New Mexico Historical Law Guide

Contents

Legal Ages at a Glance

General Principles

A civil-law beginning

New Mexico's law began in the Spanish civil law. From the first Spanish settlement the colony was governed by the law collected in the Recopilación de Leyes de los Reynos de las Indias and the older Siete Partidas, and Mexican independence in 1821 continued that system. Two features of it run through every early New Mexico record: property acquired during a marriage belonged to husband and wife together, and a parent had to leave a fixed share to each child.

The United States took the territory in 1846 and Congress organized it in 1850. The military government's Kearny Code kept the existing law in place: all laws then in force which were not repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States remained the rule of action and decision¹. Spanish and Mexican rules therefore continued to govern, and the territorial legislature re-enacted large parts of them in Spanish and English on facing pages.

The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848) protected the property of people already living there and let them choose United States citizenship.

The common law arrives in 1876

English common law (judge-made law, handed down through court decisions rather than written by a legislature) became the rule in New Mexico through a single sentence in an act about where civil suits could be brought: in all the courts of the territory the common law as recognized in the United States was to be the rule of practice and decision². The civil law and territorial statute govern before that date, and a mixture governs after it.

Community property interrupted and restored

Marital property kept its civil-law shape, though not without a break. Under the Spanish and Mexican law, and the territorial statutes that carried it forward, property acquired during a marriage belonged to husband and wife together, each holding half.

An act of 1901 recast that. All property acquired by either husband or wife, before or during marriage, became his or her separate estate, and the act worked instead through onerous title — everything acquired during the marriage other than by gift, donation, bequest, devise, or descent — which it hedged about with limits on conveying and on willing³.

An act of 1907 restored the community by name. Property owned before marriage, and property acquired afterward by gift, bequest, devise, or descent, was the separate property of the spouse who held it; all other property acquired after marriage by either of them or by both was community property⁴. Because those rules descend from the civil law of Spain and Mexico, the courts read them against that background⁵.

Legal Age of Adulthood

Majority at twenty-one

Before 1846 the Spanish and Mexican civil law governed, and it divided childhood in two. A boy under 14 and a girl under 12 were under a tutor, a guardian the law gave them whether they asked for one or not. From those ages to 25 the judge gave the young person a curator instead — a guardian of the property rather than of the person, and one a minor of sound mind could decline unless he was suing or being sued. Full capacity came at 25⁶.

Full legal age in territorial and state New Mexico was 21, the same for both sexes. Guardianship ran until the minor reached 21, whether male or female⁸. The limitation act preserved the claims of anyone under 21 until three years after coming of age⁹. Poll tax liability and jury service both began at 21.

The territorial codification of the civil law set particular ages for particular acts, and one of them sits close enough to majority to mislead. An heir had to be over 22 to demand a division of an inheritance in his own right¹⁰. Heirs below that age, and those unable to manage their own property, asked through a guardian or curator (a person the court appointed to manage another's property) whom the probate judge appointed. The probate court was the county court that handled estates, wills, and guardianships¹¹.

Twenty-one held for the rest of the period, for both sexes, married or single, by rule of common law¹².

A minor's capacity to deal

A minor could own property. What the law limited was the power to bind himself. Minors under 21 who were subject to a parent's authority could not make a contract of service; those aged 14 to 20 who were free of parental authority and had no guardian could contract for themselves¹³.

In court a minor sued through his father, his mother, his curator, or a next friend (an adult who brought the suit on the child’s behalf) approved by the judge, and a minor who was sued had a curator ad litem, "for the lawsuit," appointed before the case could go forward¹⁴. An appointment of that kind names the adult standing in for the child.

Two other ages sat near majority and are easy to confuse with it:

• Apprenticeship. A bound boy served to 21, a bound girl to 18¹⁵.
• Marriage. The marrying ages were lower, and are set out below.

Marriage

Who was old enough to marry

Into the 1870s the church-law ages carried over from the Spanish and Mexican period governed — 14 for a boy and 12 for a girl — and the territorial marriage act left the ages there, requiring instead that the officiant satisfy himself the parties were legally capable of marrying¹⁶.

An act of 1876 set statutory figures. A marriage of a male under 18 or of a female under 15 was absolutely invalid¹⁷. That is the line to apply to any New Mexico marriage from 1876 onward.

The floor for a girl moved up to 16 in 1923. The 1876 section stood unchanged in the compilation of 1897, which still barred marriage below 18 for a male and 15 for a female¹⁸, and the Code of 1915 still printed the same figures: no one could knowingly unite in marriage a male under 21 or a female under 18 without the consent of the parents or guardians in whose care the minor was, and every marriage of a male under 18 or a female under 15 was absolutely invalid¹⁹. The section was amended in 1923, and the compilers of 1929 print the result under that act: no one could knowingly unite in marriage a male under 21 or a female under 18 without the consent of parents or guardians, nor a male under 18 or a female under 16 with or without it²⁰. By 1938 the rule stood at 18 for a male and 16 for a female, below which no marriage could be made at all, with a parent’s consent required below 21 for a male and 18 for a female²¹.

An underage marriage stood until a court declared it void, and an act of 1927 set out how that worked. Only the minor could ask for the decree; a party who was over the age could not. The court could allow a girl alimony until she came of age or remarried. The children of a marriage so declared void were legitimate, with the right of inheritance from both parents. And if the couple lived together until they reached the age at which marriage was allowed, the marriage became legal and binding²².

Parental consent

The earlier rule reached males: a male under 21 married with the consent of his parents, his guardian, or the person in whose charge he was, proved by their presence or by an authenticated written certificate²³.

The 1876 act extended consent to both sexes at two different ages. An authorized person joined in marriage a male under 21 or a female under 18 only on the consent of the parents or guardians in whose care the minor was²⁴. Between 1876 and the end of this period, then, a bride of 16 married lawfully with consent, while a bride of 14 fell below the age at which a marriage could stand at all.

A ceremony made the marriage

A valid New Mexico marriage required a ceremony before an authorized officiant, and the courts have held so throughout²⁵. Any ordained clergyman of any denomination, or any civil magistrate, could solemnize it²⁶, and a religious society could celebrate marriage according to its own rites and customs²⁷. Marriage was treated as a civil contract requiring the consent of parties legally capable of contracting²⁸. A marriage valid where it was celebrated was valid in New Mexico²⁹. The rule held to the end of this period: a ceremony before an authorized officiant was still required in the twentieth century³⁰.

The statute placed the record with the county. Officiants kept a register and sent certificates of the marriages they performed to the clerk of the probate court twice a year, and religious societies sent a transcript to the same office³¹. For the Spanish and Mexican periods the marriage was a church act, and the record is a parish register.

Prohibited degrees

The 1876 act declared void as incestuous all marriages between ancestors and descendants of any degree, between brothers and sisters of the half as well as the whole blood, between uncles and nieces, aunts and nephews, and between first cousins, and applied the rule to children born outside marriage as well as within it³². The first-cousin bar was brief: an act of 1880 repealed every provision prohibiting the marriage of cousins of any degree³³. A first-cousin marriage is therefore void if celebrated in New Mexico between 1876 and 1880, and good on either side of those dates.

