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STATE OF NEW MEXICO,
Plaintiff-Petitioner,
v.
DEBORAH M. PULITI,
Defendant-Respondent.
SUPREME COURT OF NEW MEXICO
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING ON CERTIORARI, Douglas R. Driggers,
District Judge
Gary K. King, Attorney General, Martha
Anne Kelly, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Petitioner
McGraw & Strickland, L.L.C., Margaret
Strickland, Mollie C. McGraw, Las Cruces, NM, for Respondent
EDWARD L. CHÁVEZ, Justice. PETRA JIMENEZ
MAES, Chief Justice, RICHARD C. BOSSON, Justice, CHARLES W. DANIELS, Justice, PAUL
J. KENNEDY, Justice
{1} This matter came
before the full Court on a petition for writ of certiorari to the New Mexico
Court of Appeals to review its memorandum opinion affirming the district court’s
denial of the State’s request for an extension of time within which to commence
trial pursuant to Rule
5-604 NMRA. The Justices have considered the briefs and
the record on appeal and agree that there is no reasonable likelihood that a
written decision or opinion will affect the disposition of this appeal or
advance the law of the State. Acting within this Court’s discretion under Rule
12-405(B)(1) NMRA to dispose of a case by order or decision rather than formal
opinion where the “issues presented have been previously decided” by the this
Court, the Court enters this decision.
{2} On May 29, 2008,
Las Cruces Police Officer Amador Martinez filed a criminal complaint in Dona
Ana County Magistrate Court charging Deborah Puliti with aggravated DWI, NMSA
1978, Section
66-8-102(D)(2) (2008) (amended 2010), and failure to use due care
to avoid a collision, NMSA 1978, Section
66-7-301(B)(1) (2002). On June 4,
2008, Puliti entered a plea of not guilty and waived arraignment. On August 14,
2008, Magistrate Judge Oscar Frietze scheduled a jury trial for October 22,
2008. On September 11, 2008, the State, represented by an assistant district
attorney, dismissed the case in Dona Ana County Magistrate Court. The State had
already filed a three-count criminal information against Puliti in the Third
Judicial District Court on September 5, 2008, for the same occurrence that gave
rise to the magistrate court filing.
{3} On November 25,
2008, the State filed a petition for extension of time within which to commence
trial because the district court had not yet scheduled the trial and the time
within which the trial was to commence under Rule 5-604 would expire on
December 4, 2008. A hearing on the petition for extension of time was held on
December 3, 2008. The district court granted a sixty-day extension and
scheduled the case for a jury trial to take place on January 16, 2009.
{4} Two days later on
December 5, 2008, Puliti filed a motion to reconsider the extension of time,
arguing that Magistrate Court Rule 6-506 applied and that the State had not
shown good cause for an extension of time. The district court agreed with
Puliti, reconsidered its previous order, and—applying Rule 6-506—denied the
State an extension of time within which to try the case and dismissed the
complaint. Undeterred, the State filed a motion to reconsider the denial of the
petition for an extension of time, arguing that the district court erred in
applying Rule 6-506. The district court agreed with the State that Rule 6-506
did not apply, but concluded that Rule 5-604 applied and, under the good cause
provision of that rule, continued to deny the State an extension of time within
which to try the case.
{5} The Court of
Appeals affirmed in a memorandum opinion,
State v. Puliti, No. 29,509,
slip op. at 1, 9 (N.M. Ct. App. Oct. 5, 2009). We granted the State’s petition
for writ of certiorari on December 7, 2009, and held the appeal in abeyance
pending our resolution of
State v. Savedra,
2010-NMSC-025,
148 N.M. 301,
236 P.3d 20. On July 16, 2010, we quashed certiorari and remanded to the Court
of Appeals for consideration in light of our
Savedra opinion. The Court
of Appeals continued to affirm the district court in a memorandum opinion,
State
v. Puliti, No. 29,509, slip op. at 3, 8 (Ct. App. Dec. 16, 2010), opining
that
Savedra did not apply to Puliti’s case,
id. at 2. We granted
the State’s petition for writ of certiorari on January 27, 2011, but quashed
certiorari on June 14, 2011, and remanded to the Court of Appeals for
consideration in light of our opinion in
State v. Martinez,
2011-NMSC-010,
149 N.M. 370,
249 P.3d 82.
{6} The Court of
Appeals again affirmed the district court, holding that although Rule 5-604 did
not apply to this case because it was abrogated in
Savedra, the district
court had the inherent authority to control its docket, and the State’s delay
in scheduling witness interviews justified dismissal of the case.
