State v. Maestas ( 2015 )

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Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished memorandum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.
1 IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
2 STATE OF NEW MEXICO,
3 Plaintiff-Appellant,
4 v. NO. 33,402
5 MARVIN MAESTAS,
6 Defendant-Appellee.
7 APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF MORA COUNTY
8 Matthew Sandoval, District Judge
9 Hector H. Balderas, Attorney General
10 M. Anne Kelly, Assistant Attorney General
11 Santa Fe, NM
12 for Appellant
13 Jorge A. Alvarado, Chief Public Defender
14 Kathleen T. Baldridge, Assistant Appellate Defender
15 Santa Fe, NM
16 for Appellee
17 MEMORANDUM OPINION
18 BUSTAMANTE, Judge.
1 {1} The State appeals an order of the district court granting Defendant Marvin
2 Maestas’s pretrial motion to suppress evidence pursuant to Article II, Section 10 of
3 the New Mexico Constitution. See NMSA 1978, § 39-3-3(B)(2) (1972) (providing for
4 appeals by the State “from a decision or order of a district court suppressing or
5 excluding evidence”). On appeal, however, the State is asserting an argument that was
6 not presented to the district court. Because that argument was not preserved below,
7 we affirm the district court’s order granting Defendant’s motion to suppress.
8 BACKGROUND
9 {2} The record below establishes that on the evening of Defendant’s arrest, two
10 Mora County sheriff’s deputies noticed a car with tinted windows in a city park.
11 Defendant was seated in the passenger’s side of that car, which was parked legally
12 when the deputies noticed it. Apparently believing that the park was closed, the
13 deputies pulled their marked SUV into the park and then approached the car on foot
14 from both sides. When Deputy Jose Gutierrez reached the passenger’s side of the car,
15 he knocked on the tinted window of the car and asked the passenger to roll down the
16 window. When Defendant complied with that request, Deputy Gutierrez smelled
17 marijuana, opened the door of the car, and asked Defendant to step out. Ultimately,
18 both the driver of the car and Defendant were arrested, and Defendant was
19 subsequently charged with possession of a firearm by a felon, possession of drug
20 paraphernalia, and possession of marijuana. Defendant was not charged with violating
2
1 any ordinance that would have prohibited his presence in the park and Deputy
2 Gutierrez testified at a suppression hearing that he was unaware of any such
3 ordinance. Ultimately, the parties agree that the deputies did not have any reasonable
4 suspicion that Defendant was engaged in any criminal activity until he rolled down
5 the car window and the smell of marijuana emerged from the car. Thus, the issue in
6 this case centers upon whether the deputies’ conduct leading up to that moment was
7 proper in the absence of any reasonable suspicion.
8 {3} Following Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, the State filed a written
9 response and the district court conducted a hearing. The State’s response pointed out
10 that, because Defendant was seated in a parked car, the deputies did not conduct a
11 traffic stop. Based upon that fact, the State asserted that the deputies “approached
12 . . . Defendant’s vehicle in their capacity as community caretakers.” Relying upon that
13 assertion that “the deputies initially merely approached . . . Defendant in their capacity
14 as community caretakers,” the State argued that reasonable suspicion was
15 unnecessary, since “[l]aw enforcement officers are not required to have reasonable
16 suspicion to render aid to [a] motorist with a mechanical breakdown or in medical
17 need.”
18 {4} At the hearing on Defendant’s motion, however, the State offered no evidence
19 that the deputies had any reason to suspect that anyone was in need of mechanical or
20 medical assistance. Based upon that lack of evidence, Defendant argued that the
3
1 community caretaker doctrine was inapplicable to the facts of this case. Specifically,
2 Defendant quoted this Court’s opinion in State v. Morales, 2005-NMCA-027, ¶ 11,
3 137 N.M. 73, 107 P.3d 513, that the community caretaker exception applies only “if
4 an officer has a ‘reasonable and articulable belief, tested objectively, that a person is
5 in need of immediate aid or assistance or protection from serious harm.’ ” (citation
6 omitted).
7 {5} In response, the State acknowledged that the community caretaker exception
8 requires that an officer “be able to articulate why he was there,” but asserted that
9 “until and unless an officer approaches people to ask that first question, they’re really
10 not going to know whether the person is in need of care.” The State also conceded that
11 “in this case, [the deputies] approached the vehicle they had no reason to believe
12 anything was wrong other than [the vehicle was] in the park [and] that they believed
13 [it] shouldn’t have been there at that time of night.” Thus, the State’s argument before
14 the district court was that the deputies’ actions were justified, even without a
15 reasonable suspicion of criminal activity, so long as those actions were eventually
16 directed at determining whether Defendant was in need of assistance. As explained by
17 the State:
18 the police are entitled to approach a vehicle and ask, “everything ok?”