Enslaved people, people of color, and people held in servitude

New Mexico's racial restriction on marriage ran for nine years. An act of 1857 made it a penitentiary offense for a negro or mulatto, free or enslaved, to marry or cohabit with a white woman, punished the white woman equally and the officiant by fine, and left marriages contracted before the act untouched³⁴. The same act required free Black residents to post a bond for good behavior and barred new free Black settlers. The whole act was repealed in 1866³⁵.

Servitude in New Mexico commonly took the form of debt peonage, worked through registered contracts of service between master and servant. The territory abolished all involuntary servitude within its limits in the 1866–67 session³⁶.

Property Ownership

Which men could own land

Any person or body politic holding any right or title to real estate in the territory, absolute or limited, could convey it³⁷. The right belonged to free men of every origin, and Hispanic settlers, free people of color, and Anglo newcomers alike appear in the deed books.

Land came from three sources: Spanish and Mexican grants to individuals and to communities, which after 1848 had to be confirmed through the Surveyor General and later the Court of Private Land Claims; federal public land; and ordinary purchase.

How a deed was made, and who witnessed it

A New Mexico conveyance took effect on acknowledgment — the grantor (the person making the deed) appearing before an official and confirming it. He appeared before a court having a seal, a judge, a clerk, or a justice of the peace, and the officer certified the fact³⁸.

A witness of any age could serve, provided he understood an oath and could relate what he saw. Witnesses had a narrow role: where the grantor was unknown to the officer, his identity was proved by the testimony of two reliable witnesses, and the certificate recorded it³⁹. Competency, not age, was the test, and in practice these witnesses were adults.

Which women could own land

A single or widowed woman could buy, hold, and convey land on the same terms as a man. For a married woman the rule changed twice.

Her contracts bound her under the earlier law so far as necessary to complete a conveyance⁴⁵. The 1884 act made her bound by her contracts and liable for her own torts — wrongs she committed, such as injuring someone or damaging their property, and left each spouse free of the other's debts⁴⁶.

One route out of these limits matters to researchers. Where a husband deserted his wife for a year, or gave her grounds for divorce, she could obtain a district court decree barring his interest and giving her full power to sell and convey alone, and a certified copy went into the deed records of any county where her land lay⁴⁷. Such a decree among the deeds is strong evidence that a marriage had collapsed.

When a wife had to sign her husband's deed

This is the most useful dating tool in New Mexico land research, and the rule changed twice in six years.

Through the nineteenth century the husband managed the community property and could sell it alone.

From 1901 both had to sign. Neither husband nor wife could convey, mortgage, encumber, or dispose of real estate acquired during the marriage by onerous title unless both joined in executing the deed⁴⁸, and the Supreme Court of the United States held a husband's sole deed ineffective even as to land acquired before the act⁴⁹.

The act of 1907 returned the management to the husband. He had the management and control of the community property, with the same absolute power of disposition, other than by will, that he had over his own separate estate. Three things still needed his wife's written consent: a gift of community property, a conveyance of it without valuable consideration, and any sale, conveyance, or mortgage of the homestead the couple occupied, of the furniture and fittings of the home, or of the clothing of the wife and the minor children⁵⁰.

An act of 1927 brought joinder back, and went further than the 1901 rule had. The husband kept the management of the community personal property and the sole power to dispose of it, but husband and wife had to join in all deeds and mortgages affecting real estate, and a transfer of community real property attempted by either of them alone was void and of no effect. Two things were excepted: either spouse could convey or mortgage separate property without the other, and either could convey directly to the other without joinder⁵¹.

The courts enforced it⁵². The Code of 1915 still printed the husband’s power in the same words⁵³.

So a deed of community land carries both names from 1901 to 1907 and again from 1927. Between those dates a single name is ordinary, because the husband could sell community land for value alone. A single name after 1927 means the land was that spouse's separate property, or the deed ran from one spouse to the other, or the title is defective.

Which children could own land

A child could own land at any age, taking it by inheritance, gift, or purchase. Managing and selling it fell to a guardian under the supervision of the probate court, who gave bond and accounted to the court⁵⁴. A sale of a minor's land therefore runs through the guardianship file.

Pueblo and other Native land

Pueblo land was held communally, and Spanish and Mexican law protected it against sale. After 1848 its status turned on two decisions a generation apart. The federal courts first treated the Pueblos as holding ordinary fee simple title — full ownership, free to sell — so that Pueblo land could be sold⁵⁵. In 1913 the Supreme Court held the Pueblos to be dependent communities like other tribes, holding communal title subject to federal guardianship⁵⁶. That clouded titles derived from Pueblo sales made in the intervening years, and Congress created a board to settle the resulting claims in 1924⁵⁷.

Inheritance

Two systems, divided by 1887

New Mexico ran a Spanish civil-law scheme of inheritance for its first two and a half centuries and then replaced it. The date of death decides which applied, and an act of 1901 changed the surviving spouse’s share again.

Before 1887: forced heirs and the community

The legitimate children and descendants were herederos forzosos, "forced heirs," entitled to a fixed share. Natural children — those born to parents who were free to marry each other — inherited from their father where there were no legitimate children, and were direct heirs of their mother; children of other unions were direct heirs of their mother⁵⁸. Children legitimated by their parents' later marriage ranked as direct heirs⁵⁹. Where there were no children the nearest ancestors took, then collaterals (relatives off the direct line, such as brothers, sisters, uncles, and cousins)⁶⁰.

The estate was assembled in a fixed order. First the wife's own property, dowry or otherwise, was taken out. What remained of the property acquired during the marriage — the acquests — was divided in half, one half going to the husband's estate and one to the wife's⁶¹. From the husband's half a fifth was deducted for funeral expenses and legacies where there were descendants, or a third where the heirs were ascendants — parents or grandparents⁶²; and where the heirs were not descendants a further quarter could go to the widow if the estate reached five thousand dollars⁶³. What was left was divided equally among the children, and each child's share was the legítima, the portion the law reserved to a child⁶⁴.

The widow took her own half of the acquests, and could demand a division of the estate in order to recover it along with her other rights⁶⁵. A widow appearing in a division of this period is claiming property she already owned.

From 1887: an ordinary descent statute

An act of 1887 replaced all of that⁶⁶. Real and personal property of a person dying intestate (without a will) descended to the children in equal shares, posthumous children included, and grandchildren and remoter descendants took by representation — stepping into the share their own parent would have taken⁶⁷. Where there was no issue — no children or other descendants — half went to the parents and half to the brothers and sisters⁶⁸. Half-blood kindred inherited equally with the whole blood⁶⁹. Advancements — gifts made during the parent's life — were charged against the child who received them, valued as of the date of the gift, and an excess stayed with that child⁷⁰.

The same act abolished dower and curtesy⁷¹ — the life interests, meaning the use of the land for life rather than ownership of it, that a widow and a widower held in each other's land. They ran here from the reception of the common law in 1876 until the act of 1887. The territorial statutes gathered down to 1865 provide for neither: a surviving spouse's claim ran instead through the community and the civil-law shares set out above⁷². In their place the widow took one-third of her husband's real estate in fee simple, free of his creditors, reduced to a quarter and then a fifth as against creditors where the estate was large⁷³. A widow holding under this act owned the land outright.

