STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Petitioner, v. EDWARD ARMIJO, Defendant-Respondent.
NO. S-1-SC-34400
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
June 13, 2016
Charles W. Brown, District Judge
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING ON CERTIORARI
Margaret E. McLean, Assistant Attorney General
James W. Grayson, Assistant Attorney General
Corinna Laszlo-Henry, Assistant Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM
for Petitioner
Jorge A. Alvarado, Chief Public Defender
Vicki W. Zelle, Assistant Appellate Defender
Albuquerque, NM
for Respondent
DANIELS, Chief Justice.
{1} Defendant Edward Armijo was convicted in the Bernalillo County Metropolitan Court of driving while intoxicated (DWI). His on-record appeals alleging trial error were decided by both the Second Judicial District Court, which affirmed his conviction, and the Court of Appeals, which reversed. State v. Armijo, 2014-NMCA-013, ¶ 1, 316 P.3d 902. We granted certiorari to consider the State‘s arguments that the Court of Appeals has no appellate jurisdiction over a district court‘s decision in an on-record appeal from metropolitan court and that a defendant has no right to that secondary record review. Addressing only these two issues and declining to conduct a third appellate review of the underlying merits of this case, we hold that the Legislature has vested the Court of Appeals with appellate jurisdiction over a district court‘s on-record appellate review of a metropolitan court proceeding and has provided an aggrieved party the right to such an appeal.
I. BACKGROUND
{2} The appellate process in New Mexico has evolved in tandem with our court system, and an overview of the historical development of our courts provides helpful background for understanding the issues in this case. The structure of New Mexico‘s judicial system can be traced back to prestatehood laws. See State v. Ball, 1986-NMSC-030, ¶¶ 17-21, 104 N.M. 176, 718 P.2d 686 (describing the right of appeal prior to the adoption of the New Mexico Constitution).
A. Appellate Review Under the Preterritorial Kearny Code
{3} Following his 1846 conquest during the Mexican-American war of the area that was to be officially organized in 1850 as the United States Territory of New Mexico, General Stephen W. Kearny promulgated the Kearny Code of Laws, Laws for the Government of the Territory of New Mexico (Kearny Code). The Kearny Code created a provisional government and established a temporary judicial system that combined features of judicial structures in other states with those of the preexisting Spanish and Mexican systems. See Kearny Code of Laws, Letter of General Kearny to the Adjutant General (Sept. 22, 1846); Robert J. Torrez, Myth of the Hanging Tree 2 (2008).
{4} The judicial structure consisted of one superior court to serve as a supreme court, see Kearny Code, Courts and Judicial Powers, §§ 1, 8, three circuit courts to exercise general criminal and civil jurisdiction, see id. §§ 2, 18(A)-(B), one prefect in each county to handle small probate matters, see id. §§ 19, 21, and as many as four alcaldes in each county to exercise limited jurisdiction in small civil and criminal cases, see id. §§ 23-24. The roles of the prefects and alcaldes were analogous to those
{5} The general jurisdiction circuit courts had “appellate jurisdiction from the judgments and orders of the prefects and alcaldes in all cases not prohibited by law” and original jurisdiction in all criminal and civil cases that were “not . . . cognizable before the prefects and alcaldes.” Kearny Code, Courts and Judicial Powers, § 18(B)-(C). The only exception to the right to appeal to the circuit court was a provision that an appellate judgment of a prefect on review of an alcalde‘s decision in a civil case where the amount in controversy was less than fifty dollars was “final and conclusive.” Id. § 21. The court of last resort, the superior court, had “appellate
{6} There was no statutory provision or judicial precedent indicating that decisions of circuit courts on appeal from actions of the inferior courts were final or otherwise exempted from superior court review. Cf. id. § 9 (“Every person aggrieved by any judgment or decision of any circuit court in any civil case may . . . appeal to the superior court.“); Kearny Code, Practice of Law in Criminal Cases, § 23 (“In all cases of final judgment rendered upon any indictment an appeal to the superior court shall be allowed . . . .“).