19 That’s what the community caretaker doctrine is all about. It’s not
20 always readily available to an officer to know what’s going on with
21 people until they approach them and say “how are you doing? how’s
22 everything going?” And that’s exactly what happened here.
4
1 {6} The district court rejected that argument. In doing so, the court specifically
2 noted that Deputy Gutierrez’s testimony did not articulate any reason to believe that
3 anyone was in need of assistance. The court noted that the deputies were concerned
4 about “a potential ordinance that nobody should be in the park” and concluded that
5 their actions were investigatory in nature and “that seemed to be more the concern
6 than an actual articulable concern for the safety of what was going on.” In granting
7 Defendant’s motion to suppress evidence, the court explained that the community
8 caretaker doctrine is not satisfied by merely establishing that “somebody [was] parked
9 in their vehicle, without articulating some kind of a need to check [on their safety].”
10 {7} On appeal, the State now claims that the district court erred by holding that
11 sheriff’s deputies must have reasonable suspicion of criminal activity before
12 approaching a parked car and asking the occupants to roll down a window. In doing
13 so, the State frames the issue on appeal as being “whether Defendant was seized by
14 the officer approaching his vehicle and asking him to roll down his window.” In
15 response, Defendant points out that the State is not arguing, “as it did below, that the
16 deputies were engaged in community caretaking.” Having reviewed the record below
17 and the briefing here, we agree that the State has abandoned its previously asserted
18 community caretaker theory of this case, and is instead asserting a new theory, which
19 was not presented to the district court. That new theory asks this Court to determine
20 that Defendant’s interaction with Deputy Gutierrez did not rise above the level of a
5
1 consensual encounter until after Deputy Gutierrez smelled marijuana. Because the
2 district court was not asked to rule upon that question, we decline the State’s
3 invitation to find that the district court erred in suppressing the evidence at issue.
4 STANDARD OF REVIEW
5 {8} Except for matters involving fundamental or jurisdictional error, this Court does
6 not consider appellate issues unless the record demonstrates that the appellant “fairly
7 invoked a ruling of the [district] court on the same grounds argued in the appellate
8 court.” State v. Ortiz, 2009-NMCA-092, ¶ 32, 146 N.M. 873, 215 P.3d 811 (quoting
9 Woolwine v. Furr’s, Inc., 1987-NMCA-133, ¶ 20, 106 N.M. 492, 745 P.2d 717); see
10 also Rule 12-216(A) NMRA (requiring that “[t]o preserve a question for review it
11 must appear that a ruling or decision by the district court was fairly invoked”). Thus,
12 in order to preserve an issue for review in this Court, a party must “apprise[] the
13 district court specifically of the nature of the claimed error and invoke[] an intelligent
14 ruling thereon.” State v. Garcia, 2013-NMCA-064, ¶ 37, 302 P.3d 111.
15 {9} New Mexico courts have long held that:
16 [t]he purpose of an objection or motion is to invoke a ruling of the court
17 upon a question or issue, and it is essential that the ground or grounds of
18 the objection or motion be made with sufficient specificity to alert the
19 mind of the [district] court to the claimed error or errors, and that a ruling
20 thereon then be invoked.
21 State v. Lopez, 1973-NMSC-041, ¶ 23, 84 N.M. 805, 508 P.2d 1292. In addition to
22 allowing the district court to avoid or correct error before an appeal to this Court
6
1 becomes necessary, the preservation requirement “provides the opposing party a fair
2 opportunity to show why the court should rule in its favor, and it creates a record from
3 which this Court may make informed decisions.” State v. Joanna V.,
4 2003-NMCA-100, ¶ 7, 134 N.M. 232, 75 P.3d 832. It is with an eye toward serving
5 these basic purposes that we apply the preservation requirement. State v. Montoya,
6 2005-NMCA-005, ¶ 7, 136 N.M. 674, 104 P.3d 540.
7 DISCUSSION
8 {10} On appeal, the State directs this Court to our recent opinion in State v. Murry,
9 2014-NMCA-021, ¶ 4, 318 P.3d 180, which also involved law enforcement officers
10 approaching a parked car on foot. Before reaching the car, however, one officer saw
11 the person in the driver’s seat make an abrupt movement that caused him concern. Id.12 At that point, the officer addressed the driver, saying “either, ‘S[ir], open the door,’
13 or ‘Hey, man, open the door.’” Id. ¶ 16.
