Court Opinion

ID: 9625872
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 07:53:36.450988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:06:16.258490
License: Public Domain

McGHEE, Justice (dissenting in part). Although the defendant’s attorney did not sense the vice in instruction No. 10, and consented, that it might be given in lieu of his requested instruction No. 1, I am unable to concur in the majority opinion. The defendant admitted the act of intercourse and defendant on the ground the prosecutrix had given her consent. Under the record in this case such defense was debatable. Even with instruction No. 10, it took some time for the jury to reach a verdict. In State v. Garcia, 46 N.M. 302, 128 P.2d 459, 462, Mr. Justice Zinn said: “Error that is fundamental must be such error as goes to the foundation or basis of a defendant’s rights or must go to the foundation of the case or take from the defendant a right which was essential to his defense and which no court could or ought to permit him to waive. Each case will of necessity, under such a rule, stand on its own merits. Out of the facts in each case will arise the law. Also, there may be such a case, as the Garcia case, supra (19 N.M. 414, 420, 143 P. 1012), which would so shock the conscience of the court as to call for a reversal. When such a case is presented the court on its own motion would cut through all rules of appellate practice and procedure to insure justice.” We are not advised as to the parentage of this flagrantly erroneous instruction which told the jury that the defendant had to establish his defense of consent by the evidence beyond a reasonable doubt. Surely it was not taken from a form book or any reported case, and I cannot believe that the trial judge appreciated its effect when he gave it with the other instructions. This was the only instruction in which an attempt was made to cover the defendant’s theory of the case, and its effect must have been devastating on his defense. This instruction so shocks my conscience that I favor cutting through our rules of appellate practice and procedure, reversing the case and giving this defendant a fair chance to obtain his liberty at another trial. I dissent.