State v. Cazares, 34,387

Defendant Pedro Cazares was charged with drug trafficking and paraphernalia; a district court scheduling order set witness-interview deadline of October 24, 2014 and substantive motions due November 7, 2014.
State listed multiple law enforcement officers and three chemists (including Manuel Gomez, the drug analyst) and agreed to schedule interviews; defense counsel provided several availability dates in Sept–Oct 2014.
Only four of the State’s eleven listed witnesses were actually interviewed before the deadline; Gomez was not interviewed because the prosecutor delayed scheduling and knew Gomez would be unavailable but did not timely inform defense counsel or seek an extension.
Defense counsel lacked the drug analyst’s report and could not prepare fact-specific pretrial motions tied to the un-interviewed witnesses.
Defense moved to exclude un-interviewed State witnesses; the district court excluded those witnesses and dismissed the case after the State conceded it could not proceed without the excluded testimony.
The Court of Appeals affirmed, finding the exclusion and dismissal were within the district court’s discretion given the State’s discovery culpability and resulting prejudice; a judge specially concurred on result but cautioned about some characterizations of prosecutor conduct.

Issue	State's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Whether exclusion of un-interviewed State witnesses was an appropriate sanction for discovery-order violations	State claimed it made good-faith efforts and the violation was not intentional; argued exclusion was too severe	State’s failure to schedule interviews, identify intended witnesses, and provide analyst report prejudiced defense	Court held exclusion was appropriate and not an abuse of discretion
Whether dismissal was proper after excluded witnesses rendered the State unable to proceed	State argued exclusion was an abuse and that lesser sanctions or extensions could have addressed prejudice	Exclusion prevented defense from timely preparing motions and the court’s docket-management interest justified sanction	Court affirmed dismissal following exclusion
Whether lesser sanctions needed to be explicitly requested/considered	State did not press a specific lesser-sanction request on record	Defense said prejudice required exclusion absent viable cure	Court accepted district court’s finding it considered lesser sanctions; appellate court declined to raise arguments not presented below
Whether State’s internal scheduling policy excuses missing deadlines	State pointed to internal practice of scheduling chemist interviews later to assess case strength	Defense argued internal policy does not excuse noncompliance with a court order	Court rejected policy as a defense to violating a clear scheduling order

State v. Bartlett, 789 P.2d 627 (N.M. Ct. App. 1990) (trial court discretion to impose discovery sanctions when violation causes prejudice)
State v. Harper, 266 P.3d 25 (N.M. 2011) (discussing standards for discovery sanctions and prosecutorial obligations when scheduling witness interviews)
State v. Le Mier, 394 P.3d 959 (N.M. 2017) (clarifying that courts may impose meaningful sanctions to enforce discovery orders and manage dockets)
Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, 309 P.3d 53 (N.M. 2013) (appellate courts generally will not raise or guess at arguments not presented by parties)
State v. Martinez, 954 P.2d 1198 (N.M. Ct. App. 1998) (continuance may cure prejudice but court is not required to continue trial to remedy discovery violations)