OPINION BOSSON, Justice. {1} In the practice of law, there is no higher duty than one's loyalty to a client. This duty applies to current and former clients alike. In this case, we are called upon to interpret this duty in light of Rule 16-110(C) NMRA of the Rules of Professional Conduct regarding the imputation of conflicts of interest to law firms. In interpreting and applying the rule to this case, we hold that when an attorney has played a substantial role on one side of a lawsuit and...
OPINION CH VEZ, Justice. {1} Defendant Bruce Hall was convicted of a sex crime in California pursuant to a plea agreement. Hall subsequently moved to New Mexico and was charged with the fourth-degree felony of failing to register as a sex offender in violation of NMSA 1978, Section 29-11A-4(N) (2005). The New Mexico Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (SORNA), NMSA 1978, 29-11A-1 to -10 (1995, as amended through 2007), requires a person convicted of any of twelve enumerated sex...
This decision was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decisions. DECISION EDWARD L. CH VEZ, Justice. { 1} This matter came before the full Court on a petition for writ of certiorari to the New Mexico Court of Appeals to review its memorandum opinion affirming the district court's denial of the State's request for an extension of time within which to commence trial pursuant to Rule 5-...
OPINION BOSSON, Justice. {1} This case comes to this Court on direct appeal from an order issued by the First Judicial District Court granting a writ of habeas corpus. For reasons that follow, we reverse the district court, dismiss the petition for a writ of habeas corpus, and reinstate the sanctions imposed by the New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD). BACKGROUND {2} Joseph C. Perry, Petitioner, is a prison inmate at the Penitentiary of New Mexico. During the central events of this...
OPINION DANIELS, Justice. {1} This case calls upon us to determine whether NMSA 1978, Section 72-2-9.1 (2003), provided a constitutional delegation of authority for the Office of the State Engineer to adopt new regulations to administer water resources according to administrative interim priority determinations based on a number of factors. The district court and Court of Appeals concluded that it did not and that the State Engineer's lawful authority to supervise water allocations can be...
OPINION BOSSON, Justice. {1} By the time Defendant was indicted, the grand jury allegedly had exceeded its statutory term of service. Having been convicted subsequently of most of the charges in the indictment, Defendant appeals on the basis of that untimely indictment. He claims that the untimely indictment deprived the grand jury of jurisdiction and that we should overturn the subsequent jury verdict against him because of that initial defect in the grand jury. Persuaded by this argument,...
OPINION BOSSON, Justice. INTRODUCTION {1} In this first-degree murder case, the State improperly admitted into evidence a diary of the decedent which was inadmissible hearsay. Because the diary was important to the State's case, and the State repeatedly relied upon its contents throughout the trial, we conclude that the error was not harmless and the convictions must be reversed. Accordingly, we remand to the district court for a new trial. BACKGROUND {2} On May 22, 2009, Marino "Reno"...
This decision was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decision. DECISION BOSSON, Justice. { 1} We decide this case by unpublished Decision pursuant to Rule 12-405(B)(1) NMRA. The legal issues presented in this case were previously decided, leaving only the application of facts to the law in this particular case. For reasons that follow, we reverse the Court of Appeals and affirm the...
OPINION DANIELS, Justice. { 1} In this case, we address the use of multiple levels of anonymous hearsay reports in the probable cause portion of a search warrant affidavit. We granted Defendant David Haidle's application for interlocutory appeal to review the district court's partial denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained at his home through execution of a magistrate court search warrant. The district court found that the warrant was issued without constitutionally adequate...
OPINION SERNA, Justice. { 1} This appeal turns on our construction of a single word, "sudden," within a pollution exclusion clause in a series of liability insurance policies barring coverage for certain damages unless the events causing those damages were "sudden and accidental"—an issue of first impression in New Mexico, although one already considered by numerous courts in other jurisdictions. Concluding that "sudden" lacks a single clear meaning, we reverse the Court of Appeals' holding...