An act of 1901 replaced the widow's third. On the death of either husband or wife the survivor inherited one-half of that part of the deceased's estate acquired during the marriage by onerous title. Of what was left after that half came out, the survivor took one-fourth if it was not disposed of by will, and the other three-fourths descended in equal shares to the children; where there were no children the survivor took that three-fourths as well⁷⁴. The same act limited what either of them could give away by will: an undivided half of the onerous-title estate, and all of whatever they had brought to the marriage or received during it by gift or inheritance⁷⁵.

The act of 1907 put the older doctrines beyond doubt: no estate is allowed the husband as tenant by curtesy on the death of his wife, and no estate in dower to the wife on the death of her husband⁷⁶.

Community property passed outside all of this. By the middle of the twentieth century the whole of it went to the surviving husband on the wife's death, without administration, apart from any part a court had set aside to her for her support, which went to her own descendants or heirs⁷⁷. A wife's death often leaves no probate file for that reason.

One trap follows. A widow holding land from a first marriage sold it during a second marriage only where no children of the first marriage survived; otherwise it passed on her death to those children⁷⁸.

Children born outside marriage

Under the 1887 act an illegitimate child inherited from the mother as if legitimate, and through her if she was dead⁷⁹. Inheritance from the father was narrow: it ran where the father died intestate leaving no heirs resident in the United States, it required proof that he had acknowledged the child in his lifetime, and the acknowledgment had to be established by evidence other than the mother's own testimony⁸⁰. A child became legitimate where the father married the mother and acknowledged the child as his own⁸¹.

Before the general statute, families sometimes went to the legislature instead, and private acts legitimating named children appear among the session laws of the territory.

Minors, guardians, and the age of fourteen

The father during his life, and the mother after his death, was the natural guardian of the children and had charge of their persons and education; managing their property required a separate appointment by the court⁸².

The probate courts appointed guardians in defined circumstances: where one or both parents had died and the minor had property in his own right, or where the court found a guardian necessary for the minor's personal welfare⁸³; and where a minor had no parents living, or the parents were adjudged incompetent or unfit⁸⁴. A parent could name a guardian by deed or by will, and the person named was appointed unless he refused to give security or there was other sufficient reason⁸⁵. A person to whom the minor's estate would probably descend was barred, unless a parent⁸⁶.

At 14 a ward could choose his or her own guardian, and the court appointed the person chosen unless there was just cause against it, superseding the earlier guardianship⁸⁷. A guardianship record in which the child does the choosing is therefore evidence the child had reached 14, which brackets a birth year.

Guardianship ended at 21 for both sexes⁸⁸. By the twentieth century it ended at 21 or on the ward's marriage, whichever came first, and marriage released the ward from the guardian's control without making the ward of full legal age⁸⁹. Guardians gave bond in double the value of the estate and settled their accounts with the court each year until a final settlement⁹⁰. That final settlement, filed when the ward came of age, dates the ward's majority and so approximates a birth year.

Wills, executors, and witnesses

The age to make a will was 14 for a male and 12 for a female. The territorial wills act allowed any person of either sex to make a will except those it barred, and the first class barred was males who had not completed fourteen years and females who had not completed twelve⁹¹. The act also barred the insane, a spendthrift whom a court had forbidden to manage his own affairs, and those deaf and dumb from birth who could not express their will in writing.

Those figures governed until 1889. They passed unchanged into the compilation of 1884, whose section 1378 barred males who had not completed fourteen years and females who had not completed twelve⁹². An act of 26 February 1889 then rewrote that section: any person of the age of twenty-one years or upwards, and in sound mind, could dispose by will of all his property, apart from enough to pay his debts and what the law gave as privileged property to his wife or family⁹³. That wording was carried into the compilation of 1897⁹⁴ and stood until the state adopted the Uniform Probate Code in 1975⁹⁵. The courts applied the twenty-one rule from the turn of the century⁹⁶.

One rule of timing catches families out. Marriage revoked a will made before it, whether or not a child followed⁹⁷. Where a single person made a will, married, and never made another, that person died intestate.

A written will was signed by the testator (the person making the will), or by another at his request if he could not sign, and attested — signed by witnesses who watched him sign — by three or more able and qualified witnesses having the qualifications required of witnesses giving evidence in court⁹⁸. The same act of 1889 changed both the number and the form: two witnesses were enough for any will made after it, and they had to see the testator sign, or see another sign for him at his request, and then sign themselves at his request, in his presence and in the presence of each other⁹⁹. Competency, not age, was the test for them.

A will witness had to be a stranger to the gifts: persons becoming heirs, and those receiving benefits or legacies, were barred from witnessing the will in which they were interested¹⁰⁰.

A spoken will was good. A verbal will required the same number of witnesses as a written one, and two more to testify that the testator was of sound mind and entire judgment¹⁰¹. Probate judges took the evidence of the witnesses present when the will was made and passed on its validity¹⁰², and a later act directed that a will was to stand despite a want of the formalities¹⁰³. New Mexico wills of this period are correspondingly informal.

The age to serve as executor matched the age to make a will, and so rose with it in 1889: persons capable of making a will could be appointed executors or administrators¹⁰⁴, and a testator was expected to name two or more¹⁰⁵. Where the executor named was a minor or absent from the territory, letters of administration (the court’s written authority to settle the estate) went to someone else for the duration¹⁰⁶.

Taxation

What was taxed

Taxes on individuals ran in three phases. From the American occupation to the early 1880s the territory raised its revenue from license taxes on trades and callings. From 1882 a poll tax — a flat tax on a person rather than on property, also called a capitation or head tax — ran alongside the property tax, with a separate school poll tax and, in the towns, a road poll tax. For genealogy the poll taxes matter most, because they list men who owned nothing.

The early territorial period

The revenue chapter the territory carried forward came from the Kearny Code of 22 September 1846, and it taxed occupations rather than people. No one could deal as a merchant or a pedlar, keep a grocery or dramshop selling spirits, keep a billiard table, or distill liquor from grain without first taking out a license¹⁰⁷. The Code had also laid an ad valorem tax — a tax charged as a percentage of value — of one-quarter of one per cent on merchandise, and that was repealed in 1852¹⁰⁸. That chapter taxed no one by the head. For the first decades of the territory the tax record is a record of licenses, naming men in trade rather than every adult male.

The poll tax

The revenue act of 1882 set a poll tax of $1 on every able-bodied male inhabitant over 21, whether a citizen of the United States or an alien, collected like any other tax¹⁰⁹. It ran for life from that age, subject to exemption for bodily infirmity, and its reach to aliens means these lists catch immigrants who appear in no naturalization record.

A separate school poll tax of $1 fell on all able-bodied male persons over 21¹¹⁰. Incorporated towns could levy a further poll tax of up to $1 on able-bodied male citizens between 21 and 60, or require a stated amount of labor on the roads instead¹¹¹ — so one man might appear on three poll lists in a single year.

Payment of the school poll tax was a condition of voting in the territorial period¹¹². An amendment to the state constitution ratified on 20 September 1921 addressed the point for women, providing that payment of the road or school poll tax, and service on juries, could not be made a prerequisite to a woman's right to vote or hold office¹¹³.

The statute sent the lists to the county. The assessor made separate lists of every person liable to the poll tax in each school district and delivered them to the probate clerk each year¹¹⁴, and the district clerks posted copies and reported which men had paid and which were delinquent¹¹⁵. Survival varies widely by county.