14 {11} The outcome in Murry turned upon whether those words commanded the
15 driver’s compliance, or were merely a request, since “[t]he point at which seizure
16 occurs is pivotal because it determines the point in time the police must have
17 reasonable suspicion to conduct an investigatory stop.” Id. ¶ 11 (quoting State v.
18 Harbison, 2007-NMSC-016, ¶ 10, 141 N.M. 392, 156 P.3d 30). Although the State
19 consistently “characterized the statements, ‘S[ir], open the door,’ or ‘Hey, man, open
20 the door,’ as ‘requests,’ or as the officer ‘asking’ the driver to open his door,”id. ¶ 17,
7
1 we disagreed, finding no reason to interpret the officer’s “plain, unequivocal language
2 as a ‘request’ and not as an order from a uniformed police officer.” Id. ¶ 19.
3 Ultimately, our determination that the officer was ordering the driver to open his door
4 was “based on the actual language [the officer] used and not on counsel’s
5 characterization” of that language. Id.
6 {12} In this case, we do not know the actual language Deputy Gutierrez used to ask,
7 request, or order that Defendant roll down his window; instead, the record merely
8 contains his testimony that when he arrived at the passenger’s side of the car, he could
9 not see who was inside because the windows were tinted, “so [he] knocked on the
10 window and asked the driver–or the passenger–to roll down the window.” Thus, rather
11 than the actual language used, the record contains only Deputy Gutierrez’s own
12 characterization of those unknown words: he says that he, like the police officer in
13 Murry, was “asking” that the window be rolled down.
14 {13} Of course, this Court did not agree with that characterization in Murry, and the
15 importance of the words “Sir, open the door,” or “Hey, man, open the door” in
16 resolving that case was clear. It is, therefore, noteworthy that the State, which now
17 argues that this case should be decided on the same basis as Murry, did not offer into
18 evidence the words used by Deputy Gutierrez at that pivotal moment. And it is
19 perhaps even more telling that the State’s present argument is that Murry is
20 distinguishable, since–unlike the present case–the officer in Murry exercised
8
1 command of the situation in a way that was “at odds with any notion that a passenger
2 would feel free to leave.” 2014-NMCA-021, ¶ 27 (internal quotation marks and
3 citation omitted). But without knowing what Deputy Gutierrez said as he knocked on
4 the window, we can neither assess the extent to which he exercised command of the
5 situation nor say whether Defendant would have felt “free to leave” under the
6 circumstances. Or, to put it another way, the one fact that could distinguish this case
7 from Murry was never offered for the district court’s consideration and—as a
8 result—also does not appear in the record for this Court to review.
9 {14} Instead of offering that evidence or asserting that theory, the State consistently
10 argued below that no reasonable suspicion of criminal activity was necessary because
11 the deputies were engaged in community caretaking. The district court disagreed,
12 noting that the deputies’ conduct appeared to be investigatory and finding that Deputy
13 Gutierrez had failed to articulate any reason to believe that anyone was in need of
14 assistance.
15 {15} As this Court has explained under similar circumstances:
16 while the State may have a number of different theories as to why the
17 evidence should not be suppressed, in order to preserve its arguments for
18 appeal, the State must have alerted the district court as to which theories
19 it was relying on in support of its argument in order to allow the district
20 court to make a ruling thereon.
21
22 State v. Janzen, 2007-NMCA-134, ¶ 11, 142 N.M. 638, 168 P.3d 768. In this case, the
23 State did not do so. Rather than invoke a ruling from the district court regarding
9
1 whether or not Defendant was seized prior to rolling down the window of the car in
2 which he was seated, the State invoked a ruling on whether the deputies were engaged
3 in community caretaking. That was the issue upon which the district court based its
4 decision at the motion hearing.
5 {16} On appeal, the State is not asserting that the district court erred in its application
6 or analysis of the community caretaking doctrine. We decline the State’s invitation to
7 reverse the district court on a basis not presented below and therefore not preserved
8 for our review. The district court’s order granting Defendant’s motion to suppress
9 evidence is affirmed.
10 {17} IT IS SO ORDERED.
11
12 MICHAEL D. BUSTAMANTE, Judge
13 WE CONCUR:
14 __________________________________
15 JAMES J. WECHSLER, Judge
16 __________________________________
17 LINDA M. VANZI, Judge
10