{1} Defendant appeals his convictions of third degree criminal sexual penetration (CSP III), aggravated battery, and false imprisonment. He does not challenge a fourth conviction of larceny. His briefs raised the following three double jeopardy issues: (1) that his conviction at a second trial of CSP III, after he was tried for CSP II at a first trial that resulted in neither a verdict nor any inquiry into the degree of CSP on which the jury was hung, compels a discharge on all levels of CSP; (2) that his conviction of false imprisonment as well as CSP, which necessarily involves the confinement of a victim, compels a discharge on the false imprisonment count; and (3) that the prosecutor’s conduct in the first trial during jury deliberations, in obtaining instruction on CSP III and in subsequent supplemental closing argument, was sufficiently egregious conduct to require a discharge on all counts under State v. Breit,
{2} We agree with Defendant that his double jeopardy rights were violated by the State’s prosecution of Defendant at the second trial for CSP II because there was no manifest necessity for a mistrial on that charge during the first trial. However, the remedy for the violation is a retrial on that count with the highest exposure being to CSP III. Further, we hold that the prosecutor’s conduct did not rise to a level compelling a dismissal under Breit. Therefore, there is no double jeopardy bar to further trials. However, we believe that the double jeopardy error of submitting CSP II to the jury during the second trial tainted all of the convictions resulting from that trial, and therefore the proper remedy is to reverse the three convictions and remand for a third
FACTS AND BACKGROUND
{3} Victim made a 911 call to the police department and reported that she had just been raped inside her home. Victim stated that she had been unable to see the perpetrator’s face throughout the incident. Furthermore, she reported that the perpetrator was armed with a knife during the incident. When the police arrived to interview Victim, Victim realized that her television and VCR were missing from her living room. After the police searched the area, the police noticed a trail of footprints leading from Victim’s house to Defendant’s house. After receiving consent to enter Defendant’s home, the police found a VCR and television with serial numbers that matched those that they had received from Victim. Defendant was arrested for theft of Victim’s property.
{4} Subsequently, Defendant admitted that he had had sexual intercourse with Victim on the night in question, although Defendant stated that the intercourse was consensual. Furthermore, Defendant stated that Victim had agreed to lend him her television and VCR. Further investigation by the police led them to discover clothes in Defendant’s home that matched those described by Victim as the type worn by the perpetrator. However, even after conducting a thorough search of the area, the police were unable to locate the knife Victim had described as being used by the perpetrator. Although the knife was not found, Defendant was eventually indicted for criminal sexual penetration of Victim while armed with a deadly weapon (CSP II).
{5} Defendant was charged with four counts: Count 1 charged aggravated burglary, Count 2 charged CSP II, Count 3 charged false imprisonment, and Count 4 charged larceny. At the first trial, after the State and Defendant had presented their cases, the four counts were submitted to a jury and, after several hours of deliberation, the jury sent a written question to the court. Specifically, the jury’s question dealt with Count 2, which charged Defendant with CSP II. The jury asked the following question:
“If we think there was not a knife, must we acquit on Count 2, item two?”
The court, after discussing the jury’s question with both parties, responded to the inquiry by directing the jury to “please read instruction No. 7 in its entirety.” Instruction 7 was the elements instruction for CSP II, and item two of it required the jury to find that Defendant was armed with and used a deadly weapon.
{6} Shortly thereafter, the State moved the court to supplement the jury instructions by adding an instruction for criminal sexual penetration without the use of a deadly weapon, CSP III, as a lesser included offense of Count 2. After hearing arguments from both the State and Defendant, the court granted the State’s request to allow CSP III as a lesser included offense of Count 2 over Defendant’s strong objection. While the court allowed the jury to continue deliberating on the other counts, the court asked the jury not to deliberate any further on Count 2 until receiving further instructions from the court. Defendant then requested that the court allow both parties to briefly provide additional closing arguments to the jury concerning the charge of CSP III. The court granted Defendant’s request. The jury was then called back into the courtroom, where the court instructed the jury on the charge of CSP III. The court then informed the jurors that, as to Count 2, they were to first consider the charge of CSP II and, if they had a reasonable doubt as to that charge, they were to begin deliberating the CSP III charge.
