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

• Two separate criminal actions involving the State and two different Defendants, who both filed post-judgment motions for modification of sentence after their respective convictions and sentences, led to appeals. The appeals were consolidated due to a shared legal issue regarding the effect of the pendency of a defendant’s post-judgment motion on the finality of the judgment for appellate review purposes.

Procedural History

• [Not applicable or not found]

Parties' Submissions

• Appellant (Both Defendants): Argued that the district court failed to give pre-sentence confinement credit and raised issues regarding sentence modification, witness intimidation, ineffective assistance of counsel, and sought a writ of error to the Supreme Court of New Mexico.
• Appellee (State of New Mexico): Agreed with Defendants that the pendency of Defendants’ motions should suspend the finality of the underlying proceedings, making the appeals premature.

Legal Issues

• Whether the pendency of a defendant’s post-judgment motion for modification of sentence renders appellate review premature due to lack of finality in the judgment.

Disposition

• The appeals were dismissed for lack of jurisdiction due to the non-finality of the underlying judgments and sentences pending the resolution of Defendants' post-judgment motions.

Reasons

• The Court, with opinions by Judge M. Monica Zamora, concurred by Judges Cynthia A. Fry and Michael E. Vigil, concluded that the timely filing of post-judgment motions pursuant to Rule 5-801 suspends the finality of the preceding judgment and sentence until a written ruling on the motion is entered. This conclusion was drawn from parallels between amendments to the Rules of Civil Procedure and the Rules of Criminal Procedure, which eliminated provisions by which such motions were historically deemed denied if no written ruling was entered within a certain period. The Court also considered and rejected the potential applicability of Rule 12-201(D)(1) as an exclusive list of post-trial motions that toll the time for filing a notice of appeal, finding no principled basis for treating post-judgment motions in criminal cases differently from those in civil cases in terms of their effect on the finality of a judgment. The Court dismissed the appeals for lack of a final order and remanded to the district court for further proceedings, adhering to the longstanding practice of requiring a final, appealable order for jurisdiction (paras 1-18).