B. Appellate Review Under Territorial Statutes
{7} The Organic Act of 1850 that officially established the Territory of New Mexico largely retained the judicial structure of the Kearny Code but renamed the courts, creating a supreme court to replace the superior court, three district courts to replace the circuit courts, justices of the peace to replace the alcaldes, and probate courts to replace the prefects. See Organic Act Establishing the Territory of New
{8} The right to an appeal from the justice of the peace courts was granted first by territorial statute, which “gave the right to appeal to ‘[a]ny person aggrieved by any judgment rendered by any justice.‘” Ball, 1986-NMSC-030, ¶ 17 (alteration in original) (quoting Law of January 9, 1852, codified at 1856 N.M. Rev. Stat., ch. 12, art. 4, § 101) (citing the Kearny Code). These appeals were to be taken to the district court for trial de novo. Id. ¶¶ 17-18 (citing Act of January 12, 1853, codified at 1865 N.M. Rev. Stat., ch. 29, § 14, codified at NMSA 1897, § 2897; Act of January 13, 1876, codified at 1875-76 N.M. Laws, ch. 27, § 74, codified at NMSA 1897, § 3305).
{9} The territorial statutes never limited the right to appeal to the Supreme Court from decisions of the general jurisdiction courts on appeal from courts of limited
C. Appellate Review of Cases Originating in Early-Statehood Justice Courts
{10} When the New Mexico Constitution was adopted in conjunction with our admission to the Union in 1912 as the forty-seventh state, it continued the practice of the territorial court system by providing that “[a]ppeals shall be allowed in all cases from the final judgments and decisions of the probate courts and justices of the peace
{11} The Constitution further provided that “[t]he appellate jurisdiction of the supreme court shall be coextensive with the state, and shall extend to all final judgments and decisions of the district courts, and said court shall have such appellate
D. Replacement of Justices of the Peace with Magistrate Courts
{13} The statutory provisions for appeal from the magistrate courts have continued to provide for a de novo appeal to the district court without any language limiting the right to further appellate review of the district court‘s decision. See
E. Creation of Metropolitan Court as a Specialized Magistrate Court
{14} The Legislature partially altered the magistrate court system in 1979 when it created the metropolitan court as a specialized magistrate court to perform the functions of magistrate, municipal, and small claims courts for New Mexico‘s most populous counties. See
{15} The metropolitan court is still a court of limited jurisdiction inferior to the district courts, see
{16} In spite of these changes and in the absence of statutes or court rules to the contrary, metropolitan court judgments reviewed on appeal in the district court, whether reviewed on-record or de novo, have continued to be further appealed both by defendants and by the State from the district court to the Court of Appeals. See, e.g., State v. Sims, 2010-NMSC-027, ¶¶ 2, 39, 148 N.M. 330, 236 P.3d 642 (reviewing a Court of Appeals decision affirming a district court affirmance of the metropolitan court DWI conviction); Wilson, 2006-NMSC-037, ¶¶ 2-4 (reviewing a
{17} The jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to review cases such as those apparently had never been questioned until the recent series of challenges by the New Mexico Attorney General. See, e.g., State v. Carroll, 2015-NMCA-033, ¶¶ 1, 12, 346 P.3d 372 (denying the State‘s motion to dismiss the defendant‘s appeal for lack of Court of Appeals jurisdiction to review district court on-record reviews of metropolitan court DWI convictions and for lack of the right to appeal such cases), cert. granted, 2015-NMCERT-001; State v. Cahall, No. 32,969, mem. op. ¶ 1 (N.M. Ct. App. Nov. 12, 2013) (nonprecedential) (same), cert. denied, 2014-NMCERT-001.
{18} We granted the New Mexico Attorney General‘s petitions for writ of certiorari in this case and several others to address the important issues of appellate jurisdiction and the right to appeal. After considering the briefs and oral arguments and researching the issues further, we entered a dispositional order concluding that the Court of Appeals has secondary appellate jurisdiction to review a district court‘s rulings on review of criminal actions originating in the metropolitan court. See State
II. DISCUSSION
A. Standard of Review
{19} “A court‘s jurisdiction derives from a statute or constitutional provision.” State v. Rudy B., 2010-NMSC-045, ¶ 14, 149 N.M. 22, 243 P.3d 726. The right to appeal is also a matter of substantive law created by constitutional or statutory provision. See City of Las Cruces v. Sanchez, 2007-NMSC-042, ¶ 10, 142 N.M. 243, 164 P.3d 942. “We review issues of statutory and constitutional interpretation de novo.” Bank of New York v. Romero, 2014-NMSC-007, ¶ 52, 320 P.3d 1 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
{20} “[T]he rules of statutory construction apply equally to constitutional construction.” State v. Boyse, 2013-NMSC-024, ¶ 8, 303 P.3d 830 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “[W]e examine the plain language of the statute as well as the context in which it was promulgated, including the history of the statute and the object and purpose the Legislature sought to accomplish.” NMSC-050” pinpoint=“11” parallel=“147 N.M. 182 | 218 P.3d 868” court=“N.M.” date=“2009“>State v. Nick R., 2009-NMSC-050, ¶ 11, 147 N.M. 182, 218 P.3d 868 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). “The plain meaning rule requires that [we give statutes] effect as written without room for construction unless the language is doubtful[ or] ambiguous[] or an adherence to the literal use of the words would lead to injustice, absurdity or contradiction, in which case” we construe “the statute . . . according to its obvious spirit or reason.” Boyse, 2013-NMSC-024, ¶ 9 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
B. Appellate Jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to Review District Court Decisions from Both On-Record and De Novo Reviews of Criminal Actions Originating in Metropolitan Court
{21} The New Mexico Constitution grants appellate jurisdiction to the Court of Appeals “as may be provided by law.”
