AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• The Defendant entered a plea of no contest to two separate crimes, under an agreement that would result in a total of ten years of incarceration, with the sentences for both convictions to run consecutively. However, the written judgment mistakenly stated that the sentences would run concurrently, effectively sentencing the Defendant to nine years. Two years later, the district court noticed the error and amended the judgment to reflect the original agreement of consecutive sentences, thus extending the incarceration period to ten years (paras 2-5).

Procedural History

• District Court of Curry County: The original judgment mistakenly sentenced the Defendant to concurrent sentences instead of consecutive ones, resulting in nine years of incarceration.
• Court of Appeals of the State of New Mexico: Affirmed the district court's amended judgment, which corrected the error to impose consecutive sentences, totaling ten years of incarceration (para 1).

Parties' Submissions

• Defendant-Appellant: Argued that the district court lacked jurisdiction to amend the original sentence after ninety days, contending that the amendment was not a correction of a clerical error but an unauthorized modification of sentence (paras 7-8).
• Plaintiff-Appellee (State): Contended that the amended judgment did not modify the sentence but corrected a clerical mistake as permitted by Rule 5-113(B), thus within the district court's jurisdiction (para 1).

Legal Issues

• Whether the district court had jurisdiction to amend the original sentence from concurrent to consecutive sentences two years after its entry.
• Whether the amendment constituted a modification of sentence or the correction of a clerical error.

Disposition

• The Court of Appeals affirmed the district court's amended judgment, which corrected the clerical error to impose consecutive sentences, resulting in a total of ten years of incarceration (para 16).

Reasons

• Per Bohnhoff, J., with Vanzi, C.J., and French, J., concurring:
  The district court had the authority under Rule 5-113(B) to correct clerical errors in judgments at any time. The amendment of the Defendant's sentence to reflect consecutive sentences, as originally intended and agreed upon, was deemed a correction of a clerical error rather than a modification of the sentence (paras 11-13).
  The Court distinguished this case from State v. Torres, noting that Torres addressed the jurisdiction of district courts to amend judgments under Rule 5-801, which was not applicable in this case. Instead, Rule 5-113(B) was applicable for correcting clerical mistakes (paras 9-10).
  The Court rejected the Defendant's argument regarding an "expectation of finality" in the original sentence, stating that double jeopardy rights were not compromised as the Defendant had no reasonable expectation of finality in the mistakenly imposed sentence (para 15).