State v. Green

Office of the New Mexico
Director Compilation
Commission
10:53:07 2025.08.04
'00'06-
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

Opinion Number: 2025-NMSC-023

Filing Date: April 21, 2025

No. S-1-SC-39283

STATE OF NEW MEXICO,

Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.

DEBORAH GREEN,

Defendant-Appellee.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF CIBOLA COUNTY
James Lawrence Sanchez, District Judge

Raúl Torrez, Attorney General
Laurie Blevins, Assistant Attorney General
Felicity Strachan, Assistant Attorney General
Santa Fe, NM

for Appellant

Harrison & Hart, LLC
Carter B. Harrison IV
Nicholas T. Hart
Albuquerque, NM

for Appellee

OPINION

BACON, Justice.

{1} The State appeals from a decision of the district court granting Defendant
Deborah Green’s petition for habeas corpus pursuant to Rule 5-802 NMRA. See also
Rule 12-501 NMRA. In Montoya v. Ulibarri, we held the protections afforded by the New
Mexico Constitution allow a defendant to obtain habeas relief based on a freestanding
claim of actual innocence, independent of any constitutional violation at trial. 2007-
NMSC-035, ¶ 1, 142 N.M. 89, 163 P.3d 476. This case presents the issue of whether
such protections apply when a prisoner is convicted by way of a plea agreement. With
Montoya as our touchstone, we hold Defendant was entitled to assert a freestanding
claim of actual innocence following her conviction by plea. However, we also hold the
district court’s finding of actual innocence was not supported by substantial evidence.
Accordingly, we reverse the district court’s grant of Defendant’s petition for writ of
habeas corpus and remand for proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND

{2} The grisly facts developed at the habeas hearing are disquieting, to say the least.
Defendant was the co-leader of a religious organization known as the Aggressive
Christian Missionary Training Corps (Corps). Considered by the Corps’s members to be
a “prophetess” and an “Oracle of God,” Defendant had nearly complete control over her
disciples’ lives, including driving, finances, and the authority to make all manner of
decisions affecting the children who lived at the compound in a remote and rural area of
Cibola County, New Mexico. Defendant also required members to cut off ties with their
families. The children at the compound did not have birth certificates, were not
immunized, and were not permitted to attend outside schools. Under Defendant’s close
watch, medical treatments at the compound were generally confined solely to those
permitted by Defendant, with access to outside professional medical care rigidly
controlled.

{3} The genesis of the tragic events that gave rise to the charges in this case dates
back to sometime in late 2013 when most of the compound’s residents came down with
the flu. One of those residents, and the victim in this case, was a twelve-year-old child,
E.M., who lived at the compound with his mother. Although the other residents
recovered from their ailments in due course, E.M.’s symptoms persisted and worsened,
becoming more severe when Defendant prohibited E.M. from eating for several days as
punishment for his illness-related absences from the Corps’s regularly scheduled
communal meals. The right side of E.M.’s body eventually became paralyzed, he went
blind in his right eye, he lost the ability to speak or swallow, and he experienced
seizures—all before he succumbed to his illness in mid-January 2014.

{4} Neither Defendant nor anyone else timely reported E.M.’s death to the proper
authorities. Police first came to learn of his passing some two years later, in January
2016, when two other Corps members informed the police of E.M.’s death and sought
help to “escape” from the Corps’s compound. Police secured a warrant to exhume
E.M.’s body and the ensuing autopsy determined that the child’s cause of death was a
“probable infectious disease.” However, the autopsy report stopped short of identifying
“the exact cause of [E.M.’s] infection” due to the “advanced decomposition” of the soft
tissues of his body.

