New Mexico v. Romero (Published Opinion)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-Appellee Derrick Romero pleaded guilty to second-degree criminal sexual penetration (CSP). In the first judgment and sentence, the district court erred in ordering that Appellee serve two years of parole, resulting in an unlawfully short period of mandatory parole. Thirteen days later, the district court ostensibly corrected the sentencing error by entering a second amended judgment, which replaced Appellee’s parole period of two years with five-to-twenty years. Both of these parole periods were illegal sentences, as NMSA 1978, Section 31-21-10.1(A)(2) (2007), required a sex offender convicted of CSP in the second degree to serve an “indeterminate period of supervised parole for . . . not less than five years and up to the natural life of the sex offender.” Appellee challenged the revised parole period of five-to-twenty years in an Amended Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus. The district court determined that it did not have jurisdiction to correct the illegal parole sentence in the first judgment and accordingly granted Appellee’s habeas petition, vacating the second amended judgment and reinstating the original two-year parole period. The State appealed the grant of habeas relief. The Supreme Court held that historical changes leading to Rule 5-801 (2009) (former Rule 5- 801) did not remove a district court’s common law jurisdictional authority to correct an illegal sentence. Thus, the Court overruled New Mexiso v. Torres, 272 P.3d 689 in that regard. Under this holding, the Court reversed the district court’s grant of the writ of habeas corpus and remanded to the district court to impose the statutorily required parole sentence. The Court further directed the Rules of Criminal Procedure for State Courts Committee to clarify the length of time in which a district court retains the relevant jurisdiction to correct an illegal sentence in accordance with the Court's opinion here. Finally, under Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238 (1969), and Rule 5-303 NMRA, the Court held that Appellee was entitled to an opportunity for plea withdrawal.
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