Statehood and after

New Mexico became a state in 1912, and the property tax stayed what it had been through the territorial period, the mainstay of state and local revenue. The constitution gave the legislature power to levy license, franchise, excise, income, inheritance, legacy, and succession taxes, and taxes on the production and output of mines, oil lands, and forests¹¹⁶. The state used that power for a severance tax on mineral production in 1933 and, in 1935, for the emergency school tax, a levy of about two per cent on retail sales and on services¹¹⁷. An income tax also belongs to this period, though its date is unsettled¹¹⁸. The poll taxes ran on beside all of them to the end of this period.

Taxable ages at a glance

Courts

Jury service

Jurors had to be 21. Beyond that the qualifications turned first on race and land, then on land alone, then on taxes.

The rule printed in the territorial statutes made a juror a white male person over 21 and under 60, resident six months in the county, a citizen of the United States, an owner of real estate in the territory, and the head of a family; men answering that description were liable to be chosen and to serve on both the grand and the petit jury¹¹⁹. The same chapter excused federal, territorial, and county officers, lawyers, priests and ministers, teachers, practicing physicians, one miller to each public grist mill, everyone over 60, and anyone of unsound mind or disabling infirmity; and a conviction for larceny or any other infamous crime — a serious offense that cost a man his standing in court — barred him outright¹²⁰.

An act of 1880 opened the panel to all male citizens of the United States aged 21 who had lived a year in the territory and six months in the county, and who were heads of families and owners of real estate¹²¹. From 1880 the qualification reached male citizens of any race, on the same terms. The freehold requirement still applied to the whole panel.

An act of 1891 replaced ownership with payment. A juror had to be a male citizen over 21, of sound mind, resident a year in the territory and six months in the county, an owner of property subject to territorial taxation who had paid the tax on it, free of any conviction for an infamous crime, sober, and living in neither bigamy nor polygamy¹²². Any male citizen with all the qualifications of a voter was also qualified. Living in a bigamous or polygamous state had been made a separate disqualification in 1882¹²³. That tax-payment requirement was the mechanism by which poor men were kept off New Mexico juries for the next fourteen years.

An act of 1905 dropped property and taxes together. A juror was then any male citizen of the United States over 21, of sound mind, resident a year in the state and six months in the county, who had not been convicted of an infamous crime¹²⁴. The exemptions ran to officers of the United States, the state, and the counties, practicing physicians, dentists and prescription druggists, attorneys, ministers of the gospel, professors and teachers, and everyone over 60¹²⁵.

An act of 1917 re-enacted that qualification for petit jurors in the district court, adding a disqualification for anyone convicted of bribery¹²⁶.

The grand jury was a body of not fewer than 16 nor more than 21 men¹²⁷; the petit jury was 12¹²⁸. Where too few jurors appeared, the court ordered the sheriff to summon bystanders — talesmen, people summoned on the spot to fill out a short jury — who had to hold the same qualifications as jurors drawn in the ordinary way¹²⁹.

That an individual grand juror was a minor was a listed ground of challenge, which is how the age requirement was enforced¹³⁰.

Speakers of either language could serve. The state constitution guarantees that the right to sit on juries shall never be restricted on account of inability to speak, read, or write English or Spanish¹³¹.

Citizenship was required, and the territory addressed it early. Residents who had kept Mexican citizenship under the treaty and then declared their intention to become United States citizens were made qualified to serve as jurors in all the courts of the territory¹³². A juror's alienage was otherwise a ground of challenge¹³³. That requirement reached Native residents as well. Native people born in the tribes became citizens of the United States by federal act in 1924¹³⁴.

A second barrier stood at the polls and bore on the jury box, because the act of 1891 let a man qualify by holding all the qualifications of a voter. The state constitution withheld the vote from Indians not taxed, alongside those judged insane and those convicted of a felonious or infamous crime and not restored to political rights¹³⁵. A three-judge federal court held that exclusion void under the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments on 3 August 1948¹³⁶.

Jury service was open to men only through the whole of this period¹³⁷. Women were serving on the same terms as men by October 1962¹³⁸; the act that admitted them falls between those dates, outside the years covered here¹³⁹.

Criminal responsibility

Before 1876 the Spanish and Mexican criminal law governed, and it set its line at ten and a half. A child under ten and a half could not be accused of any offense at all. From ten and a half to 14 a child could be accused of striking, killing, stealing, and the like, but on conviction the punishment had to be far lighter than an adult's. No one under 14 could be accused of a sexual offense, the law reasoning that a child of that age could not understand what he was doing. The same protection covered anyone out of his mind¹⁴⁰.

Once the common law was received in 1876 the common-law ages governed: a child under 7 was incapable of committing a crime; between 7 and 14 the child was presumed incapable, and the prosecution had to overcome the presumption; from 14 the child bore full responsibility.

New Mexico created a juvenile court in 1917 with jurisdiction over children under 16, and provided that a child found delinquent was adjudged a ward of that court, an adjudication that counted as wardship rather than as a conviction of crime¹⁴¹. An act of 1929 raised the ceiling to 18: a juvenile delinquent was then anyone under 18 who broke a state law or a city, town, or village ordinance, or who was incorrigible, kept company with thieves or immoral persons, was growing up in idleness or crime, frequented a house of prostitution, a saloon, or a public pool hall, or wandered the streets at night with no lawful business¹⁴²¹⁴³, and the scheme stood substantially unchanged for the rest of this period¹⁴⁴. Felony charges stayed with the district courts, which hold sole jurisdiction over them¹⁴⁵. A juvenile file sits with the district court and is likely to be closed.

Witnesses

A witness of any age could testify, if he or she understood the obligation of an oath and could give an account of what was seen. The wills act assumed as much when it required will witnesses to hold the qualifications of witnesses giving evidence in court, without setting any age⁹⁸, and the trial judge decided competency case by case.

An act of 1880, cited as the Evidence Act, settled the rest and governed for the remainder of this period¹⁴⁶. Interest in the outcome ceased to exclude anyone, so a person could testify however much he stood to gain by it¹⁴⁷. The parties themselves became competent and compellable, and so did their husbands and wives¹⁴⁸. Two limits held: each spouse could decline to disclose what the other had said during the marriage¹⁴⁹, and in a suit by or against the representatives of a dead person, an interested party needed corroboration for testimony about events before the death¹⁵⁰.

The Evidence Act drew its lines by interest and by marriage and set no bar by race or color, so a witness of any race could testify in any case. The one race-based statute the territory enacted, the act of 1857, reached residence and marriage rather than testimony, and it was repealed in 1866³⁵.

(Guide compiled by Jeniann Nielsen with AI assistance from Claude Opus 4.8 and Gemini Pro 3.1. Check primary sources as needed.)

Sources & Where to Verify

Every rule above is tagged with the law it rests on. The lists below show where to read those laws in full, and the reference works consulted, so anything here can be checked against the original sources.

Constitutions

• New Mexico. Constitution of the State of New Mexico. Art. VI (courts); art. VII, § 2 (poll tax not a prerequisite to voting or office); art. VII, § 3 (Spanish and English speakers on juries). New Mexico Secretary of State. https://www.sos.nm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/NM_Constitution_-2025-for-SOS.pdf.

