Court Opinion

ID: 9570149
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 20:20:29.832958+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:05:02.067643
License: Public Domain

RANSOM, Justice (specially concurring in opinion on rehearing). I agree with the language cited from Farmer’s State Bank v. Clayton Nat’l Bank, but I also agree that under the technical circumstances of that case the Court was not “endangering the orderly and expeditious administration of the law by refusing * * * to apply the doctrine of the law of the case.” 31 N.M. at 356, 245 P. at 548. Justice Watson, who authored that opinion, was careful in a later opinion to note that it is not only the part of wisdom, but a high duty, to pursue a consistent course when what is held to be the law of the case is not “clearly erroneous.” Sanchez v. Torres, 38 N.M. 556, 567, 37 P.2d 805, 812 (1934). This “clearly erroneous” exception is well stated in words quoted herein by Senior Justice Sosa: “[T]he doctrine should not be utilized to accomplish an obvious injustice, or applied where the former appellate decision was clearly, palpably or manifestly erroneous or unjust.” Another concern is that this Court's composition has altered since it decided Rutledge. Dissenting in Pollock v. Farmers’ Loan & Trust Co., 157 U.S. 429, 652, 15 S.Ct. 673, 716, 39 L.Ed. 759 (1895), Justice White observed that the fundamental conception of a judicial body is that of one hedged about by precedents which are binding on the court without regard to the personality of its members. He argued eloquently that no court should indifferently depart from the settled conclusions of its predecessors and determine them all according to the mere opinion of those who temporarily fill the bench. With these principles well in mind, I conclude that the precedential value of the Rutledge opinion is minimized by the fact that it was only recently decided by a divided court on a vote of three to two, and that its reliance on Feola [420 U.S. 671, 95 S.Ct. 1255, 43 L.Ed.2d 541 (1975)] was misplaced. I am persuaded that manifest injustice would result if conviction were to be allowed without proof negating an honest and reasonable belief that the victim of defendant’s assault was an ordinary citizen, not acting under color of law.