{7} Upon completion of the court’s oral instructions to the jury, the court allowed both the State and Defendant to make closing arguments concerning the supplemental jury instructions. In its supplemental closing argument, the State made the following statement:
We looked at your questions and tried to define what you were thinking in the jury room, and we came up with two possible answers. Clearly, you were concerned about the element that said Defendant was armed and used a deadly weapon, and theDefendant used a knife. We don’t think you had a problem with the rest of it, which talks about what the definition of a deadly weapon is. One possibility we thought of was that you were concerned about what [“]used a knife[”] meant. Another possible concern we thought you had was what happens if you don’t think there was any knife at all.
Defendant did not object to this argument.
{8} After closing arguments, the jury deliberations reconvened. Shortly afterwards, the jury foreperson informed the court that the jury had reached a verdict on the count of larceny, but that it was unable to reach a decision on the other counts. The jury was then called in. The foreperson of the jury announced that as to the charge of larceny, the jury had found Defendant guilty. After both parties declined the court’s offer to poll the jury as to the larceny charge, the following dialogue occurred between the court and the jury foreperson:
THE COURT: Very well.
The Court having inspected the verdict forms as to Counts 1, 2 and 3, and taken the information from the jury that they cannot reach a decision, the Court then declares a mistrial as to Counts 1, 2 and 3.
Ms. Coogler, having done that, the Court needs to know what the numerical split of the jury was on its last vote as to guilty and not guilty?
JUROR COOGLER: We have that piece of paper in there. Could I refer to it?
THE COURT: If you need it. If you don’t recall the numerical decision now, then you may get the note, or the bailiff may get it for you.
JUROR COOGLER: Okay, Your Hon- or, on the aggravated burglary, which I believe is the first one, two felt that he was guilty and 10 felt that he was not guilty. On the second one, which was the criminal sexual penetration, nine felt that he was guilty and three felt that he was not guilty. On the false imprisonment, 10 felt he was guilty, and two felt he was not guilty.
The court then excused the jury.
{9} Thereafter, Defendant was retried on charges of aggravated burglary, false imprisonment, CSP II, and CSP III. His second trial ended in convictions for CSP III, aggravated burglary, and false imprisonment. Defendant appeals these convictions, claiming that his double jeopardy rights were violated in a variety of ways.
DISCUSSION
1. Defendant’s right to be free from double jeopardy was violated by the State’s prosecution of Defendant for CSP II at the second trial because there was no manifest necessity for the court to declare a mistrial as to that charge during the first trial.
{10} Defendant argues that his conviction of CSP III must be set aside because the first trial ended in an implied acquittal of CSP II, and the double jeopardy clauses of both the state and federal constitutions bar successive prosecutions following an acquittal. Although we agree with Defendant’s contention that his double jeopardy rights were violated when the State prosecuted him a second time for CSP II, we conclude that the proper remedy for such a violation is not to bar all successive prosecutions, but to order a retrial on the CSP count with the highest degree of exposure being to CSP III. We review double jeopardy claims de novo. State v. Segura,
{11} Defendant relies on State v. Castrillo,
[T]he record is not clear as to which of the included offenses the jury was considering at the time of its discharge. Without inquiry by the trial court into the jury’s deliberations on the greater, included offenses, no necessity is manifest to declare a mistrial as to those offenses and thus jeopardy has attached. Jeopardy did not attach to the offense of voluntary manslaughter which was the least of the included offenses. Had the jury reached a unanimous decision on that offense it could not have been in the posture it announced to the court.
Id. at 613-14,
{13} In Garcia, the issue before us was whether the district court committed error when it inquired into the jury deliberations as to the greater offense, but did not continue its inquiry into the jury’s deliberations of the lesser included offenses.
{14} After analyzing Castrillo and its progeny, we concluded that nothing in Castrillo required a district court to continue its inquiry into the jury’s deliberations regarding lesser offenses when the court has determined, through its inquiry, that the jury was unable to reach agreement as to a greater offense. Garcia,
If the jury has been instructed on one or more lesser included offenses, and the jury cannot unanimously agree upon any of the offenses submitted, the court shall poll the jury by inquiring as to each degree of the offense upon which the jury has been instructed beginning with the highest degree and, in descending order, inquiring as to each lesser degree until the court has determined at what level of the offense the jury has disagreed.