Codes and Compilations

• New Mexico. Compiled Laws of New Mexico. Compiled by Edward L. Bartlett. Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1885. The compilation of 1884; section 1378, "Who may make wills," keeps the ages of 14 and 12. Page images. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010488514.
• New Mexico. Compiled Laws of New Mexico. Compiled by John P. Victory. Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1897. 1159 pp. Section 1947 carries the age of 21 introduced in 1889, and section 1426 the marriage ages of 1876. Page images. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001625667.
• New Mexico. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe, October 7, 1846. The Kearny Code, in Spanish and English. The digitized copy carries no printer's imprint. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp769261893. Also transcribed at the Avalon Project, Yale Law School. https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/kearney.asp.
• New Mexico Compilation Commission. Publisher of the official compilations. https://www.nmcompcomm.us/.
• New Mexico. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, Containing All Laws of a General Nature, Including Those Passed at the Special Session of 1929. Compiled, annotated, and indexed by William H. Courtright. Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929. Each section printed under its source act, which is what makes it the fastest route to the acts of 1917 to 1929: § 35-4101 (juvenile delinquents), § 68-403 (community real property; joinder), § 78-101 (jurors), and §§ 87-107 and 87-110 (marriage of minors, and annulment).
• New Mexico. New Mexico Statutes, Annotated, Containing the Codification Passed at the Second Session of the Legislature of the State of New Mexico, in Effect June 11, 1915. Compiled and annotated by Stephen B. Davis, Jr., and Merritt C. Mechem. 2 vols. Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1915. Volume 1 carries sections 1 to 3522, with each section printed under its source act: § 2766 (the husband’s power over community property), §§ 3087–3088 (jurors), and §§ 3430–3432 (marriage). Page images. HathiTrust. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993.
• New Mexico. New Mexico Statutes Annotated. Each section printed with its history line back through the 1953, 1941, and 1929 compilations and the 1915 Code — the fastest way to trace a rule backward. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/.
• New Mexico. Revised Statutes and Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, in Force at the Close of the Session of the Legislative Assembly Ending February 2, 1865. St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1865. The essential territorial volume, printed in English and Spanish on facing pages, with the source act noted at the head of each chapter: ch. I (administrations), ch. II (wills, the act of 12 January 1852), ch. IV (heirs), ch. V (distribution of the inheritance), ch. XXII (justices of the peace), ch. XLIV (conveyances), ch. LXIV (free negroes), ch. LXV (guardians), chs. LXVIII–LXXI (jurors), ch. LXXII (laws), ch. LXXIII (limitations), ch. LXXV (marriages), ch. LXXVI (master and servant), ch. LXXXII (orphans and poor children), and the revenue chapter. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903.
• New Mexico. Revised Statutes of the Territory of New Mexico. Compiled by James J. Deavenport. The earlier territorial compilation. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp774952982.
• New Mexico. Session laws after 1891, which the Library of Congress collection does not reach. Page images. HathiTrust. 1893, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502585; 1895, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502587; 1897, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502588; 1899, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010476917; 1901, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502589; 1907, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010502593; 1917, https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010433632. For 1917 the volume wanted is the third regular session, which sat from January to March; the separate volume of the extraordinary session convened on 1 May 1917 carries only the wartime measures.

Session Laws

• New Mexico. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico. Session volumes, 1847–1891, in English and Spanish, digitized as a single collection by the Library of Congress Early State Records Project. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220. The volumes cited above, with their imprints: 1865–66 session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1866), containing the repeal of the act concerning free negroes; 1866–67 session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1867), involuntary servitude; twenty-second session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1876), ch. 2 (common law) and ch. 31 (marriage); twenty-fourth session (Santa Fe: R. W. Webb, 1880), ch. 11 (jurors), ch. 12 (the Evidence Act), ch. 37 (cousins); twenty-fifth session (Santa Fe: Chas. W. Greene, 1882), ch. 15 (bigamy) and the revenue chapter; twenty-sixth session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Co., 1884), ch. 14 (married women) and ch. 39 (town poll tax); twenty-seventh session (Las Vegas, N.M.: J. A. Carruth, 1887), ch. 32 (descents) and ch. 49 (official index) — the title page is damaged in the digitized copy, and the printer is taken from the HathiTrust catalog record; twenty-eighth session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1889), ch. 112 (poll tax lists); twenty-ninth session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1891), ch. 25 (school poll tax) and ch. 95 (jurors).
• New Mexico. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-fourth Session. Albuquerque, N.M.: Democrat Publishing Company, 1901. Ch. 62, the act defining the property rights and powers of married persons: separate estate and onerous title (§§ 1–2), the powers of married persons and the joinder requirement (§§ 5–6), wills (§§ 6–8), and the survivor's share (§ 9). The title page is imperfectly rendered in the digitized copy; the imprint here is from the HathiTrust catalog record. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog.
• New Mexico. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-seventh Session. Santa Fe, N.M.: New Mexican Printing Company, 1907. Ch. 37, the act on the property rights of husband and wife: separate and community property (§§ 7–10), the husband's management and the wife's written consent (§ 16), curtesy and dower (§ 17), and the governing provision (§ 21). Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog.
• New Mexico. Acts read here only as printed under the sections of a compilation, with their source notes, rather than in the session volume: Laws of 1905, ch. 116, and Laws of 1917, ch. 93 (juror qualification); Laws of 1917, ch. 4, Laws of 1921, ch. 87, and Laws of 1929, ch. 74 (juvenile court); Laws of 1923, ch. 100, and Laws of 1927, ch. 110 (marriage of minors); Laws of 1927, ch. 84 (community real property). Laws of 1969, ch. 222 (jurors) and Laws of 1975, ch. 257 (Uniform Probate Code) fall outside this period and are traced through the history lines printed with the current sections. Justia. https://law.justia.com/codes/new-mexico/chapter-40/article-3/section-40-3-1/.

Court Cases

• Arnett v. Reade. 220 U.S. 311 (1911). https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USREPORTS-220/pdf/USREPORTS-220-311.pdf.
• Batts v. Greer. 1963-NMSC-037, 71 N.M. 454.
• Beals v. Ares. 1919-NMSC-067, 25 N.M. 459.
• In re Estate of McMillen. 1903-NMSC-012, 12 N.M. 31.
• In re Gabaldon's Estate. 1934-NMSC-053, 38 N.M. 392.
• In re Santillanes. 1943-NMSC-011, 47 N.M. 140.
• In re Toepfer's Estate. 12 N.M. 372 (1904). Marriage revokes an earlier will.
• Pickett v. Miller. 1966-NMSC-050, 76 N.M. 105.
• Reade v. de Lea. 14 N.M. 442 (1908). The New Mexico decision affirmed as Arnett v. Reade.
• State v. Jones. 2010-NMSC-012. Traces the juvenile code from its enactment in 1917. https://law.justia.com/cases/new-mexico/supreme-court/2010/17b2.html.
• State v. McKinley. 1949-NMSC-010, 53 N.M. 106.
• Trujillo v. Garley. D.N.M., 3 August 1948. Not in the official reports.
• United States v. Joseph. 94 U.S. 614 (1876).
• United States v. Sandoval. 231 U.S. 28 (1913). https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/231/28/.

