to the “jail term” required by Section 66-8-102(G). Defendant argues that the State failed to preserve the issue of statutory authorization. We will first address the preservation issue, and then turn to the State’s contentions. A. Preservation {8} Defendant accurately observes that the State’s Brief in Chief contains no transcript references to any argument below regarding the absence of statutory authority for the trial court’s sentencing decision. The State did not file a Reply Brief so there is no rebuttal to the Defendant’s contention that the State failed to preserve this argument. Generally, this would provide sufficient grounds to refuse consideration of this issue based on lack of preservation. See Fitzgerald v. Open Hands, 115 N.M. 210, 212, 848 P.2d 1137, 1139 (Ct.App.1993) (<HOLDING>). In this case, however, the question of
holding that a partys failure to raise an issue in the opening brief waived the issue even though the party raised the issue in his reply brief holding that plaintiff failed to adequately brief an issue where he failed to cite any legal authority for the proposition holding that issues not raised in a partys opening brief are waived holding that when a partys brief does not cite any references to the transcript or the record where the issue was raised below no error is shown holding that an issue is abandoned when not raised in an appellate brief