Court Opinion

ID: 9845432
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 03:21:44.460793+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:16:07.389073
License: Public Domain

HENDLEY, Judge (dissenting). I dissent from that portion of the majority opinion holding that materiality is a question of law upon which the jury need not be instructed. As the majority opinion states, it is an element of the offense of perjury that the false statement be material to the matter involved. This has been expressly provided by the Legislature. § 30-25-1, N.M.S.A. 1978. It has also been the rule in New Mexico since territorial days when the statute contained no explicit requirement of materiality. Territory of New Mexico v. Weller, 2 N.M. 470 (1883). What the majority has done is, quite simply, to write the requirement of materiality out of the statute. Lillich, “The Element of Materiality in the Federal Crime of Perjury,” 35 Ind. L.J. 1 (1959). This is contrary to the rule, which we are bound to follow, that legislation is to be given effect as written. State v. Russell, 94 N.M. 544, 612 P.2d 1355 (Ct.App.1980). The majority bases its opinion on the overwhelming weight of authority. In reading the authorities cited by the majority, as well as the numerous other cases to a like effect, I am struck by the singular lack of any reasoned basis for holding that materiality should be a question of law. It appears that the rule that materiality is a matter of law on which the jury need not be instructed grew out of a thoughtless superimposition of the judge’s role in admitting or excluding evidence onto the elements of a substantive crime. See, Regina v. Edward Gibbon, 169 Eng.Rpts. 1324 (1861), and A.L.I., Model Penal Code and Commentaries, § 241.1 at p. 125 (1980). However, Mr. Lillich points out, supra, and as is expressly held in People v. Clemente, 285 App.Div. 258, 136 N.Y.S.2d 202 (1954), the concept of materiality in perjury law is something different than materiality in the evidentiary sense. Perhaps the rule adopted by the majority was not quite so offensive in the days before jury trials were demandable as of right on a great number of issues or before due process of law required proof beyond a reasonable doubt on each essential element of the crime charged. But now, I am most persuaded by the reasoning of Commonwealth v. McDuffee, 379 Mass. 353, 398 N.E.2d 463 (1979), which is to the effect that recent expansion of constitutional rights requires a jury determination of the element of materiality in perjury. In my view, the only reasons to make materiality a matter of law are for ease in administration and because we think that somehow the jury will have difficulty grappling with such a complex concept. I see this reasoning as beginning a dangerous trend, which, if carried to its logical conclusion, will only have the jury instructed on one element for every crime: he [or she] did it. If the Legislature had wanted false swearing under oath to be punishable as perjury, it would not have burdened the statute with the additional requirement of materiality. The majority opinion holding otherwise, I respectfully dissent.