{5} We end our factual summary of the case by recognizing the aphorism that “[a]
cult is a religion with no political power.” James D. Tabor & Eugene V. Gallagher,
Epigraph to Why Waco? Cults and the Battle for Religious Freedom in America vii
(1995). Whatever truth lies in this saying, the habeas hearing evidence below showed
that the Corps as headed by Defendant was decidedly less a religion and more of a cult
in the sense it was “a deviant, fanatical group led by a charismatic person who postures
as a religious leader but who is in fact a self-serving individual who beguiles people into
following him or her, and who manipulates and uses them for his or her own purposes.”
Scott M. Lenhart, Hammering Down Nails: The Freedom of Fringe Religious Groups in
Japan and the United States—Aum Shinrikyō and the Branch Davidians, 29 Ga. J. Int’l
& Compar. L. 491, 495 (2001) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). Either
way, the Corps clearly was not the wholesome, “disciplined, prayer-focused
commun[ity]” Defendant portrayed it to have been in her habeas petition.

II. PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

{6} The facts relating to E.M.’s suffering and demise were by no means the only
source of potential criminal liability faced by Defendant in the underlying indictment.
Also included in the indictment were a series of kidnappings, criminal sexual penetration
of a minor, and child abuse counts relating to a young girl referred to in the record as
M.G., who had lived in the Corps’s compound until she was removed by state
authorities based on concerns that she “was malnourished and suffered from rickets.” 1
After the charges relating to M.G. were severed from those relating to E.M., a jury
convicted Defendant of seven of the M.G.-related charges. Defendant was sentenced to
a 72-year prison term in relation to those crimes in September 2018. Three weeks later,
Defendant entered into a plea agreement for the case at hand, and pled no contest to,
among other charges, one count of child abuse resulting in great bodily harm to E.M.
Pursuant to the plea, she was sentenced to a prison term of 18 years, to run concurrent
with the 72-year sentence from the M.G.-related conviction.

{7} More than two years later, in November 2020, Defendant’s convictions for the
M.G.-related crimes were set aside as a result of a Brady violation by the State, see
Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963), and a new trial on those charges was ordered.
In lieu of retrial, the State dismissed the M.G.-related charges outright, “due to [the]
unavailability of essential witnesses.”

{8} On the heels of the Brady-based dismissal of the M.G. charges, Defendant filed
the underlying habeas petition arguing, first and foremost, that the taint of the Brady
violation found in connection with the charges related to M.G. somehow extended to the
previously severed E.M.-related charges as well. The district court rejected that
argument—properly it would appear—concluding as a matter of law that the Brady
violation that tainted the prosecution related to M.G. provided no basis to invalidate the
plea deal reached in E.M.’s case because the two matters involved “a different alleged
victim, different witnesses, different theories, different evidence, and the evidence
underlying the Brady violation on the [M.G.] case was not probative of any of the issues
related to the plea in [the E.M.] case.” The district court’s Brady-related habeas ruling,
aside from its importance as a historical fact, is not otherwise implicated in this appeal.

{9} Defendant’s habeas petition sought to vacate her E.M.-related plea on three
additional grounds: (1) that “the bare-bones factual basis” for the child abuse charge set

1A state investigation revealed that M.G., although held out as Defendant’s granddaughter, was not in
fact related to Defendant and was brought out of Uganda by Defendant’s adult daughter.
out in Defendant’s underlying plea colloquy was “inadequate as a matter of law”; (2) that
Defendant was “actually innocent” of any child abuse crime because her conduct did
“not meet [the operative] statutory elements”; and (3) that Defendant received
ineffective assistance of trial counsel (IAC). The district court rejected Defendant’s
challenge to the sufficiency of the plea colloquy and her IAC claim, and those issues are
not implicated in this appeal.

{10} But Defendant’s actual innocence claim secured a foothold in the district court
despite the absence of any proffer of new factual evidence to support her habeas claim.
Following a four-day hearing in January 2022 that showcased competing expert
testimony on the issues of medical neglect and causation, the district court granted
Defendant’s habeas petition based on her legal assertion of actual innocence. In doing
so, the district court found as fact that Defendant, who served as E.M.’s “custodian” and
“exercised extreme control over the child’s life and welfare, . . . failed to seek medical
attention for the child in a timely manner, and [thus] cause[d] the child’s condition to
worsen.” (Emphasis added.) Despite this explicit factual finding, the district court
granted Defendant full habeas relief, concluding—without analysis or citation to
authority—that conduct causing a child’s medical condition to worsen does not
constitute “great bodily harm justifying a first degree felony charge, as a matter of law.”
As a result, the district court set aside Defendant’s plea, dismissed the E.M.-related
child abuse charge covered in the plea agreement, and released Defendant from
custody.

