New Mexico v. Montoya
Annotate this CaseOn the evening of July 15, 2007, Defendant Benjamin Montoya, his girlfriend, his seventeen-year-old brother, and several companions were gathered in the front yard of Defendant's family home. A group of young men in a Cadillac drove by, honking, yelling, and displaying gang signs. At least some of Defendant's group belonged to a rival gang. A few minutes later, the Cadillac returned and, along with a Ford Expedition and a third car, stopped at a nearby vacant lot. When the occupants continued yelling and called Defendant's group over, Defendant and his friends started walking toward the vacant lot to confront approximately fifteen people who got out of the three stopped cars. Guns were pulled on both sides, and Defendant's brother was severely wounded by gunshots to his leg and abdomen. Defendant and his friends retreated to his home, dragging Defendant's brother to their driveway. The Cadillac group briefly chased Defendant and his friends before going back to their cars. The three cars initially left the area, but the Expedition turned around and came back toward Defendant's house, gunfire coming out of the car. Defendant returned fire using an AK-47 rifle. While his friends were trying to help his brother in the driveway and stop the bleeding from the gunshot wounds, Defendant ran outside and began shooting at the Expedition. The driver, victim Diego Delgado, was shot seven times and died of multiple gunshot wounds, including one shot to the back of the head. One of the issues raised on appeal of the subsequent prosecutions and convictions of those involved "the theoretically separate offenses of causing great bodily harm to a person by shooting at a motor vehicle and the homicide resulting from the penetration of the same bullet into the same person." The Supreme Court held that current New Mexico jurisprudence precluded cumulative punishment for both crimes, and it therefore overruled "New Mexico v. Gonzales" (824 P.2d 1023 (1992)), and the cases that followed it. In addition, the Court held that in a felony murder prosecution where the evidence will support a conviction for either second-degree murder or voluntary manslaughter, it is fundamental error for the felony murder essential elements jury instruction to omit the defining requirement that the accused did not act in the heat of passion as a result of the legally adequate provocation that would reduce murder to manslaughter.
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