AI Generated Opinion Summaries

This summary was computer-generated without any editorial revision. It is not official, has not been checked for accuracy, and is NOT citable.

Facts

• The Adames, a married couple and business owners in Taos, New Mexico, were suspected of drug trafficking. As part of the investigation, federal and state law enforcement obtained their personal banking records through subpoenas. These records included a wide range of financial information over a five-year period. The Adames were indicted on 106 charges, primarily financial in nature, based on these records (paras 2-3).

Procedural History

• District Court: Denied the Adames' motion to suppress the financial records obtained from their banks, ruling that the New Mexico Constitution does not provide greater protection for financial records maintained by banks than the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution (para 5).
• Court of Appeals: Accepted the interlocutory appeal and certified two questions to the Supreme Court of New Mexico regarding the constitutional privacy interest in financial records maintained by financial institutions under the New Mexico Constitution and the reasonableness of the State's use of grand jury subpoenas duces tecum in a state criminal proceeding (para 6).

Parties' Submissions

• Defendants-Appellants (The Adames): Argued that the New Mexico Constitution, unlike the Fourth Amendment, protects a reasonable expectation of privacy in a person’s financial records held by a bank, requiring a warrant supported by probable cause to obtain and admit such records at trial (para 4).
• Plaintiff-Appellee (State of New Mexico): Contended that the financial records obtained under proper federal process can be used to find probable cause for a search warrant and admitted as evidence at trial, implying no greater protection under the New Mexico Constitution than under the Fourth Amendment (para 5).

Legal Issues

• Whether a person has a constitutional privacy interest in his or her financial records maintained by his or her financial institution under the New Mexico Constitution pursuant to Article II, Section 10 (para 6).
• Whether the State’s use of federal and state grand jury subpoenas duces tecum in a state criminal proceeding is an unreasonable intrusion on that interest (para 6).

Disposition

• The Supreme Court of New Mexico held that the Adames did not have a constitutionally protected interest pursuant to Article II, Section 10 in their banking records, which consist of five years of financial information voluntarily shared with their banks. The district court's denial of the motion to suppress as to those records was affirmed (para 28).

Reasons

• The Court, per Justice Vigil, with Chief Justice Nakamura, Justice Maes, and Justice Clingman concurring, reasoned that:
  Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution does not recognize a reasonable expectation of privacy in the Adames’ banking records, as these records consist of financial information voluntarily shared with their banks (para 1).
  The Court applied the interstitial approach to analyze whether the New Mexico Constitution provides greater protection than the Fourth Amendment, concluding that the federal analysis in Miller, which established the third-party doctrine, is not flawed and remains viable even after being narrowed by Carpenter (paras 10-21).
  Distinctive state characteristics and New Mexico’s tradition of providing strong privacy protection do not support a departure from federal jurisprudence in the context of conventional bank records shared with third parties (paras 22-27).
  The Court distinguished this case from others involving a reasonable expectation of privacy, such as in one’s trash, by emphasizing that bank records are not concealed but are instead exposed to bank employees in the ordinary course of business (paras 24-26).