An Albuquerque man convicted of raping a 12-year-old girl has had two of his convictions thrown out, though the bulk of the case against him still stands. Jeremy Guthrie was convicted on nine counts of rape and sentenced to 36 years in prison, and he appeared at another hearing in the case on Tuesday as the fallout from a recent appellate ruling played out in court.
The case against Guthrie centered on what police later discovered was an ongoing sexual relationship with the 12-year-old girl, according to KRQE News 13. A jury found him guilty on nine counts of rape, and a judge handed down the 36-year sentence, the station reported in earlier coverage. Guthrie's attorney later appealed, seeking to vacate two of the counts.
That appeal reached the New Mexico Court of Appeals, which described the case in more specific legal terms than the original jury verdict. According to the appellate opinion published by caselaw.findlaw.com, Guthrie was convicted, in relevant part, of four counts of first-degree criminal sexual penetration of a minor and three counts of third-degree criminal sexual contact of a minor. The court's opinion states the convictions were based on multiple sexual assaults of a 12-year-old victim between November 1, 2021, and April 25, 2022.
Court Cites Double-Jeopardy Violations
The appeals court ultimately sided partly with Guthrie, finding that some of his convictions amounted to multiple punishments for the same conduct. The opinion states plainly: “We vacate one count of CSPM and one count of CSCM. We otherwise affirm.” The ruling addressed what the opinion calls two distinct types of double-jeopardy violations — multiple convictions under the same statute, and convictions under different statutes for the same underlying conduct — with the court noting that “Defendant alleges both types of double jeopardy violations.”
Part of Guthrie's argument centered on an assault he says happened at a mesa. Per the opinion, Guthrie claimed that three of his criminal sexual penetration convictions — one for sexual intercourse, one for penetration with a sex toy, and one for cunnilingus — were actually based on a single sexual assault that should have counted as one unitary act rather than three separate crimes. The court's ruling ultimately vacated only one of those penetration counts rather than the three Guthrie sought to have overturned.
What Remains of the Case
Despite the partial reversal, the majority of Guthrie's convictions were affirmed by the appeals court. Guthrie will still be required to register as a sex offender once he is released, per the station's earlier reporting. The case drew attention in the community in part because police had separately encountered Guthrie in 2022, when he was found driving drunk with underage children in his car during a traffic stop. He had also reportedly been employed by the New Mexico Water Authority.
Beyond the appellate opinion's own account of the vacated counts and the underlying assaults, the available record does not clarify whether Guthrie's original 36-year sentence has been adjusted to reflect the two overturned convictions. That detail, along with the precise count numbers affected in the most recent hearing, remains unresolved in the public record reviewed for this report.
