STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Petitioner, v. GERARD B. PARVILUS, Defendant-Respondent.
Docket No. 33,970
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO
July 31, 2014
DANIELS, Justice.
ORIGINAL PROCEEDING ON CERTIORARI, James Waylon Counts, District Judge
James W. Grayson, Assistant Attorney General
Nicole Beder, Assistant Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM
for Petitioner
Robert E. Tangora, L.L.C.
Robert E. Tangora
Santa Fe, NM
for Respondent
OPINION
DANIELS, Justice.
I. INTRODUCTION
{1} Over a century ago, the New Mexico Territorial Legislature enacted a civil marital property statute, now codified as
{2} We hold that
II. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND
{3} After a tumultuous two years of marriage marked by violence, infidelity, and bitter fights about divorce and child custody, Defendant and his wife, Jahaira Parvilus, finally decided that Jahaira would move out of their marital home and into a separate apartment with their two-year-old son. Prior to their physical separation, Defendant had threatened to kill himself and became increasingly violent and jealous—slapping Jahaira, breaking a medicine cabinet, and at least once threatening to use a gun.
{4} In January 2008, Defendant rented a separate apartment in Alamogordo for his wife and moved her belongings and some of his own into the apartment while she was out of town. Defendant lived at the apartment briefly and was initially listed as an occupant on the lease. When Jahaira returned to Alamogordo later that month, the couple visited the leasing office together and signed documents establishing that she would be the sole leaseholder of the new apartment. Defendant then turned over his keys to the apartment to his wife and in the first week of February left for South Korea, where he was serving a tour of duty with the Air Force. While Jahaira was driving him to the airport, Defendant punched the dashboard and kicked the windshield until it broke.
{5} Less than a week after Defendant left for South Korea, Jahaira‘s lover, Pierre Smith, began staying with her in the apartment. On February 17, Jahaira called Defendant and disclosed that she had been pregnant with Smith‘s child and recently got an abortion. Though Defendant already knew of Smith and had previously sent an e-mail message to Jahaira that he wanted to kill Smith, he grew increasingly despondent about the abortion and the affair. On February 20, Defendant went absent without leave from his base in South Korea and flew home without telling his wife.
{6} After arriving in Alamogordo, Defendant rented a motel room and called his wife after midnight to find out when she would be working the next day. The following morning, Defendant bought a gun, a utility knife, and a screwdriver, later testifying that he intended to break into his wife‘s apartment while she was at work, obtain some of his legal documents, and then kill himself.
{7} At his wife‘s apartment, Defendant left his gun in the car and approached the apartment with the utility knife and screwdriver. While crawling through the bedroom window,
{8} Defendant then went back to his wife‘s apartment and waited inside for her to get home. Jahaira testified that when she arrived at her apartment, Defendant surprised her, pointed a gun at her, called her a “fucking bitch,” and hit her on the head with the gun. Defendant interrogated Jahaira about their son‘s true biological father and about sex acts she had committed with Smith. Defendant then showed her Smith‘s shredded T-shirt and shorts and told her to look in the kitchen for her knife, which was missing. After threatening to kill himself, Defendant forced Jahaira to wear a hat to cover her bleeding head wound and then drove her to the motel at gunpoint to see Smith‘s body. After viewing the body and arguing with Jahaira about whether Defendant would kill her, kill himself, kill them both, or escape to Mexico, Defendant ultimately decided to surrender to the New Mexico State Police.
{9} At his jury trial, Defendant was convicted of murder in the second degree, two counts of kidnapping in the first degree, aggravated burglary, aggravated assault, and interference with communications. In order to convict Defendant of aggravated burglary of his wife‘s apartment, the jury had to find that his entry into the apartment was unauthorized. See
{10} Both parties appealed to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the judgment of the district court. Parvilus, 2013-NMCA-025, ¶¶ 1, 47. The Court concluded that
{11} We granted the State‘s petition for writ of certiorari to review the precedential statutory interpretation issue. Parvilus, 2013-NMCERT-002.
III. DISCUSSION
{12} This case requires that we address the relationship between two statutes, one criminal and the other civil. The criminal statute provides,
Aggravated burglary consists of the unauthorized entry of any vehicle, watercraft, aircraft, dwelling or other structure, movable or immovable, with intent to commit any felony or theft therein and the person either:
- is armed with a deadly weapon;
- after entering, arms himself with a deadly weapon;
- commits a battery upon any person while in such place, or in entering or leaving such place.
Whoever commits aggravated burglary is guilty of a second degree felony.
{13} The civil statute provides, “Neither husband nor wife has any interest in the property of the other, but neither can be excluded from the other‘s dwelling.”
{14} No reported case has addressed the issue of whether
{15} “The meaning of language used in a statute is a question of law that we review de novo.” Cooper v. Chevron U.S.A., Inc., 2002-NMSC-020, ¶ 16, 132 N.M. 382, 49 P.3d 61. Our primary goal is to give effect to the intent of the Legislature. N.M. Indus. Energy Consumers v. N.M. Pub. Regulation Comm‘n, 2007-NMSC-053, ¶ 20, 142 N.M. 533, 168 P.3d 105. “In addition to looking at the statute‘s plain language, we will consider its history and background and how the specific statute fits within the broader statutory scheme.” Chatterjee v. King, 2012-NMSC-019, ¶ 12, 280 P.3d 283. Though we may not “second-guess[] the clear policy of the Legislature, when the statute is ambiguous, we may nonetheless consider the policy implications of the various constructions of the statute.” State v. Rivera, 2004-NMSC-001, ¶ 14, 134 N.M. 768, 82 P.3d 939 (citation omitted). “[I]t is part of the essence of judicial responsibility to search for and effectuate the legislative intent—the purpose or object—underlying the statute.” State ex rel. Helman v. Gallegos, 1994-NMSC-023, ¶ 23, 117 N.M. 346, 871 P.2d 1352.
{16} Finally, statutes relating to the same general topic should be interpreted in light of each other, “the theory being that the court can discern legislative intent behind an unclear statute by reference to similar statutes where legislative intent is more clear.” State v. Cleve, 1999-NMSC-017, ¶ 13, 127 N.M. 240, 980 P.2d 23 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).
{17} In 1929, this Court construed the legislative intent behind the 1907 enactment of which
{18} In the same year that it passed
{19} Notably, all of these statutes concern property rights as they relate to domestic relations and are codified in the Domestic Affairs chapter of our current laws. See
{20} As early as 1965, the California Supreme Court declined to apply a spousal-nonexclusion civil statute equivalent to
{21} While the decisions in Sears and Davenport relied on the criminal intent of the estranged spouse rather than on the placement of the nonexclusion statute in a domestic relations chapter as in Lilly, we note that two years after Davenport the California legislature removed California‘s version of
{22} We interpret
{23} We align ourselves with the other jurisdictions that have decided the issue and hold that the marital property provisions of statutes such as
{24} Because the evidence in this case established that Defendant and his wife had agreed that the apartment was to be her separate residence, that he would not have a key, that he did not have her permission to enter, and that he entered surreptitiously through a window before committing his crimes, Defendant was lawfully convicted of aggravated burglary, and his conviction should be reinstated.
IV. CONCLUSION
{25} Because we conclude that the marital property provisions of
{26} IT IS SO ORDERED.
CHARLES W. DANIELS, Justice
WE CONCUR:
BARBARA J. VIGIL, Chief Justice
PETRA JIMENEZ MAES, Justice
RICHARD C. BOSSON, Justice
EDWARD L. CHÁVEZ, Justice