2005-NMCS-042, ¶¶ 25-27. Thus, in Garcia, we determined that the district court did not err in the manner in which it inquired as to the jury’s deliberations, and we concluded that the defendant’s retrial and subsequent conviction of first degree murder did not violate his double jeopardy rights because there was a manifest necessity to declare a mistrial at that level of the charge. Id. ¶ 29.
{15} In the present case, contrary to Rule 5-611(D) and our Supreme Court’s holding in Castrillo, the district court did not inquire
{16} Although we have determined that Defendant should not have been prosecuted at the second trial for CSP II, we do not agree with Defendant that it would be a violation of his double jeopardy rights to order a retrial where the highest exposure Defendant would face would be for CSP III. In Castrillo, the Court held that a dismissal on double jeopardy grounds is required for such offenses where the record is silent upon which of the specific offenses the jury had agreed and upon which the jury had reached an impasse. Id. In that case, the Court did not dismiss the lower offense because the Court noted that “[h]ad the jury reached a unanimous decision on that offense it could not have been in the posture it announced to the court.” Id. at 614,
{17} Furthermore, we find no merit in the State’s argument that Defendant’s double jeopardy rights were not violated because Defendant was only convicted of CSP III at his second trial, and therefore he suffered no prejudice due to his second prosecution for CSP II. The United States Supreme Court expressly rejected this contention in Price v. Georgia,
The Double Jeopardy Clause, as we have noted, is cast in terms of the risk or hazard of trial and conviction, not of the ultimate legal consequences of the verdict. To be charged and to be subjected to a second trial for first-degree murder is an ordeal not to be viewed lightly. Further, and perhaps of more importance, we cannot determine whether or not the murder charge against petitioner induced the jury to find him guilty of the less serious offense of voluntary manslaughter rather than to continue to debate his innocence.
Id. at 331,
{18} Defendant contends that this language means that he must be discharged on all degrees of CSP. We disagree. In the very next paragraph of Price, the Supreme Court indicated that the possibility of retrial on the lesser offense, which would not be prohibited by double jeopardy principles, was a matter for state law. Id. at 332,
2. The prosecutor’s conduct in this case did not rise to the level of Breit, and therefore there is no double jeopardy bar to further trials.
{19} Defendant argues that the prosecutor’s conduct in this case was so outra-
geous
{20} In Breit, the Court held:
[W]hen a defendant moves for a mistrial, retrial, or reversal because of prosecutorial misconduct: Retrial is barred under Article II, Section 15, of the New Mexico Constitution, when improper official conduct is so unfairly prejudicial to the defendant that it cannot be cured by means short of a mistrial or a motion for a new trial, and if the official knows that the conduct is improper and prejudicial, and if the official either intends to provoke a mistrial or acts in willful disregard of the resulting mistrial, retrial, or reversal.
{21} In the present case, the result of the prosecutor’s actions was a mistrial, but we cannot say that the prosecutor was acting in willful disregard of a mistrial, retrial, or reversal. First, the ease on which Defendant relies for the proposition that the jury should not have been instructed on a lesser included offense for the first time during deliberations, State v. Villa,
{22} Defendant rests much of his argument concerning prosecutorial impropriety on the prosecutor’s statement we previously quoted in paragraph 7 in which the prosecutor specifically addressed the jurors about his suppositions as to their thinking underlying their question to the court about the knife. Defendant contends that this statement by the prosecutor indicates a level of misconduct so unfairly prejudicial to Defendant that, pursuant to Breit, Defendant’s convictions should be reversed and the State should be barred from retrying Defendant. We disagree.
{23} Although we agree with Defendant that it was improper for the prosecutor in this case to inject himself into the jury’s deliberations through his closing argument, we conclude that this lone instance does not rise to the level of misconduct articulated in Breit. See
{24} The Court in Breit noted that the prosecutorial misconduct in that case led to a “trial out of control.”