{11} The State now appeals to this Court as of right. See Rule 5-802(N)(1)
(authorizing the state to appeal an order granting a writ of habeas corpus); Rule 12-
102(A)(3) NMRA (requiring that “appeals from the granting of writs of habeas corpus” be
taken to this Court).

III. DISCUSSION

{12} When reviewing the propriety of a district court’s grant or denial of a writ of
habeas corpus, we review questions of law and questions of mixed fact and law de
novo, thus “assur[ing] that this Court maintains its role as arbiter of the law.” State v.
Cates, 2023-NMSC-001, ¶ 12, 523 P.3d 570 (citation omitted). However, questions
relating to a district court’s habeas-based findings of fact are subject to substantial
evidence review. Lukens v. Franco, 2019-NMSC-002, ¶ 15, 433 P.3d 288. “Substantial
evidence is evidence that a reasonable mind would regard as adequate to support a
conclusion.” Id. (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

A. A Freestanding Claim of Actual Innocence Is Properly Applied in the
Context of Plea Bargains

{13} First, we determine whether the freestanding claim of actual innocence
recognized by this Court in Montoya, 2007-NMSC-035, ¶ 24—a habeas appeal
involving a conviction rendered after trial—is equally applicable in circumstances where,
as here, the conviction under collateral attack is the product of a plea bargain. In
Montoya, we held that a freestanding claim of actual innocence must be predicated
upon discovery of new evidence. We further concluded that the petitioner making such
a claim “must convince the court by clear and convincing evidence that no reasonable
juror would have convicted him in light of the new evidence.” Id. ¶ 30.

{14} The State urges this Court to exclude from the reach of an actual innocence
claim all plea convictions, pointing to its concern for finality that is a hallmark of the plea
process.

{15} Instructive in addressing this issue is People v. Reed, in which our colleagues on
the Illinois Supreme Court determined that similar prosecution concerns over “the
interests of finality and certainty involving guilty pleas” were insufficient to foreclose a
defendant from advancing a freestanding claim of actual innocence. 2020 IL 124940, ¶¶
41-42, 182 N.E.3d 64 (refusing “to turn a blind eye to the manifest injustice and failure
of our criminal justice system that would result from the continued incarceration of a
demonstrably innocent person, even where a defendant pleads guilty”). Though not
unsympathetic to the state’s position, the Reed Court ultimately concluded that the
“[s]tate’s interests and policy concerns [were] more appropriately accounted for and
protected by [adopting a stringent review] standard applicable to actual innocence
claims involving defendants who plead guilty.” Id. ¶¶ 42, 48. To that end, the Reed
Court adopted its own variant of the clear and convincing standard that we employed in
Montoya for evaluating “a successful actual innocence claim” in the plea context. Reed,
2020 IL 124940, ¶ 49. Through this measured approach, the Reed Court struck what it
characterized as “an equitable balance between the defendant’s constitutional liberty
interest in remaining free of undeserved punishment and the [s]tate’s interest in
maintaining the finality and certainty of plea agreements, while vindicating the purpose
of the criminal justice system to punish only the guilty.” Id. ¶ 50.

{16} Following the lead of the Illinois Supreme Court in Reed, we also conclude the
application of Montoya’s clear and convincing standard (like the “stringent” standard in
Reed) in adjudging the merits of a defendant’s actual innocence claim successfully
threads the needle in accommodating all the competing and legitimate policy objectives
identified above.

