Court Opinion

ID: 9550180
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:30:54.006021+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:33.039088
License: Public Domain

SUTIN, Judge (specially concurring). I specially concur in the majority opinion. At the time of the hearing in the district court, the burden will be on Woods, not only “to prove a factual basis showing double jeopardy,” but he must prove, (1) the legal existence of a municipal court in Clovis, New Mexico; (2) its jurisdiction to try Woods for assault; (3) the ordinance under which Woods pled guilty; (4) the municipal court record of the conviction and sentence. This court does not take judicial notice of these matters. Section 21-1-1(44) (d), N.M.S.A.1953 (Repl.Vol. 4); McKeough v. Ryan, 79 N.M. 520, 445 P.2d 585 (1968). Article VI, § 1 of the New Mexico Constitution provides in part that the judicial power of the state “shall be vested [in] . such other courts inferior to the district courts as may be established by law from time to time in any . . . municipality of the state.” To me, this means that municipalities have the power to create municipal courts. This is the reason that the ordinance creating the municipal court in Clovis, New Mexico, be introduced in evidence. In Waller, cited in the majority opinion, the Constitution of Florida granted judicial power also in municipal courts to be established by the legislature. This abolished the “separate sovereignty theory,” a theory which need not be discussed here, because a trial in a municipal court “springs from the same organic law that created the state court of general jurisdiction in which petitioner was tried and convicted of a felony.” By reason of Waller, State v. Goodson, 54 N.M. 184, 217 P.2d 262 (1950), and State v. Mares, 79 N.M. 327, 442 P.2d 817 (Ct.App.1968), are overruled subject to review in the Supreme Court. The state should seek a review in the Supreme Court by writ of certiorari. In State v. Paul, 80 N.M. 746, 461 P.2d 228 (1969), the Supreme Court held that the state, under § 21-10-2.1 (B), N.M.S.A.1953 (Repl.Vol. 4), had no right to review a decision of the Court of Appeals in a criminal action by writ of certiorari. However, Laws of 1972, ch. 71, § 1, amended § 16-7-14, N.M.S.A.1953 (Repl. Vol. 4). It granted the Supreme Court jurisdiction to review by writ of certiorari to the Court of Appeals any criminal matter in which the decision of the Court of Appeals is in conflict with a decision of the Supreme Court.