State v. Mosley, 335 P.3d 244

Officers conducted a knock‑and‑talk at Mosley’s apartment after an anonymous neighbor reported suspected drug activity and other disturbances.
Sergeant Simmons knocked; Mosley (per prosecution witness) opened the door and allowed officers inside to speak; a defense witness said Mosley refused entry but officers entered anyway.
While inside, Simmons asked whether others were present; a man exited the bathroom and said a woman was asleep in the back bedroom; Simmons announced she would wake the woman and walked down a hallway toward the bedroom.
In the galley kitchen off the hallway, Simmons observed a razor blade and a scale with white residue, later confirmed as cocaine; after arrests and searches, more cocaine was found in Mosley’s jacket pocket.
At the suppression hearing, defense counsel argued lack of probable cause for the knock‑and‑talk and that officers entered despite Mosley’s refusal; the district court denied suppression, ruling Mosley had allowed the officers in and items were in plain view.
On appeal Mosley raised a new argument that officers exceeded the scope of his consent by traversing the hallway and bedroom; alternatively he claimed ineffective assistance for counsel’s failure to move to suppress on that ground.

Issue	State's Argument	Mosley's Argument	Held
Whether the scope‑of‑consent objection was preserved	Scope was not litigated below but record suffices to decide	Scope not raised below, but argues officers exceeded consent by entering hallway/bedroom	Not preserved; appellate court will not decide scope issue on direct appeal
Whether counsel was ineffective for not moving to suppress on scope‑of‑consent grounds	No tactical reason shown for foregoing such a motion; State argued record unclear	Counsel unreasonably failed to move to suppress evidence observed from hallway	Prima facie ineffective assistance shown; remand for evidentiary hearing
Whether officer’s observation in hallway was lawful under plain‑view doctrine	Lawful if officer was lawfully in position; State argued no objection to bedroom entry so acquiescence	Officer exceeded objectively reasonable scope of consent, so observation unlawful	Court concluded traversing hallway/bedroom exceeded objectively reasonable scope of consent (for purposes of evaluating counsel’s conduct)
Whether suppression could have affected Mosley’s plea	State: record incomplete; suppression may not have excluded all evidence	Suppressing hallway observations could have excluded key evidence and derivative evidence in jacket	Court found reasonable probability suppression would have altered plea decision; prejudice prong met

State v. Lopez, 143 N.M. 274, 175 P.3d 942 (preservation requirement for appellate review)
State v. Garcia, 127 N.M. 695, 986 P.2d 491 (scope of consent constrained by objective reasonableness)
State v. Ochoa, 135 N.M. 781, 93 P.3d 1286 (plain‑view seizure requires officer lawfully positioned)
Patterson v. LeMaster, 130 N.M. 179, 21 P.3d 1032 (standard for ineffective assistance; reasonableness and prejudice prongs)
State v. Haidle, 285 P.3d 668 (home receives highest privacy protection; counsel should move to suppress when reasonable)
Florida v. Jardines, 133 S. Ct. 1409 (use of social norms in assessing constitutionally permissible conduct during home approach)