OPINION SERNA, Justice. { 1} On the night of November 15, 2008, while aimlessly driving around Roswell, New Mexico, Julian Tafoya (Defendant) shot and killed Andrea Larez, and shot and injured Crystal Brady. Larez and Brady were sitting in the front of the car and Defendant and his girlfriend, Kaprice Conde, were sitting in back. Defendant was convicted by a jury of first degree felony murder with the predicate felony of "shooting at or from a motor vehicle," NMSA 1978, 30-3-8(B) (1993),...
OPINION BOSSON, Justice. { 1} These consolidated cases ask this court to address for the first time the outer limits of New Mexico's burglary statute, NMSA 1978, Section 30-16-3 (1971). In more than 40 years, this Court has issued only one burglary opinion and even then on a somewhat tangential issue. See State v. Gonzales, 78 N.M. 218 , 430 P.2d 376 (1967). By contrast, over that same time our Court of Appeals has issued numerous opinions that, for the most part, have expanded...
OPINION CH VEZ, Justice. { 1} This case involves a multi-party, multi-claim lawsuit that was appealed to the Court of Appeals on November 18, 2010. The Court of Appeals dismissed the appeal as to one of the appellants, bigbyte.cc Corp (Bigbyte), because all of Bigbyte's claims had been disposed of by summary judgment one year earlier, making the November 18, 2010 notice of appeal untimely. We address whether the interlocutory appeal language in the year-old summary judgment, which Bigbyte...
OPINION DANIELS, Justice. { 1} Defendant was convicted of first-degree murder and tampering with evidence in the fatal stabbing of Andrew Gama during a fight at a Clovis apartment complex in March 2010. In his direct appeal to this Court, he argues that (1) there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction for tampering with evidence, (2) the district court abused its discretion by denying his motion for a new trial when two defense exhibits left on counsel table after closing...
OPINION SERNA, Justice. { 1} "All political power is vested in and derived from the people: all government of right originates with the people, is founded upon their will and is instituted solely for their good." N.M. Const. art. II, 2. The co-equal branches of the government of the State of New Mexico, N.M. Const. art. III, 1, like those of the United States of America, are expressly limited to the exercise of powers delegated to them by our citizens. Our democratic system of...
OPINION CH VEZ, Justice. { 1} Eric Schuster (Schuster) appeals a decision of the Taxation and Revenue Department, Motor Vehicle Division (MVD) to revoke his driver's license pursuant to the Implied Consent Act, NMSA 1978, 66-8-105 to -112 (1978, as amended through 2007). The predominant issue in this case is whether MVD must find that the arrest of a driver charged with driving while intoxicated (DWI) was constitutional as one of the prerequisites to revoking the driver's license. We...
OPINION DANIELS, Justice. {1} We granted certiorari to review a Court of Appeals opinion that overturned the district court's denial of a motion to suppress drug evidence discovered during a traffic stop of Defendant Gunnar Olson. See State v. Olson, 2011-NMCA-056, 1-2, 5-6, 150 N.M. 348 , 258 P.3d 1140 . We hold that the arresting officer had reasonable suspicion to expand the scope of the valid traffic stop to an investigation of prostitution solicitation and that Defendant's...
OPINION DANIELS, Justice. {1} In this case, we address the use of multiple levels of anonymous hearsay reports in the probable cause portion of a search warrant affidavit. We granted Defendant David Haidle's application for interlocutory appeal to review the district court's partial denial of his motion to suppress evidence obtained at his home through execution of a magistrate court search warrant. The district court found that the warrant was issued without constitutionally adequate...
OPINION SERNA, Justice. {1} "There is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind, as the right of property." 2 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England 2 (Univ. of Chicago Press ed. 1979) (1766). The property that has captured the affections of the litigants in this case is a parcel of land located in San Juan County with productive oil and gas wells thereon. While ownership of the land is the ultimate question the parties seek...
OPINION MAES, Chief Justice. {1} This litigation stems from a dispute over the proper calculation of royalty payments on state oil and gas leases. In New Mexico, the Commissioner of Public Lands (Commissioner) "is hereby authorized to execute and issue in the name of the state of New Mexico, as lessor, leases for the exploration, development and production of oil and natural gas, from any lands belonging to the state of New Mexico, or held in trust by the state under grants from the United...