Secondary and Reference Works

• Alfonso X. Las Siete Partidas del Rey Don Alfonso el Sabio. 3 vols. Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1807. The Castilian code that governed New Mexico before 1846, in the edition of the Real Academia de la Historia. Volume 3 carries Partidas 4 through 7: Partida 6, tit. 16, for tutors, curators, and the age of twenty-five, and Partida 7, tit. 1, for the ages at which a child could be accused of a crime. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft.
• Doña Ana County, New Mexico. Probate Court Records. An example of the territorial probate series in which guardianships, wills, and marriage returns sit. Digital images. Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/esrp1262336214.
• FamilySearch. "New Mexico, United States Genealogy." County-by-county guidance on which marriage, probate, land, and tax series survive and where — the place to confirm a record statement before relying on it. FamilySearch Research Wiki. https://www.familysearch.org/en/wiki/New_Mexico,_United_States_Genealogy.
• Flickinger, W. Garrett. "Intestate Succession and Wills Law: The New Probate Code." New Mexico Law Review 6 (1975): 25. Traces the pre-1975 New Mexico rules back through the compilations. https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1380&context=nmlr.
• Loving Day. "Legal Map." Collects the text and dates of the state miscegenation statutes, including the New Mexico act of 1857. https://lovingday.org/legal-map/.
• New Mexico Educational Retirement Board. "NMERB History." Dates the Emergency School Tax Act to 1935. https://www.erb.nm.gov/nmerb-history/.
• New Mexico Humanities Council. "Miguel Trujillo." Account of Trujillo v. Garley and the "Indians not taxed" clause. https://newmexicohumanities.org/miguel-trujillo/.
• New Mexico State Records Center and Archives. Holds the Spanish Archives of New Mexico (SANM I and II) and the Mexican Archives of New Mexico for the pre-1846 period, and county records for the territorial and state periods; its county inventories confirm what survives. https://www.srca.nm.gov.
• O’Cheskey, Fred. "Historical Overview of New Mexico’s Tax System." Presentation to the Blue Ribbon Tax Reform Commission, 1 May 2003. Outline of the territorial and state taxes and the years they began. PDF. New Mexico Legislature. https://www.nmlegis.gov/Publications/Blue_Tax_Documents/ops4273-HISTORICALOVERVIEWOFNEWMEXICOTAXES.pdf.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1938, Final Report, Giving Summary for All States Combined. Bulletin no. 157. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1941. Topic-by-topic survey of all the states; its jury-service tables show which states admitted women and which did not as of 1 January 1938. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_dolwb_1941.pdf.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for New Mexico as of October 1, 1962. Bulletin no. 157-30 (Revised). Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963. A digest of New Mexico law on majority, minors' contracts, married women's property, community property, wills, intestacy, guardianship, marriage, and jury service, each keyed to the 1953 Compilation. Earlier editions of the New Mexico report, stating the law as of 1 January 1938 and 1 January 1948 with a 1953 addendum, are held by federal depository libraries. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-30-rev_dolwb_1963.pdf.
• U.S. Women's Bureau. The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: United States Summary, Cumulative Supplement, 1938–1945. Bulletin no. 157-A. Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946. Its index of legislation by state and subject shows what each state altered in those years, and so what it left alone. Digital images. FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_a_dolwb_1946.pdf.