{25} The prosecutorial misconduct described in Breit is a far cry from the improper language used in one instance by the prosecutor in this case. We conclude that our Supreme Court’s decision in Breit was not intended to bar retrials based on the slightest prosecutorial misconduct. The Court in Breit stated, and we agree, that “[r]aising the bar of double jeopardy should be an exceedingly uncommon remedy.” Id. ¶ 35. Finally, because of the evidence that the police found no knife, the instruction on CSP III was supported by the evidence. See State v. Fish,
3. The nature and impact of the double jeopardy violation was such that it infected all of the convictions obtained at the second trial, and therefore we reverse all three convictions and remand for a new trial.
{26} As indicated above, Price and Castrillo require a reversal of the CSP III conviction and allow for the possibility of retrial on that count. The State contends that it should be only the CSP charge, if any, that is required to be retried. Defendant, on the other hand, contends that retrial on any charge is barred, but if retrial is allowed, it should be on all charges. Apart from the Breit rationale, which we have already rejected, Defendant does not cite any specific authority for the proposition that he is entitled to be discharged on all counts arising from a trial in which a higher degree of one count was submitted to the jury erroneously under double jeopardy principles. He does cite' the language from Green v. United States,
“The underlying idea, one that is deeply ingrained in at least the Anglo-American system of jurisprudence, is that the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to make repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and compelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.”
Id. (quoting Green,
{27} Nonetheless, we believe that the circumstances of this case counsel that the double jeopardy error of trying Defendant a second time for CSP II, when he should not have faced trial on that charge, spilled over to and infected not only the conviction of CSP III, but also the convictions of aggravated burglary and false imprisonment. We recognize that the jury was instructed at both trials for aggravated burglary that it could find Defendant guilty if he either was or became ai-med with a knife or committed a battery inside and that the knife did not form any part of the elements of false imprisonment. But the factual basis of all of the charges was bound up with the presence of
{28} Our own cases, discussing the concept of harmless error in the evidentiary context, are to a like effect. Clark v. State,
{29} We believe that it is appropriate to evaluate the effect of the CSP II charge on the remaining charges because of the importance of the double jeopardy principle as outlined in Green,
4. CSP III and false imprisonment are separate offenses upon which a defendant may be separately convicted and sentenced.
{30} Defendant claims that his double jeopardy rights were also violated by his conviction and sentence for'both CSP III and false imprisonment based on the same facts. He relies on State v. Pisio,
{31} We next look at the social evils sought to be prevented, construing them narrowly,
Under these circumstances, we believe that the legislature likely intended CSP III and false imprisonment to be separately punished by four and one-half years of imprisonment in appropriate cases within the prosecutor’s discretion.
{32} Defendant argues, however, that the Swafford analysis is not correctly applied to his offenses in the above manner because this Court has already decided, in State v. Crain,
{33} Crain concerned a defendant who was convicted of two counts of CSP II (one with personal injury and one in the commission of a felony) and of the separate charge of kidnapping. Id. ¶ 15. The kidnapping itself was the very felony involved in the CSP II, based on one factual episode that did not involve restraint apart from that necessary to the CSP. Id. ¶¶ 15, 17. We first analyzed the two CSP offenses and found that they had different elements. Id. ¶ 19. We therefore presumed different offenses. Id. However, we noted that both methods of committing CSP II were simply ways of increasing the degree of seriousness of a CSP III offense, and therefore we held that both charges of CSP II could not stand. Id. ¶ 20. In deciding which type of CSP II to let stand, because there was no separate kidnapping, we held that the legislature did not intend to permit either CSP II (in the commission of a felony) or the separate second degree felony of kidnapping whenever there is evidence of the third degree felony of CSP III. Id. ¶ 21. This reasoning is inapplicable in this case because of the difference in the degrees of the crimes at issue. In other words, it was the seriousness of the offenses of CSP II and kidnapping, both second degree felonies involving nine-year sentences, that motivated our belief in Crain as to what the legislature intended. Accordingly, we disagree with Defendant that Crain requires a holding that Defendant’s double jeopardy rights were violated here.
CONCLUSION
{34} We reverse Defendant’s convictions of CSP III, aggravated burglary, and false imprisonment and remand them for a new trial.
{35} IT IS SO ORDERED.
