New Mexico Supreme Court Reverses Grant of Habeas Petition in Resident Child Molestation Case

In State v. Lente, filed last week, the New Mexico Supreme Court reversed a district court order granting habeas relief to a defendant convicted of criminal sexual penetration and contact of a minor, providing guidance on charging and proving sexual abuse crimes in “resident child molester” cases.

The term “resident child molester” refers to a defendant who has regular access to and control over the children they sexually abuse, and who abuses the children in secrecy for long periods of time. Proof of specific crimes can be difficult in these cases because children are often unable to provide specific details, dates, or distinguishing characteristics of individual acts or assaults.

In this case, the defendant had been charged with sexually abusing his stepdaughter over a period of years. The case came to light when the child’s mother witnessed one of the events. The defendant was indicted on one count for each type of sexual abuse for each six-month period in which abuse occurred . At trial, the child testified that various types of abuse each happened multiple times per week over a period of years. A jury convicted the defendant of ten counts of criminal sexual penetration of a minor and fourteen counts of criminal sexual contact of a minor, and the court of appeals affirmed.

Subsequently, the defendant filed a habeas petition in the Second Judicial District court, arguing that the multiple counts against him were “carbon copy” counts. The district court agreed and vacated all but one count for each type of abuse that the jury found had occurred. The State took direct appeal to the supreme court.

Habeas Petitions

This case is a direct appeal of a petition for habeas corpus. A habeas petition is a mechanism to seek the release from confinement on the grounds of a constitutional defect in the original conviction. Habeas relief is available even after any direct appeals have been completed. The New Mexico Supreme Court has original jurisdiction over appeals from habeas petitions filed in state district courts.

Double Jeopardy

In this case, the defendant alleged that his double jeopardy rights had been violated because the counts he was charged with were “carbon copy” counts. Carbon copy counts exist when multiple counts are identically worded so that there is no differentiation among the charges. Carbon copy counts violate double jeopardy.

The classic example of carbon copy counts is State v. Valentine. In Valentine, the defendant was convicted of twenty counts of sexual abuse. Each count was identically worded–there was no information to differentiate one count from another. A court of appeals found that this violated the defendant’s double jeopardy rights. Because there was no differentiation between the counts, there was uncertainty as to whether the jury had actually found that twenty separate crimes had occurred. The court held that the counts must be distinguished from each other, and suggested that this could be done with time ranges, locations, or actions.

In this case, the counts had been split up into six-month intervals. This put the defendant on notice of the charges he had to defend against, and made the jury aware of the different factual bases for each charge. Accordingly, the Court concluded that there was no double jeopardy violation.

Sufficiency of the Evidence

Because the district court had also concluded that the evidence was not sufficient to convict the defendant for more than one count of each type of abuse, the supreme court also reviewed the sufficiency of the evidence. Sufficiency of the evidence is a common–though difficult–standard of review. In a criminal case, the evidence is sufficient to support conviction if, viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.

The Court made quick work of the sufficiency argument. There was testimony at trial that defendant had abused the victim in multiple ways multiple times per week for a period of several years. This was sufficient to support convictions of each type of abuse in each period of time.

Because there was no double jeopardy violation, and the evidence was sufficient to support the convictions, the Court reversed the district court’s order granting defendant’s habeas petition.