State v.
Puliti, No. 29,509, slip op. at 2-3 (N.M. Ct. App. Jan. 23, 2012). We
granted the State’s petition for writ of certiorari and the case was submitted
on October 31, 2012. We reverse both the Court of Appeals and the district
court and remand for proceedings consistent with this decision.
{7} In
Savedra,
we addressed the State’s occasional practice of dismissing complaints filed by
the State in magistrate court and refiling the same or similar charges in
district court.
Savedra,
2010-NMSC-025, ¶ 1. In that case we
acknowledged that under New Mexico precedent, when the State initially files
charges in magistrate court and then re-files the case in district court, the
six-month rule in district court begins to run as of the time the defendant was
arraigned in magistrate court.
Id. ¶ 5. We also recognized that Rule
5-604 had “become an unnecessary and sometimes counterproductive method for
protecting a defendant’s right to a speedy trial,” and therefore chose to
withdraw Rule 5-604 “for all cases pending” on the May 12, 2010 filing date of
the
Savedra opinion.
Id. ¶ 9. In
Martinez we clarified
that “
Savedra controls ... all [cases] that were pending before any
court at the time we issued our Opinion” in
Savedra.
Martinez,
2011-NMSC-010, ¶ 12.
{8} Puliti’s case was
pending in the appellate courts at the time we issued our opinion in
Savedra.
Therefore, Rule 5-604, as it existed at the time the district court dismissed
the State’s case, did not apply. Instead of applying Rule 5-604,
Savedra
required district courts to use constitutional speedy trial considerations when
deciding motions for extensions of time.
Savedra,
2010-NMSC-025, ¶¶ 5,
9. Although the district court could not have known that we would withdraw Rule
5-604 retroactively, the appropriate disposition of this case is to remand to
the district court to decide the State’s motion for extension of time by
analyzing constitutional speedy trial considerations as articulated in
State
v. Garza,
2009-NMSC-038,
146 N.M. 499,
212 P.3d 387.
{9} However, in a
right-for-any-reason analysis, the Court of Appeals concluded that the district
court could have dismissed the case because of the State’s delay in scheduling
witness interviews based on a “district court’s inherent authority to control
its docket and sanction parties for their behavior.”
Puliti, No. 29,509,
slip op. at 2. We disagree with this analysis and conclusion because the
district court was never asked to exercise its inherent authority to dismiss
this case due to the State’s alleged delay in scheduling witness interviews.
Such a request would have required a much different analysis than was argued by
the parties and employed by the district court. We recently analyzed the
factors to be considered when a court is considering sanctions for the delayed
scheduling of witness interviews in
State v. Harper,
2011-NMSC-044, ¶
21,
150 N.M. 745,
266 P.3d 25.
{10} In
Harper the
district court verbally instructed the attorneys to conduct all witness
interviews by a certain date. When the district court learned that two
witnesses had not been interviewed by the court-imposed deadline, the district
court precluded the State from calling the two witnesses at trial.
Id. ¶
1. We reversed the district court because the record did not support a finding
that the State acted in bad faith or completely blocked access to evidence and
because the defendant did not prove that the delay in scheduling the witnesses
prejudiced him.
Id. ¶¶ 22, 24. We repeated a well-established principle
of law, which is that the exclusion of witnesses, like the outright dismissal
of a case, should not be imposed except in extreme cases, and only after an
adequate hearing to determine the reasons for the delay and the prejudicial
effect on the opposing party.
Id. ¶ 21.
{11} In this case, Puliti
did not seek the sanction of dismissal alleging that the State acted in bad
faith in delaying the scheduling of the witness interviews which resulted in
tangible prejudice to her. Puliti’s argument was simply that the State was not
entitled to an extension of time to try the case because the State did not have
good cause for an extension of the six-month rule. The district court’s
findings of fact and conclusions of law were limited to the question of whether
the State had demonstrated good cause for an extension of time. The district
court’s findings cannot fairly be interpreted to mean that the district court
found that the State acted in bad faith in delaying the scheduling of the
witness interviews and that Puliti was prejudiced by the delay.
{12} We therefore reverse
the Court of Appeals, vacate the district court’s order of dismissal, and
remand this matter to the district court with instructions to conduct such
further proceedings as are consistent with this decision.
EDWARD L. CHÁVEZ, Justice
PETRA JIMENEZ MAES, Chief Justice
RICHARD C. BOSSON, Justice
CHARLES W. DANIELS, Justice