State v. Mayes

STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JOHN MAYES, Defendant-Appellant.

No. A-1-CA-34359

COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

September 25, 2017

This memorandum opinion was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished memorandum opinions. Please also note that this electronic memorandum opinion may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official paper version filed by the Court of Appeals and does not include the filing date.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF SAN JUAN COUNTY

William C. Birdsall, District Judge

Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General

Santa Fe, NM

Jane A. Bernstein, Assistant Attorney General

Albuquerque, NM

for Appellee

Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender

J.K. Theodosia Johnson, Assistant Appellate Defender

Santa Fe, NM

for Appellant

MEMORANDUM OPINION

VARGAS, Judge.

{1} A jury convicted Defendant John Mayes of second degree murder, aggravated burglary, tampering with evidence, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, fraudulent use of a credit card, and attempted residential burglary in connection with the beating death of Dr. James Nordstrom. On appeal, Defendant contends that all or parts of his conviction must be overturned for three separate reasons. First, Defendant contends that the jury deliberations were tainted and the verdict was in error because the district court coerced the jury to return a guilty verdict on the second degree murder charge and refused to acquit Defendant of murder when it received a completed not-guilty verdict form for voluntary manslaughter, before deliberations were completed on the murder charge. Defendant also argues that his confession should have been suppressed because he did not knowingly, intelligently, and voluntarily waive his constitutional rights. Finally, Defendant claims that the district court erroneously sentenced him as an adult for both delinquency and youthful offender offenses, requiring that the delinquency charges be vacated. Unpersuaded by Defendant's arguments, we affirm his conviction in its entirety.

BACKGROUND

{2} On Friday morning, following seven days of trial, the case was submitted to the jury for deliberations. When the jury had not notified the district court of a verdict, by 3:30 that afternoon, seven hours into deliberations, the district court called counselinto court and proposed to inquire whether the jury was deadlocked or whether it felt additional deliberations would be beneficial. Both the State and Defendant objected to the inquiry, reasoning that the length of deliberations was not surprising given the gravity of the charges. Noting that the jury had not asked for assistance regarding a deadlock, the parties argued it was unnecessary for the court to "interfer[e] with the process." The court stated that it felt this had been "quite a long deliberation," and that it expected "counts three and beyond were dealt with in the first hour." Nonetheless, the court agreed to allow deliberations to continue for another hour before making an inquiry into the jury's progress.

{3} At 4:30 p.m., the district court called the jury back into the court room, and the following exchange took place between the court and foreperson:

Court: Has the jury reached a verdict as to any of the counts?

Foreperson: To some counts, yes.

Court: Okay, which counts—without telling me the verdict—tell me which counts please there are verdicts for.

Foreperson: Count 2 and on.

Court: Counts 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6?

Foreperson: Yes.

Court: There is not a verdict as to Count 1?

Foreperson: Correct.

Court: Is there . . . do you and the jury collectively feel that additional deliberations might be fruitful in resolving or arriving at a unanimous verdict as to Count 1?

Foreperson: I can't say.

Court: Do you believe that there is a reasonable probability that the jury would be able to agree on a unanimous verdict as to Count 1?

Foreperson: I believe there could, but that's my intuition.

Court: . . . Here's the situation ladies and gentlemen . . . we have a little bit of time left today. . . . If you believe that further deliberations could be beneficial—not would be, but could be and I agree that's speculation—we're looking at coming back Monday morning. Will you all be able to come back Monday morning? Anyone who couldn't? Alright then. Then let me inquire at this point—it's 4:30 now—would you rather work a little while longer or call it, come back Monday morning, have a weekend to not think about it, and take another whack at it, say about 8:30 Monday morning?

The foreperson requested that they be given until 5:00 p.m. to deliberate, and the court agreed. The court then stated, "the other thing that we need to do, . . . for the counts that you have arrived at unanimous verdicts, I need to have you complete the forms of verdict, and we'll need to take those verdicts at five o'clock, whether or not we still have more to do on those other counts."