{17} Further, and in accord with the Reed Court, we are not inclined to impose a legal
barrier that prevents a defendant from advancing a freestanding claim of actual
innocence when convicted by plea agreement. Two factors contribute to our reluctance
to do so. First, nothing in Montoya—or the scant few cases that, along with Montoya,
comprise our slowly developing actual innocence jurisprudence—affirmatively calls into
question the prudence or propriety of applying the freestanding actual innocence
doctrine in the realm of plea bargains. Viewed in this vacuum, the lofty constitutional
considerations that informed the Montoya Court’s adoption of the actual innocence
doctrine in the trial context compel the application of the doctrine in the plea bargain
setting as well. 2007-NMSC-035, ¶ 23 (“We conclude that the conviction, incarceration,
or execution of an innocent person violates all notions of fundamental fairness implicit
within the due process provision of our state constitution.”); id. ¶ 24 (“[T]he incarceration
of an innocent person [does not] advance[] any goal of punishment, and if a prisoner is
actually innocent of the crime for which he is incarcerated, the punishment is indeed
grossly out of proportion to the severity of the crime.”). Aside from the finality concerns
discussed above, the State has offered no sound basis to withhold from those
defendants convicted by way of a plea the self-same constitutional protections Montoya
appropriately made available to defendants convicted after trial—and we perceive none.

{18} A contrary holding would needlessly depart from the sound view adopted by
several state jurisdictions that have considered the issue. See, e.g., Schmidt v. State,
909 N.W.2d 778, 783, 793-95 (Iowa 2018) (citing Montoya for the proposition that
“actually innocent people should have an opportunity to prove their actual innocence,”
and extending that opportunity equally to Iowa defendants “regardless of whether [they]
pled guilty or went to trial”); Reed, 2020 IL 124940, ¶¶ 33, 41 (pointing primarily to two
characteristics of plea agreements—that they are neither “structured to weed out the
innocent or guarantee the factual validity of the conviction” nor “more foolproof than full
trials”—in concluding that “defendants who plead guilty may assert an actual innocence
claim” (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)); see also People v. Schneider,
25 P.3d 755, 760 (Colo. 2001) (en banc) (pointing to the common practice of
defendants to “choose to enter guilty pleas for reasons other than clear guilt” in rejecting
the prosecution’s argument “that a defendant who has entered a plea should not be
entitled to postconviction relief in the face of newly discovered evidence,” and branding
that argument as one that fails to foster a “just and fair outcome”).

{19} In all, the principal policy objective underlying a freestanding claim of actual
innocence—to honor the constitutional imperative “prohibit[ing] the imprisonment of one
who is innocent of the crime for which he was convicted” in order to further “the central
purpose of [our] system of criminal justice[,] . . . to convict the guilty and free the
innocent,” Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390, 398 (1993)—applies with equal force to
convictions obtained through plea agreements as it does to convictions after trial.

B. Defendant’s Actual Innocence Claim Lacks Merit and the District Court
Erred in Concluding Otherwise

{20} Now that it has been established that a defendant who enters into a plea
agreement is entitled to raise a defense of actual innocence, we look at the merits of
Defendant’s actual innocence claim. Defendant’s actual innocence claim advances no
new factual evidence. Instead, Defendant relies exclusively on a misguided legal
argument to support her habeas claim, asserting that the but-for causation standard
articulated by this Court in State v. Garcia, 2021-NMSC-019, ¶¶ 29-47, 488 P.3d 585—
an opinion issued after Defendant’s entry of her plea—“marks a sea change in medical-
neglect causation law” that jettisons the lesser significant cause standard previously set
out by this Court in State v. Nichols. See 2016-NMSC-001, ¶ 40, 363 P.3d 1187
(indicating that the state, in order to prevail on a theory of medical-neglect child abuse,
must “put forth substantial evidence that . . . medical neglect was at least a significant
cause of [the child’s] death or great bodily injury”). As Defendant frames the claim in her
habeas petition, this supposed change in the law precludes the State from “adduc[ing]
legally sufficient evidence—let alone a case that has any chance of actually persuading
any juror—to prove any conceivable theory charged.”
{21} Unfortunately for Defendant, the Garcia Court—by its own account—did not
announce a new rule of medical-neglect causation law and instead merely honed and
refined this Court’s existing precedent in Nichols. This is made evident in several
passages of the majority opinion in Garcia. See 2021-NMSC-019, ¶ 39 (emphasizing
that the Court was merely “confirm[ing] . . . that causation in a criminal medical neglect
case must include but-for causation and no less,” and thus “adher[ing] to our long-
established [but-for] standard,” a “foundational criminal principle” that Nichols “did not
abandon”); id. ¶ 40 (clarifying “that proof of causation under Nichols requires that the
medical neglect be a factual, but-for cause of the child’s death”); id. ¶ 43 (explaining
that, in Nichols, “we affirmed the but-for causation requirement in cases of child abuse
causing death, holding that evidence of possible causation is insufficient,” and, in having
done so, “are bound by the precedent established in Nichols and . . . follow that
standard in this case” (citation omitted)).

