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State v. Johnson11/6/1997
struction was reversible error, Johnson also required that a defendant justify this instruction with evidence that he acted reasonably under the circumstances. n.3. The Court also adopted an "objective-person standard in order to ensure good-faith, objectively-reasonable behavior" consistent with the Restatement (Second) of Torts that a citizen is not privileged to use excessive force in effecting a citizen's arrest. Id. at 18 n.3 (citing Restatement (Second) of Torts 132 (1965)).
{17} In our view, Johnson's position on the unfettered use of force stands alone, unaided by any New Mexico case and unpersuasive in the face of the strong public policy announced by both our legislature and our Supreme Court in current statutes and opinions. Defendant is forced to resort to the bare, unadorned wording of Section 30-2-7(C) which, we acknowledge, having first been authored many years ago, might well have permitted a Haddox or a Johnson of the last century to take the law into his own hands and use force in whatever degree to stop a suspected felon from fleeing.
{18} Defendant argues that the absence of a definition of "necessarily committed . . . by lawful ways and means" in Section 30-2-7(C) should be interpreted as an expression of legislative intent that private citizens are free to use greater force than law enforcement officers. Defendant contends that the meaning of the statute is clear and requires no additional explanation or interpretation. See State v. Couch, 52 N.M. 127, 144, 193 P.2d 405, 415 (1946).
{19} The New Mexico Supreme Court has urged caution in the application of the plain meaning rule. See . Accordingly, when the literal language of the statute leads to an absurd result, the court may construe a statute to avoid such a result. See ; (construing literal language in harmony with the entire statute to avoid an absurd result).
{20} In the current case, the term "necessarily committed . . . by lawful ways and means" is not being read into Section 30-2-7(C). It is already there. We are guided by the legislature's definition of the term "necessarily committed . . . by lawful ways and means" in Section 30-2-6(B), a companion statute. See (when two statutes enacted by the legislature cover the same subject matter, one of them in general terms and the other in a more detailed way, the two should be harmonized and construed together); see also Pueblo of Santa Ana v. Kelly, 932 F. Supp. 1284, 1291 (D.N.M. 1996) (seemingly ambiguous provision in isolation is often clarified by the remainder of the statutory scheme either because the same terminology is used elsewhere in a context that makes its meaning clear or because only one of the permissible meanings produces substantive effect that is compatible with the rest of the law), aff'd by 104 F.3d 1546 (10th Cir. 1997), cert. denied, ____ U.S. ____ (1997) [1997 WL 195228, 66 USLW 3254 (Oct. 6, 1997)]. The need for uniformity becomes more imperative when the same word or term is used in different statutory sections that are similar in purpose and content. 2B Norman J. Singer, Statutes and Statutory Construction, 51.02, at 122 (5th ed. 1992).
{21} Such an interpretation of the phrase is also supported by the Committee Commentary to the Uniform Jury Instruction on the defense of justifiable homicide by a citizen:
Section 30-2-7C NMSA 1978 contains a justifiable homicide provision for one who, on his own initiative, kills a fleeing felon or kills to suppress a riot or to keep and preserve the peace. The committee was of the opinion that, not only was the defense rarely available, it had an uncertain common- law basis.
UJI 14-5174, NMRA 1997, Committee Commentary. Also, as we have
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