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State v. Dominguez1/27/2005
ghfield, 113 N.M. at 608, 830 P.2d at 160; it has a narrower goal of protecting the public from reckless shooting at or from a vehicle. Gonzales, 113 N.M. at 225, 824 P.2d at 1027. This crime reflects the Legislature's judgment that traditional homicide and assault and battery crimes are inadequate to respond to the particular dangers involved with motor vehicle shootings. For shootings from a motor vehicle, including drive-by shootings, the Legislature was concerned with the heightened risk of harm to a larger number of people from firing out of a moving object and the ease of escape from use of a vehicle during the commission of the crime. For shooting at a vehicle, the Legislature directed its attention at the substantial dangers associated with firing on an enclosed space that is likely to be occupied by people. Addressing an analogous question, we concluded in Sosa that the crimes of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and shooting into a vehicle proscribe different social evils. 1997-NMSC-032, 38; accord People v. Rivera, 550 N.W.2d 593, 595 (Mich. Ct. App. 1996) (allowing convictions for the crimes of assault with intent to commit murder and discharge of a firearm from a vehicle in part because " he social norms protected by the respective statutes differ markedly"). Similarly, in Highfield, the Court of Appeals, relying on Gonzales, determined that assault with intent to commit a violent felony and shooting at a dwelling protect different social norms and achieve separate legislative policies. 113 N.M. at 608-09, 830 P.2d at 160-61.
As another indicator of legislative intent, it is possible to commit each of these crimes without committing the other. If an individual fires a gun out of a car with reckless disregard but without a specific intent to injure, such as by shooting randomly or in the air, and causes great bodily harm, the individual will have violated Section 30-3- 8(B) but will not have committed aggravated battery. There are also, of course, a multitude of ways to commit aggravated battery without the involvement of a motor vehicle.
We conclude that the Legislature intended to create separately punishable offenses by enacting the aggravated battery statute and the shooting at or from a motor vehicle statute. We therefore reject Defendant's claim that these two convictions violate double jeopardy.
IV. Two Convictions for Shooting at or from a Motor Vehicle
As an alternative to his first two double jeopardy arguments, Defendant contends that his two convictions of shooting at or from a motor vehicle violate the protection against double jeopardy. This argument relates to multiple convictions under a single statute, which has been described as a unit of prosecution claim and distinguished from the double description claims addressed above relating to multiple convictions under separate statutes. See Swafford, 112 N.M. at 8, 810 P.2d at 1228. For unit of prosecution cases, " he relevant inquiry . . . is whether the egislature intended punishment for the entire course of conduct or for each discrete act." Id. In this context, there is "a presumption of lenity that, absent an express indication to the contrary, the egislature did not intend to fragment a course of conduct into separate offenses." Id. Before addressing whether the Legislature intended to divide unitary conduct into multiple units of prosecution, however, we must first determine whether the conduct underlying the two convictions is unitary or discrete. "Clearly, if the defendant commits two discrete acts violative of the same statutory offense, but separated by sufficient indicia of distinctness, then a court may impose separate, consecutive punishments for each offense." Id. at
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