{22} The observations made and the actions taken by the Garcia Court—confirming,
clarifying, and following the precepts and holding of Nichols—hardly bespeak the
announcement of a new potentially retroactive rule of law. See Rudolfo v. Steward,
2023-NMSC-013, ¶ 9, 533 P.3d 728 (reiterating that an appellate “opinion announces a
new rule [only] if it breaks new ground, imposes new obligations on the government, or
was not dictated by precedent” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)). That
being so, Garcia does not represent an intervening change in the law that theoretically
might provide a foundation for Defendant’s actual innocence claim. See Santillanes v.
State, 1993-NMSC-012, ¶ 36, 115 N.M. 215, 849 P.2d 358 (“It is within the inherent
power of this Court to give its decision prospective or retroactive application without
offending constitutional principles.” (citation omitted)). In light of our conclusion that
Garcia did not announce a new rule, Defendant is hard-pressed to explain how or why
enforcement of the plea agreement as written would offend her due process rights or
right to be free from cruel and unusual punishment as a result of her actual innocence. 2

{23} In a separate but related vein, we emphasize that out-of-state jurisdictions that
recognize freestanding actual innocence claims generally equate the concept of actual
innocence with “factual innocence, not mere legal insufficiency of evidence of guilt.”
People v. Fraser, 84 N.Y.S.3d 553, 556 (N.Y. App. Div. 2018) (internal quotation marks
and citation omitted); accord Gould v. Comm’r of Corr., 22 A.3d 1196, 1206 (Conn.
2011) (“Actual innocence is not demonstrated merely by showing that there was

2In the procedural posture of this case and considering the fact that Defendant has not demonstrated a
change in the law, we need not and do not decide the broader issue hinted at by the State’s briefing:
whether a change in law, standing alone and without newly presented evidence, ever can provide a valid
basis for a freestanding claim of actual innocence in New Mexico. For our purposes, it is enough to
acknowledge the dearth of state court case law supporting that premise. Indeed, research reveals only
one reported state decision that has recognized the validity of a freestanding actual innocence claim in
the absence of new evidence. We refer to In re Lester, 602 S.W.3d 469 (Tex. 2020), a wrongful-
imprisonment compensation case. In Lester, the Texas Supreme Court concluded that the “outrageous”
scenario there presented—involving a criminal defendant who pled guilty to conduct that did not
constitute “a crime [when committed or] at any time during his criminal proceedings” because the
charging statute had previously been declared unconstitutional—could only be viewed as involving a
person who was “actually innocent in the same way that someone taking a stroll in the park is actually
innocent of the crime of walking on a sidewalk. No such crime exists.” Id. at 471-73.
insufficient evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . Rather, actual
innocence is demonstrated by affirmative proof that the petitioner did not commit the
crime.”); Turner v. Commonwealth, 694 S.E.2d 251, 261 (Va. Ct. App. 2010) (stating
that relief based on actual innocence is available “only to those individuals who can
establish that they did not, as a matter of fact, commit the crime for which they were
convicted and not those who merely produce evidence contrary to the evidence
presented at their criminal trial” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)); see also
Jardine v. State, 556 P.3d 406, 419-21 (Haw. 2024) (interpreting the term actual
innocence, as used in Hawaii’s wrongful conviction compensation statute, to mean
factual innocence). Reflecting this purely factual focus, the “prototypical example” of
actual innocence offered by the United States Supreme Court is one “where the [s]tate
has convicted the wrong person of the crime.” Sawyer v. Whitley, 505 U.S. 333, 340
(1992), superseded by statute on other grounds as stated in Atwood v. Shinn, 36 F.4th
834, 837 (9th Cir. 2022).