{4} When the jury returned at 5:00 p.m., the court asked the foreperson, "Do you have the forms of verdict for the ones that you were able to reach a unanimous verdict on?" The foreperson provided the completed forms, and after reviewing those verdictforms, the district court called the parties up to the bench. During a bench conference, the judge revealed the jury had submitted a verdict form finding Defendant not guilty of manslaughter. Defense counsel argued that, by acquitting Defendant of the voluntary manslaughter charge, the jury had thereby acquitted Defendant of the first and second degree murder charges. The court responded that was not necessarily true because the jury had not yet signed the verdict forms for the first and second degree murder charges. After the bench conference, the district court read the verdict forms verbatim in open court; the jury found Defendant guilty of both burglary counts, tampering with evidence, unlawful taking of a motor vehicle, and fraudulent use of a credit card. The district court polled the jury, asking each juror for a yes or no answer as to whether the verdict accurately reflected his or her decision. All jurors answered in the affirmative.

{5} The court then sought clarification regarding the murder charge:

I have a count one verdict form that says that you find . . . Defendant not guilty of voluntary manslaughter. I see no verdict forms for second degree murder or first degree murder, and I'm going to inquire so that we'll have that information on the record. Does that mean that in finding . . . Defendant not guilty of voluntary manslaughter, you've also found him not guilty of second degree and first degree murder?

The foreperson responded, "[t]hat is not correct. We're still deliberating." The court stated, "Alright. I'll leave it at that. At this juncture, I'm going to ask that you return Monday morning at 8:30." Outside the presence of the jury, the district court declinedto rule on whether jury confusion resulting in an acquittal for a lesser included offense results in an automatic acquittal on the greater offenses but asked the parties to be prepared to address the issue on the following Monday.

{6} On Monday morning, Defendant filed a demand for entry of judgment of acquittal on the murder count, based on the jury's not guilty verdict on voluntary manslaughter during the Friday evening proceedings. The court explained its position to the parties as follows:

I fully intend to let the situation play out with the jury as to whether they reach a verdict or indicate that they cannot and that will happen today, one way or the other. . . . If it were just that verdict form in and of itself, I might be a little more inclined to take a quicker action on it. But the fact is, those folks stood up there and told me that they had not reached a verdict on first or second degree murder. What they've done effectively by convicting on count two they've indicated self defense didn't work. By finding not guilty as to the voluntary manslaughter, what they're effect[ively] telling us, in reality, is they don't buy sufficient provocation, coupled with the fact that they're still debating first or second degree murder. Regardless, before I make a call on this issue, and I'm not going to do it today, and I am not going to terminate the jury proceedings. I want this court—and of course the appellate courts—to have as . . . complete a picture as possible as to just how messed up this jury was in its deliberations . . . I'm going to wait until they either hang or come up with a verdict.

Defense counsel requested that there be "no more inquiries or exchanges with the jury . . . and the court during the course of their deliberations." The court responded, "Nope; if I need to bring them in here and inquire as to whether they're hung up or not, I by golly will, and after and if I determine that they are hung, I will certainly pollthem as to what their vote is[.]" The court had no further interaction with the jury, however, until it returned after roughly two hours of deliberation on Monday. The jury found Defendant not guilty of first degree murder and voluntary manslaughter, but guilty of second degree murder. The district court polled each member of the jury, each of whom confirmed that verdict accurately reflected his or her decision.

DISCUSSION

Coercion and Acquittal

{7} Defendant argues that the district court's unnecessary inquiry into the jury's deliberations improperly coerced the jury to return a guilty verdict for the second degree murder charge. Defendant contends that "the mere fact that the judge questioned the jury's verdict coerced the jury" both by forcing a decision prematurely and by suggesting the answer the court wanted—that acquittal on the lesser included charge was not an acquittal on the greater charges.

{8} Whether a defendant's right to procedural due process in jury deliberations has been violated is a legal question that we review de novo. State v. Brothers, 2002-NMCA-110, ¶ 25, ...