Court Opinion

ID: 9607812
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 03:02:14.550376+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:02:40.698188
License: Public Domain

WALTERS, Justice (specially concurring). I concur in the result, but do so on the basis of defendant’s constitutional right of presence at every stage of the trial, not merely upon the implied right granted under Crim.P.Rule 43(d). Rules may be altered, amended, reinterpreted, or withdrawn; constitutional protections are of sturdier stuff. The “constitutional dimension” of the issue which the majority purportedly deems unnecessary “to reach,” has already been decided in this jurisdiction and should not be ignored and overlooked. Although, as the majority notes, even constitutional rights may be waived, New Mexico has long recognized the right of presence as a constitutional right. We have, by reason of Supreme Court decisions (e.g., Pointer v. Texas, 380 U.S. 400, 85 S.Ct. 1065, 13 L.Ed.2d 923 (1965); Diaz v. United States, 223 U.S. 442, 32 S.Ct. 250, 56 L.Ed. 500 (1912)), modified our early and intractable position that [i]n felonies, it is not in the province of the prisoner, either by himself or by his counsel, to waive the right to be personally present during the trial. Territory v. Lopez, 3 N.M. 156, 164, 2 P. 364, 367 (1884). We acknowledged, in State v. Corriz, 86 N.M. 246, 522 P.2d 793 (1974), that a defendant’s constitutional right to be present may be voluntarily waived, and that by disruptive conduct a defendant may lose his right to be present by bringing himself into the single exception to non-voluntary waiver enunciated in Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). Consequently, unless the defendant voluntarily elects to absent himself, or is excluded from the courtroom by reason of “disruptive, contumacious, or stubbornly defiant” conduct, (Corriz, at 247, 522 P.2d at 794), his right to be present is a constitutional right that may not be waived by the attorney who acts without defendant’s express consent. SOSA, Sr.J., concurs.