{23} The specific constitutional grant of appellate jurisdiction to the district court from judgments of limited-jurisdiction courts prevents direct appeals from metropolitan court and other lower tribunals to the Court of Appeals. See
C. Right of a Party to Appeal from a District Court‘s On-Record and De Novo Reviews of Criminal Actions Originating in Metropolitan Court
{25} The New Mexico Constitution expressly establishes the right to appeal a decision of the metropolitan court. See
{26} Instead, the right to appeal a district court‘s disposition of an on-record appeal from metropolitan court is statutory. “In any criminal proceeding in district court an appeal may be taken by the defendant to the supreme court or court of appeals, as appellate jurisdiction may be vested by law in these courts[,] . . . from the entry of any final judgment.”
{27} Historically, because New Mexico‘s courts of limited jurisdiction were not courts of record, appeals taken from these courts were necessarily heard as trials de novo. See Ball, 1986-NMSC-030, ¶ 18 (describing prestatehood justice of the peace statutes that provided the right of appeal to any person aggrieved by a judgment and required all appeals to be tried de novo). This is still the case with New Mexico‘s municipal and traditional magistrate courts today. See
{28} A de novo appeal is not an ordinary appeal, where the decision of the lower court is reviewed by a superior court, but is more accurately described as “the removal of a cause from the inferior to a superior court.” Ball, 1986-NMSC-030, ¶ 15. De novo appeals are “tried anew . . . on their merits, as if no trial had been had below. . . .”
{30} In the next year, the Legislature amended Section 34-8A-6 to mandate that the metropolitan court was a court of record with respect to civil actions, rather than leaving that status to be specified by rule. See 1980 N.M. Laws, ch. 142, § 4(B). It provided that while criminal appeals to the district court would still “be de novo unless otherwise specified by supreme court rule,” for civil actions tried on the record in the metropolitan court, “the manner and method for such appeal shall be set forth
{31} The 1993 amendments to Section 34-8A-6 resulted in our current statute in which the Legislature expanded the metropolitan court‘s authorization as a court of record to include two criminal actions, those involving DWI and those involving domestic violence. See 1993 N.M. Laws, ch. 67, § 1(C)-(D);
{32} Significantly, the Legislature made no changes to the statutes governing
D. Legislative Policy Considerations
{33} Opinions will differ on whether the current process of taking on-record appeals to the district court, which is a trial court rather than an appellate court, makes the best use of the two different kinds of courts. And one may question why misdemeanor cases could receive up to three levels of record review, from the district court to the Court of Appeals to the Supreme Court, while felony convictions resulting in sentences of death or life imprisonment merit only one record review, see
{35} We note that for on-record appeals to the district court from metropolitan court judgments in criminal actions involving DWI and domestic violence, Section 34-8A-6(C) provides that “[t]he manner and method of appeal shall be set forth by supreme court rule.” We have never addressed whether the Legislature intended this section to delegate authority that would permit this Court to promulgate rules prescribing a certiorari process for further review in the Court of Appeals, see
III. CONCLUSION
{36} Confirming our previous order in this case, we affirm the Court of Appeals and hold that it has appellate jurisdiction to review decisions made in on-record appeals to the district court from the metropolitan court and that Section 39-3-3 provides the
{37} IT IS SO ORDERED.
CHARLES W. DANIELS, Chief Justice
WE CONCUR:
PETRA JIMENEZ MAES, Justice
EDWARD L. CHAVEZ, Justice
BARBARA J. VIGIL, Justice
JUDITH K. NAKAMURA, Justice (recused)