by Richard Resch

On an issue of first impression, the Supreme Court of New Mexico unanimously held that Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution and its exclusionary rule govern the admissibility of evidence in New Mexico courts even where that evidence was seized in another state, by that state’s officers, in a search lawful there. The Court reasoned that New Mexico’s exclusionary rule rests not on deterrence but on effectuating the accused’s constitutional right in the pending case. It upheld the suppression of a firearm seized by a Texas deputy.

Background

On January 15, 2017, Tobi Stanfill and Daryl Young were shot and killed in Bernalillo County, New Mexico. Two days later, in Wheeler County, Texas, Deputy Sheriff Jeff Baker stopped a car with New Mexico plates for an equipment failure, with Adrian Causey in the front passenger seat. Baker issued the driver a warning for a headlight defect, returned his paperwork, and then continued questioning him. The driver acknowledged that a marijuana joint was in the car, and Baker radioed that he would search based on probable cause.

Baker questioned Causey, patted him down, handcuffed him, and removed a firearm magazine from his pocket. Causey then acknowledged a handgun behind his seat, which Baker recovered and which was later connected to the two killings.

Causey was indicted on two open counts of first-degree murder, along with related conspiracy, armed-robbery, and evidence-tampering charges. He moved to suppress the physical evidence and his statements, arguing that the warrantless search violated the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and Article II, Section 10, while the State responded that Texas law governed exclusion and that the search was lawful there. The district court held that Article II, Section 10 governed admissibility; found that Causey lacked standing to challenge the search of the vehicle but had standing to challenge his detention and the seizure of the firearm; and suppressed the evidence, along with his statements under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436 (1966). The State did not appeal the suppression of Causey’s statements and presented only the narrow question whether New Mexico or Texas law governed suppression of the firearm.

Analysis

The Court reviewed the district court’s suppression ruling “to determine whether the law was correctly applied to the facts, viewing them in the manner most favorable to the prevailing party.” State v. Leyba, 935 P.2d 1171 (N.M. Ct. App. 1997). Legal conclusions are reviewed de novo, while factual findings supported by substantial evidence are left undisturbed. Id. The Court added that it reviews de novo questions concerning the application of the state’s constitutional provisions against the overreach of out-of-state actors. See, e.g., State v. Snyder, 967 P.2d 843 (N.M. Ct. App. 1998).

Border Patrol
Checkpoint Decisions

The Court began its analysis by discussing the two decisions on which the district court relied, both holding that Article II, Section 10 applies to a federal Border Patrol agent’s search when the State offers the resulting evidence in a New Mexico court. Snyder; State v. Cardenas-Alvarez, 25 P.3d 225 (N.M. 2001). The Snyder Court held that Article II, Section 10 governs admissibility in New Mexico courts, because the rule rests “not on deterrence or judicial integrity” and is not treated as a judicial remedy. Instead, the focus is “to effectuate in the pending case the constitutional right of the accused to be free from unreasonable search and seizure.”

Three years later, in Cardenas-Alvarez, the state Supreme Court held that a federal agent who prolonged a checkpoint detention absent reasonable suspicion violated Article II, Section 10 though not the federal Constitution, requiring suppression in state court. The Cardenas-Alvarez Court characterized the provision as “an expression of the fundamental notion that every person in this state is entitled to be free from unwarranted governmental intrusion” and found no basis for protecting inhabitants selectively according to which sovereign intruded.

Extension to Another
State’s Officers

The State contended that both decisions are distinguishable because the searches there occurred inside New Mexico, albeit at federal checkpoints. The Court disagreed. Neither the text of Article II, Section 10 nor New Mexico’s jurisprudence confines the provision to unwarranted governmental intrusions occurring within the state, the Court stated. It found no meaningful distinction between federal agents applying federal standards inside New Mexico and another state’s agents applying that state’s standards outside it. The Court reasoned that whether applied to federal agents, Texas agents, or any other non-New Mexico agent, the provision remains a fundamental right effectuated by excluding the resulting evidence when the State proffers it in New Mexico courts. Snyder; Cardenas-Alvarez. The Court stressed that it has no power to constrain other sovereigns’ agents but that it does possess “the authority – and indeed the duty – to insulate our courts from evidence seized in contravention of our state’s constitution.” Cardenas-Alvarez.

The Court declined to adopt the reasoning of the special concurrences in those cases, which the State had misread as tying Article II, Section 10 to New Mexico’s geographic bounds rather than to the actor conducting the search. In any event, the Court was unpersuaded by that reasoning. Snyder was concerned with enforcing individual rights by constraining the State when it seeks to introduce evidence in a New Mexico court, not with controlling or deterring federal officers. Admitting such evidence would resurrect the silver-platter doctrine in a different setting, according to the Court.

It also rejected the State’s alternative contention that Causey consented to Texas law by entering Texas. That argument treats submission to another state’s laws as permission for an officer to search without a warrant and “to suggest by merely stepping into Texas a defendant has consented to a warrantless search therein is patently false,” the Court declared.

Limits of the Holding

The Court was unpersuaded by the State’s argument that the ruling produces impracticable results. It instructed that the holding is not “a bar on the admission of all evidence obtained outside of New Mexico by non-New Mexico agents.” The State may offer evidence gathered elsewhere so long as its seizure conformed to Article II, Section 10.

Two matters were left undecided by the Court. Because the State admitted that it had failed to raise standing on appeal, the Court declined to consider it, leaving the district court’s standing determination unreviewed, and it observed that its standing jurisprudence is not harmonious. State v. Van Dang, 120 P.3d 830 (N.M. 2005); State v. Porras-Fuerte, 889 P.2d 215 (N.M. Ct. App. 1994); State v. Sanders, 545 P.3d 1176 (N.M. Ct. App. 2024). It likewise declined to address the merits of the search, including the applicability of the plain-view and inevitable-discovery doctrines, or whether any taint had been purged because the record was insufficient as a result of the State’s failure to develop those issues.

Conclusion

Thus, the Court held that Article II, Section 10 applies to defendants in New Mexico courts and that evidence gathered by another state’s agents in violation of that provision is inadmissible.

Accordingly, the Court declined to overturn the district court’s suppression order. See: State v. Causey, 2026 N.M. LEXIS 124 (2026).  

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