{24} Weighed against the narrow factual contours of the actual innocence doctrine, it
is clear the district court’s grant of habeas relief was error. From a procedural
perspective, given Defendant’s choice to confine her actual innocence claim to the legal
assertion that her conduct as it related to E.M. did “not meet [the operative] statutory
elements” of the charged child abuse crimes, it is questionable whether a factual
hearing was warranted in the first instance. And substantively, the district court’s
express finding that Defendant’s “fail[ure] to seek medical attention for [E.M.] in a timely
manner . . . cause[d] the child’s condition to worsen”—and, by logical extension,
resulted in the great bodily injuries that E.M. undisputedly endured—was incompatible
with a finding of actual innocence. Far from exonerative in nature, the district court’s
unchallenged causation finding directly implicated Defendant in the commission of the
crime. Montoya requires a defendant to present new affirmative evidence of innocence,
and further requires the defendant to persuade the district court by clear and convincing
evidence that no reasonable juror would have convicted them in light of the new
evidence—a “rigorous” and “demanding” standard. 2007-NMSC-035, ¶ 29. Given the
total lack of new affirmative evidence of innocence in this case, we hold substantial
evidence does not support the district court’s determination that Defendant satisfied
Montoya’s actual innocence standard.

IV. CONCLUSION

{25} For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the district court’s grant of Defendant’s
petition for writ of habeas corpus and remand for proceedings consistent with this
opinion.

{26} IT IS SO ORDERED.

C. SHANNON BACON, Justice

WE CONCUR:

MICHAEL E. VIGIL, Justice
JULIE J. VARGAS, Justice

BRIANA H. ZAMORA, Justice

DAVID K. THOMSON, Chief Justice, specially concurring

THOMSON, Chief Justice (specially concurring).

{27} There should be no surprise in the argument advanced by Defendant in this
habeas proceeding when, in my view, this Court created a different standard for
causation for medical neglect claims in State v. Garcia, 2021-NMSC-019, ¶ 98, 488
P.3d 585 (Thomson, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part). While I concur in the
reasoning and conclusion in this case, I had hoped the Court would revisit its departure
from precedent in Garcia, specifically from the standard articulated in State v. Nichols,
2016-NMSC-001, ¶ 40, 363 P.3d 1187 (“[T]he State was required to put forth
substantial evidence that [the defendant’s] neglect resulted in [his son’s] death or great
bodily harm, meaning that medical neglect was at least a significant cause of his death
or great bodily injury.” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)).

{28} In the dissent in Garcia, I expressed concerns that the “would have lived”
standard adopted by the majority requires that the state produce medical expert
testimony that, “to a reasonable degree of medical certainty[, the victim] would have
lived with earlier medical intervention.” Garcia, 2021-NMSC-019, ¶ 14; id. ¶ 60
(Thomson, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part). By requiring a showing that the
victim “would have lived” if medical care was provided, the majority created a standard
that the neglect must be the sole cause of death. “This elevated causation requirement
overrules prior case law, announces a new standard, and retroactively applies it.” Id. ¶
98 (Thomson, J., dissenting in part and concurring in part).

{29} The majority rebuts Defendant’s arguments by asserting that “the Garcia Court—
by its own account—did not announce a new rule of medical-neglect causation law and
instead merely honed and refined this Court’s existing precedent in Nichols.” Maj. op. ¶
21. Despite the majority’s rhetorical self-assurance that the Garcia Court did nothing to
change the but for standard in Nichols, this Defendant’s position in the tragic death of
E.M. belies another conclusion.

DAVID K. THOMSON, Chief Justice