Citations

1. Kearny Code, 22 September 1846, "Laws," § 1, in Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Santa Fe, October 7, 1846; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp769261893 : accessed 28 July 2026); re-enacted as Revised Statutes and Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, in Force at the Close of the Session of the Legislative Assembly Ending February 2, 1865 (St. Louis: R. P. Studley & Co., 1865), ch. LXXII, § 1, and continued by the Act of 14 July 1851, § 6, printed as ch. LXXII, § 6; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp680529903 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
2. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-second Session (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1876), ch. 2, § 2, approved 7 January 1876, an act to provide where civil actions may be brought; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026); carried forward to the present as N.M. Stat. Ann. § 38-1-3, whose printed history line gives the intervening compilations ↩
3. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-fourth Session (Albuquerque, N.M.: Democrat Publishing Company, 1901), ch. 62, §§ 1–2, "An Act defining the property rights and powers of married persons," H. B. No. 159, approved 20 March 1901, pp. 112–13; the imprint is imperfectly rendered on the digitized title page and is confirmed from the HathiTrust catalog record; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawspassedbygen00mexigoog : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
4. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Thirty-seventh Session (Santa Fe, N.M.: New Mexican Printing Company, 1907), ch. 37, §§ 8–10, "An Act in relation to property rights of husband and wife," C. B. No. 63, approved 18 March 1907, pp. 46–48; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lawsterritoryne06mexigoog : accessed 28 July 2026). Section 7, letting husband and wife hold as joint tenants, tenants in common, or as community property, passed into the Code of 1915 as § 2756, the Compiled Statutes of 1929 as § 68-301, the 1941 Compilation as § 65-302, and the 1953 Compilation as § 57-3-2; § 21, making the act govern the property rights of husband and wife unless a marriage settlement provides otherwise, passed into the Code of 1915 as § 2772, the Compiled Statutes of 1929 as § 68-409, the 1941 Compilation as § 65-301, and the 1953 Compilation as § 57-3-1 ↩
5. Beals v. Ares, 1919-NMSC-067, 25 N.M. 459 ↩
6. Las Siete Partidas del Rey Don Alfonso el Sabio, 3 vols. (Madrid: Imprenta Real, 1807), 3: Partida 6, tit. 16, ley 1 (tutela for a boy under fourteen and a girl under twelve), ley 12 (the tutor’s charge ends at those ages, and a curator then holds it until the ward is twenty-five), and ley 13 (curators are given to those over fourteen and under twenty-five, and one of sound mind cannot be compelled to accept a curator unless suing or sued); digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/lassietepartidas03castuoft : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
7. Las Siete Partidas, Partida 6, tit. 16 (tutors and curators) and tit. 19 (restitution to minors). The structure of a tutor to 14 and a curator from 14 to 25, and the age of 25 itself, are taken here from summaries of the code rather than from its text — read Partida 6 in the Scott translation ↩
8. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 8 ↩
9. Act of 1 February 1858, § 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXIII, § 1 ↩
10. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 2, cl. 1 ↩
11. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 2, cl. 2 ↩
12. U.S. Women's Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: Report for New Mexico as of October 1, 1962, Bulletin no. 157-30 (rev.) (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1963), 3; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157-30-rev_dolwb_1963.pdf : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
13. Act of 20 July 1851, § 17; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXVI, § 17 ↩
14. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XXII, §§ 26–27 ↩
15. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXXII, § 1; and ch. LXXVI, § 32, for orphans bound out by guardians ↩
16. Act of 29 January 1863, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 4 ↩
17. Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 2 ↩
18. Compiled Laws of New Mexico, comp. John P. Victory (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1897), § 1426; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001625667 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
19. New Mexico Statutes, Annotated, Containing the Codification Passed at the Second Session of the Legislature of the State of New Mexico, in Effect June 11, 1915, comp. Stephen B. Davis, Jr., and Merritt C. Mechem, 2 vols. (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1915), 1: § 3431, "Marriage of persons under age," carrying the source note "Act of Jan. 7, '76; L. '76, C. 31, § 2; C. L. '97, § 1426"; page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008595993 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
20. Laws of 1923, ch. 100, § 2, amending the marriage-age section; the chain runs from Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 2, through the Compiled Laws of New Mexico, comp. Edward L. Bartlett (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1885) — the compilation of 1884 — § 993 (page images, HathiTrust (https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/010488514 : accessed 28 July 2026)), Compiled Laws of 1897, § 1426, and Code 1915, § 3431, to C.S. 1929, § 87-107, the 1941 Compilation, § 65-106, and, after a further amendment by Laws of 1953, ch. 112, § 1, the 1953 Compilation, § 57-1-6; history line printed with N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-6, and printed with its result at New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929), § 87-107, under the source note "L. '23, Ch. 100, § 2, amending Code '15, § 3431" ↩
21. U.S. Women’s Bureau, The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: January 1, 1938, Final Report, Giving Summary for All States Combined, Bulletin no. 157 (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1941), 57–58, topic 18, where New Mexico appears among the states setting 18 for a male and 16 for a female as the ages below which no marriage could be made, and 21 and 18 as the ages below which a parent’s consent was required; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_dolwb_1941.pdf : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
22. New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation (Denver: W. H. Courtright Publishing Co., 1929), § 87-110, "Prohibited marriages—Annulment," carrying the source note "L. '27, Ch. 110, § 1, amending Code '15, § 3434" ↩
23. Act of 29 January 1863, § 3; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 3 ↩
24. Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 2 ↩
25. In re Gabaldon's Estate, 1934-NMSC-053, 38 N.M. 392 ↩
26. Act of 2 February 1860, § 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 1 ↩
27. Act of 29 January 1863, § 8; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 8 ↩
28. Act of 29 January 1863, § 2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 2 ↩
29. Act of 29 January 1863, § 10; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, § 10 ↩
30. Women’s Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 18 ↩
31. Act of 29 January 1863, §§ 5, 7, 8; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXV, §§ 5, 7, 8 ↩
32. Laws of 1876, ch. 31, § 1; carried as C.L. 1884, § 992, and C.L. 1897, § 1425, now N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-7 ↩
33. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-fourth Session (Santa Fe: R. W. Webb, 1880), ch. 37, § 1, repealing such parts of all laws as prohibited the marriage of cousins of any degree; the compilers accordingly struck the words "and first cousins" from the incest section, as the compiler's note to N.M. Stat. Ann. § 40-1-7 records; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
34. Act of 29 January 1857, §§ 1, 3, 4, 6, "An Act concerning Free Negroes"; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIV ↩
35. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1865–66 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1866), an act to repeal an act entitled "An Act concerning Free Negroes," approved 18 January 1866; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩ ↩
36. Laws of the Territory of New Mexico, Passed by the Legislative Assembly, Session of 1866–67 (Santa Fe: Manderfield & Tucker, 1867), an act relative to involuntary servitude, § 1; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
37. Act of 12 January 1852, § 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, § 1 ↩
38. Act of 12 January 1852, §§ 5–6; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, §§ 5–6 ↩
39. Act of 12 January 1852, §§ 7–8; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, §§ 7–8 ↩
40. Act of 12 January 1852, § 9; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, § 9 ↩
41. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-sixth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Co., 1884), ch. 14, § 1, approved 2 April 1884, an act to protect the property rights of married women; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
42. Laws of 1884, ch. 14, § 2 ↩
43. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 5 ↩
44. Laws of 1907, ch. 37, § 8 ↩
45. Act of 12 January 1852, § 10; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XLIV, § 10 ↩
46. Laws of 1884, ch. 14, §§ 2–3 ↩
47. Laws of 1884, ch. 14, § 4 ↩
48. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 6, cl. (a) ↩
49. Arnett v. Reade, 220 U.S. 311, 319–20 (1911) ↩
50. Laws of 1907, ch. 37, § 16 ↩
51. 1929 Compilation, § 68-403, "Power of the husband over community property," carrying the source note "L. '27, Ch. 84, § 1, amending L. '15, Ch. 84, § 1; Code '15, § 2766" ↩
52. Pickett v. Miller, 1966-NMSC-050, 76 N.M. 105; and see Batts v. Greer, 1963-NMSC-037, 71 N.M. 454, applying the rule to a 1918 instrument ↩
53. Code of 1915, § 2766, "Power of the husband over community property," carrying the source note "Act of Mar. 18, '07; L. '07, C. 37, § 16"; and see Reade v. de Lea, 14 N.M. 442 (1908), the New Mexico decision affirmed as Arnett v. Reade ↩
54. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, §§ 4, 7 ↩
55. United States v. Joseph, 94 U.S. 614 (1876) ↩
56. United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 28 (1913) ↩
57. Pueblo Lands Act of 1924, 43 Stat. 636 ↩
58. Act of 12 January 1852; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. IV, § 5 ↩
59. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. IV, § 3 ↩
60. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. IV, §§ 6–7 ↩
61. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, §§ 4–5 ↩
62. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 6 ↩
63. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 7 ↩
64. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 8 ↩
65. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. V, § 2, cl. 3 ↩
66. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-seventh Session (Las Vegas, N.M.: J. A. Carruth, 1887), ch. 32, an act regulating descents and the apportionment of estates; the title page is damaged in the digitized copy, and the printer is taken from the HathiTrust catalog record for the volume; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
67. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 1–2 ↩
68. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 3–4 ↩
69. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 6 ↩
70. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, §§ 13–14 ↩
71. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 16 ↩
72. Revised Statutes of 1865, in which neither dower nor curtesy appears; the widow’s claim is the civil-law one at ch. V ↩
73. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 17 ↩
74. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 9, repealing §§ 2030 and 2031 of the Compiled Laws of 1897 and substituting the rule given ↩
75. Laws of 1901, ch. 62, § 6, cl. (b), and § 7 ↩
76. Laws of 1907, ch. 37, § 17; still the rule in the 1950s — 1953 Comp., § 29-1-23, as digested in Women’s Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 13 ↩
77. Women’s Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 13, giving 1953 Comp., § 29-1-8 ↩
78. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 18 ↩
79. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 8 ↩
80. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 9 ↩
81. Laws of 1887, ch. 32, § 10 ↩
82. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, §§ 1, 11 ↩
83. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 8 ↩
84. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 2 ↩
85. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 13 ↩
86. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 12 ↩
87. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 9 ↩
88. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, § 8 ↩
89. Women’s Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 3, giving 1953 Comp., §§ 32-1-7, 32-1-42 ↩
90. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXV, §§ 4, 7 ↩
91. Act of 12 January 1852, § 2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 2 ↩
92. Compiled Laws of 1884, § 1378, printed in English and Spanish, with the source note "C.L. 1865, ch. 3, § 2; Jan. 12, 1852" ↩
93. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-eighth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1889), ch. 90, § 1, an act to amend the laws relative to the estates of deceased persons, amending § 1378 of the Compiled Laws of 1884, dated 26 February 1889; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
94. Compiled Laws of 1897, § 1947, carrying the marginal source note "C. 90, L. 89, § 1: Feb. 26" ↩
95. Women’s Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 13, giving 1953 Comp., § 30-1-1, repealed on adoption of the Uniform Probate Code by Laws of 1975, ch. 257 ↩
96. 1953 Comp., § 30-1-1, repealed on adoption of the Uniform Probate Code by Laws of 1975, ch. 257; applied in In re Estate of McMillen, 1903-NMSC-012, 12 N.M. 31 ↩
97. In re Toepfer's Estate, 12 N.M. 372 (1904) ↩
98. Act of 12 January 1852, § 4; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 4 ↩ ↩
99. Laws of 1889, ch. 90, §§ 2–3; carried as Compiled Laws of 1897, §§ 1974–1975 ↩
100. Act of 12 January 1852, § 6; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 6 ↩
101. Act of 12 January 1852, §§ 3, 5; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, §§ 3, 5 ↩
102. Act of 12 January 1852, § 17; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 17 ↩
103. An act amendatory of the law on testaments, § 9, printed in the Revised Statutes of 1865 following ch. VI ↩
104. Act of 12 January 1852, § 14; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 14 ↩
105. Act of 12 January 1852, § 13; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. II, § 13 ↩
106. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. I, § 8 ↩
107. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XCVII (revenue), §§ 1–5, from the Kearny Code of 22 September 1846 ↩
108. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. XCVII, § 38, the Act of 9 January 1852, repealing the ad valorem tax of one-fourth of one per cent on merchandise laid by § 20 of the Kearny Code revenue law ↩
109. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-fifth Session (Santa Fe: Chas. W. Greene, 1882), revenue chapter, § 113; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
110. Acts of the Legislative Assembly of the Territory of New Mexico, Twenty-ninth Session (Santa Fe: New Mexican Printing Company, 1891), ch. 25, § 36; digital images, Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/esrp407156220 : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
111. Laws of 1884, ch. 39, general powers of cities and towns, cl. 78 ↩
112. Laws of 1891, ch. 25, § 36, proviso ↩
113. N.M. Const. art. VII, § 2, as amended at the special election of 20 September 1921; before that amendment the section opened "Every male citizen of the United States" ↩
114. Laws of 1889, ch. 112, § 1 ↩
115. Laws of 1891, ch. 25, § 37 ↩
116. N.M. Const. art. VIII, § 2, as printed in the 1929 Compilation ↩
117. Fred O’Cheskey, "Historical Overview of New Mexico’s Tax System," presentation to the Blue Ribbon Tax Reform Commission, 1 May 2003, pp. 1–3; PDF, New Mexico Legislature (https://www.nmlegis.gov/Publications/Blue_Tax_Documents/ops4273-HISTORICALOVERVIEWOFNEWMEXICOTAXES.pdf : accessed 28 July 2026). The acts themselves have not been read here — read the session laws of 1933 and 1935. The Emergency School Tax Act of 1935 is separately confirmed by New Mexico Educational Retirement Board, "NMERB History" (https://www.erb.nm.gov/nmerb-history/ : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
118. The 1929 Compilation prints no income tax act, so any income tax levied earlier had gone by then; the legislature’s own tax history dates income taxation to 1919, O’Cheskey, "Historical Overview," 2 — read the session laws of 1919 and 1933 ↩
119. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXVIII, § 15, headed "Qualifications of jurors" ↩
120. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXVIII, § 16 ↩
121. Laws of 1880, ch. 11, § 1 ↩
122. Laws of 1891, ch. 95, § 1, approved 26 February 1891 ↩
123. Laws of 1882, ch. 15, § 1 ↩
124. Code of 1915, § 3087, "Jurors—Qualification," carrying the source note "Act of Mar. 16, '05; L. '05, C. 116, § 1" ↩
125. Code of 1915, § 3088 ↩
126. 1929 Compilation, § 78-101, "Qualifications of jurors," carrying the source note "L. '17, Ch. 93, § 1" ↩
127. Act of 7 February 1854, §§ 1–2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIX, §§ 1–2 ↩
128. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXI, § 10 ↩
129. Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXXI, §§ 7–9 ↩
130. Act of 7 February 1854, § 5, cl. 1; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIX, § 5 ↩
131. N.M. Const. art. VII, § 3 ↩
132. Act of 25 January 1860, § 21; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXVIII ↩
133. Act of 7 February 1854, § 5, cl. 2; Revised Statutes of 1865, ch. LXIX, § 5 ↩
134. Indian Citizenship Act, approved 2 June 1924; read the act in the United States Statutes at Large, vol. 43 ↩
135. N.M. Const. art. VII, § 1, as printed in the 1929 Compilation, following the 1921 amendment admitting women as electors ↩
136. Trujillo v. Garley (D.N.M., 3 August 1948), a three-judge district court; the decision is not in the official reports, and is described in New Mexico Humanities Council, "Miguel Trujillo" (https://newmexicohumanities.org/miguel-trujillo/ : accessed 28 July 2026) ↩
137. Women’s Bureau, Final Report (1941), 75–76, topic 32, listing New Mexico among the states in which women were not eligible for jury service. The same Bureau’s The Legal Status of Women in the United States of America: United States Summary, Cumulative Supplement, 1938–1945, Bulletin no. 157-A (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1946), 10–11, indexes the legislation each state passed in those years and records no New Mexico change touching juries; digital images, FRASER, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis (https://fraser.stlouisfed.org/files/docs/publications/women/b0157_a_dolwb_1946.pdf : accessed 28 July 2026). The qualification statutes cited above each read "male." The act admitting women has not been identified here — read the history line printed under section 19-1-1 of the 1953 Compilation, which names the amending act, or the session laws from 1947 to 1961 ↩
138. Women’s Bureau, Report for New Mexico (1963), 23 ↩
139. Laws of 1969, ch. 222, § 1, which repealed and replaced 1953 Comp., §§ 19-1-1 to 19-1-16; now N.M. Stat. Ann. § 38-5-1 ↩
140. Siete Partidas (1807), 3: Partida 7, tit. 1, ley 9, "De quáles yerros pueden seer acusados los menores et de quáles non" ↩
141. Laws of 1917, ch. 4, §§ 1, 5, as recited in State v. Jones, 2010-NMSC-012; the 1917 session volume has not been read here, though the 1929 compilers print § 2 of the act as amended at New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, § 35-4102, and §§ 4 and 7 at §§ 35-4104 and 35-4107 ↩
142. 1929 Compilation, § 35-4101, "Definitions," carrying the source note "L. '29, Ch. 74, § 1, amending L. '17, Ch. 4, § 1" ↩
143. Laws of 1929, ch. 74, § 1, amending Laws of 1917, ch. 4, § 1, as printed at New Mexico Statutes Annotated, 1929 Compilation, § 35-4101 ↩
144. In re Santillanes, 1943-NMSC-011, 47 N.M. 140; and see State v. Jones, 2010-NMSC-012, tracing the juvenile code from 1917 ↩
145. State v. McKinley, 1949-NMSC-010, 53 N.M. 106; N.M. Const. art. VI, § 13 ↩
146. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 1, an act respecting witnesses and evidence ↩
147. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, §§ 2–3 ↩
148. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 4 ↩
149. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 7, which passed into the Compiled Laws of 1884 as § 2081, the Compiled Laws of 1897 as § 3020, the Code of 1915 as § 2174, the Compiled Statutes of 1929 as § 45-512, the 1941 Compilation as § 20-112, and the 1953 Compilation as § 20-1-12 ↩
150. Laws of 1880, ch. 12, § 8 ↩