed. 23 (1942)). Yet our statutory language “combining with another” lends itself to a construction that one offense arises from one “combination” and a “combination” is a “continuous conspiratorial relationship.” Therefore, I would adopt Model Penal Code Subsection 5.03(3) as an expression of the law of New Mexico. Applying the law to the present case, the verdicts establish that the jury found that Defendant stole four checks on one occasion and had them delivered (on one or multiple occasions) to Alvarez for the purpose of forging them. Even if there were four separate transactions and perhaps four separate “agreements,” the similarity in the location, actions, and participants, and the short time frame in which the offenses were committed, requires a determination that the agreements were part of a “continuous conspiratorial relationship.” (I need not reach whether this is a jury question, although I doubt that it is.) For that reason I would hold that only one conviction of conspiracy can stand.