NMSC: Serious Youthful Offenders Not Entitled to Amenability Hearing

In State v. Ortiz, Defendant was convicted of three counts of first degree felony murder after he killed a family of three with a pickaxe during a burglary. At the time of the murder, he was sixteen years old. The New Mexico Supreme Court, finding him to be a serious youthful offender, sentenced him as an adult, giving him three concurrent 25-year sentences. On appeal, Defendant argued that the court’s failure to provide him with an amenability hearing deprived him of his constitutional rights. The Supreme Court affirmed.

Legal Background

Before sentencing a juvenile offender, a court must decide which of three categories the juvenile belongs to: delinquent offenders, youthful offenders, or serious youthful offenders. As is relevant here, a youthful offender is a delinquent child between fourteen and eighteen years old who commits a crime other than first degree murder, or a 14 year old who commits first degree murder. A serious youthful offender is a child between fifteen and eighteen years old charged with and indicted for first degree murder.

Delinquent and youthful offenders are entitled to an “amenability hearing.” At this hearing, the court must determine whether the child is amenable to treatment or rehabilitation and whether the child if eligible for commitment at an institution for children with developmental disabilities or mental disorders. Only if neither option is available may the child be sentenced as an adult. However, serious youthful offenders are not entitled to an amenability hearing and may be sentenced as an adult without one.

Because Defendant was sixteen at the time of the murder, he was a serious youthful offender. He did not receive an amenability hearing and was sentenced as an adult. On appeal, he argued that this violated his state and federal constitutional rights to be free of cruel and unusual punishment and also his Equal Protection rights (because serious youthful offenders were treated differently than other types of offenders).

Defendant’s Sentence Was Not Cruel and Unusual Punishment

At first glance, at least for those who do not practice criminal law, Defendant’s cruel and unusual punishment argument may seem absurd. After all, 25 years does not seem like a high price to pay for murdering three innocent people with a pickaxe. But in reality Defendant only sought to extend existing sate and federal case law protecting minors from excessive sentences.

In particular, Defendant sought an expansion of the law as stated in Ira v. Janecka, 2018-NMSC-027. Ira recognized in New Mexico a number of Eighth Amendment themes from federal law. First, that the death penalty is not available for juveniles. Second, that juveniles may not be sentenced to life without parole for non-homicide crimes. And third, that a state may not impose mandatory sentences of life without parole for juvenile offenders. In Ira the court upheld a sentence where the juvenile was not eligible for parole until he had served forty-six years.

Ira itself reflected an evolving jurisprudence on childhood sentencing. Defendant urged that the next step in that evolution should be that all juveniles should receive amenability hearings. The Court approved of the trends, but declined to extend Ira in that way. Instead, it viewed this question as one of policy that is better left to the legislature. Because the sentencing in this case was well within the confines of existing law, the Court concluded that it was not cruel and unusual punishment.

The Statutes Did Not Violate Equal Protection

Turning to Defendant’s equal protection argument, the Court first determined that, because no fundamental right was implicated and because the law did not discriminate on the basis of a protected class (such as race), the law would be reviewed under the “rational basis” test. Under this easy-to-meet test, a law is upheld if it rationally furthers a legitimate state interest.

Not surprisingly, the law passed this test. Defendant argued that there was no rational basis to distinguish between juveniles who committed second degree murder and those who committed first degree felony murder because, in both cases, the mens rea requirement was the same. The Court was skeptical of this distinction, as it had previously explained the basis for this distinction. But it did not immediately reject the argument on that basis.

Instead, looking to the purpose behind the Delinquency Act, the Court noted that legislature had balanced its obligation to protect society from the most violent juvenile offenders with a recognition that most children should not face adult consequences due to their potential for rehabilitation or lesser culpability. The legislature struck that balance by allowing amenability hearings for all but the most violent convictions. And, as to felony murder, the Court reiterated that the legislature had a rational basis for distinguishing this type of murder from second degree murder.

Finding now constitutional problems with the convictions, the Court affirmed Defendant’s sentence, and reiterated that where no constitutional problem exists its is the prerogative of the legislature to change the juvenile sentencing requirements.

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