State v. Chavez

1

STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROBERT CHAVEZ, Defendant-Appellant

No. S-1-SC-39509

Supreme Court of New Mexico

April 8, 2024

This decision of the Supreme Court of New Mexico was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Refer to Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of unpublished decisions. Electronic decisions may contain computergenerated errors or other deviations from the official version filed by the Supreme Court.

CAPITAL APPEAL ANGIE K. SCHNEIDER, DISTRICT JUDGE

Bennett J. Baur, Chief Public Defender Nina Lalevic Assistant Appellate Defender Santa Fe, NM for Appellant

Raul Torrez, Attorney General Jane A. Bernstein, Assistant Attorney General Santa Fe, NM for Appellee

DECISION

JULIE J. VARGAS, Justice

{¶1} Pursuant to Rule 12-102(A)(1) NMRA, Defendant Robert Chavez appeals his convictions for two counts of first-degree murder by deliberate killing contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-2-1(A)(1) (1994). Defendant seeks reversal of his convictions on the grounds that (1) there was insufficient evidence to convict Defendant of the murders based on uncorroborated accomplice testimony; (2) the district court erred when it admitted testimony of a police deputy recounting the contents of a witness's statement under Rule 11-803(1) NMRA, the "present sense impression" exception to the rule against hearsay; and (3) the district court erred when it admitted segments of Defendant's recorded jail telephone calls.

{¶2} We affirm Defendant's first-degree murder convictions because the accomplice testimony was corroborated and there was sufficient evidence to convict Defendant and because the district court did not abuse its discretion in its evidentiary rulings. Because the issues in this case are sufficiently addressed by New Mexico precedent, we exercise our discretion to resolve this case by way of nonprecedential decision under Rule 12-405(B)(1) NMRA.

I. BACKGROUND

{¶3} In 2009, Maximiliano Griego (Victim Griego) and his girlfriend, Mary Hudson Gutierrez (Victim Gutierrez), were fatally shot in their Alamogordo home. Approximately ten years later, in 2019, Defendant was indicted for the murders after Defendant's nephew, Joey Chavez, came forward with information about the case. Joey agreed to testify truthfully in this case in exchange for a shorter sentence in a separate felony matter.

{¶4} At the time of the murders, Defendant lived in Arizona with Joey, then fifteen, and headed a drug-trafficking organization with his brother, Joe Chavez, who resided in Alamogordo. In 2009, Defendant rented a vehicle in Arizona and drove to Alamogordo with Joey and two associates. Joey testified that, once they arrived in Alamogordo, Defendant and his brother discussed their plan to kidnap and kill Victim Griego because he had been "making threats" and had fired shots at a family member's house. Defendant and his brother made a plan to ask one of their female customers to lure Victim Griego to her house. At Defendant's instruction, Joey and one of Defendant's associates bought long, thick, plastic zip ties to bind Victim Griego during the kidnapping.

{¶5} Later that day, Defendant's brother asked Melisa Eveleth-an Alamogordo woman who bought methamphetamine from Defendant and his brother at the time-to get in touch with Victim Griego because he wanted to talk to him about "steppin' on his toes" by selling meth to his customers. Melisa testified that at the direction of Defendant's brother, she contacted Victim Griego and asked him to bring $800 worth of meth to her house, without mentioning that Defendant or his brother were involved.

{¶6} Before Victim Griego arrived at Melisa's house, Defendant's brother, Defendant, and one of Defendant's associates arrived at Melisa's house. Joey testified that he waited in a vehicle outside of Melisa's house for about an hour before Defendant emerged from the house. Meanwhile, Defendant's brother and the associate stayed at Melisa's house, waiting for Victim Griego to arrive. Later, Victim Griego arrived and Melisa went with him to a back room in the house to smoke meth. Victim Griego had not seen the other men in the house yet because they were hiding in another room. As Victim Griego was about to start smoking, Melisa turned around and saw two men standing behind her with guns. Melisa heard the men say the names "Bob" (Defendant's nickname) and "Mighty Mouse" (Defendant's associate's nickname) before she ducked and ran out of the house through the back door. Running away, Melisa heard screaming coming from the back room and saw silhouettes of fighting in the window of the room where she had left Victim Griego.

{¶7} Later that evening, Defendant's brother called Melisa, laughing, and said that he "had [Victim Griego]," and warned her that there may be some blood at her house even though they had "cleaned up." Defendant also called Defendant's brother to let him know that they (Defendant and the two associates) had kidnapped Victim Griego and asked Defendant's brother to let them into a family member's vacant house. When Defendant's brother and Joey arrived at the vacant house, Joey saw Defendant and the two associates pull a black t-shirt off Victim Griego's head. Joey observed that the zip ties he had bought earlier bound Victim Griego's hands and that he had "bruises on his face and a couple of scrapes on the top of his head." Joey saw one of the associates hit Victim Griego on the head with a wooden stick and he witnessed Defendant taunt Victim Griego, asking him with a smirk, whose town is this?

{¶8} While these events were underway, Victim Gutierrez texted Victim Griego asking him where he was because he had not responded to several earlier text messages. She also called and texted a friend to ask if he knew where Victim Griego was. Then, at Defendant's direction, Victim Griego called Victim Gutierrez and asked her to leave the back door of her house open because he was coming home. Joey testified that Defendant directed his brother and his two associates to take Victim Griego to Victim Gutierrez's house and to kill them both.

{¶9} Joey testified that Defendant's brother and the two associates drove Victim Griego to Victim Gutierrez's house while he stayed behind with Defendant. At Victim Gutierrez's house, Alexandra Estrada (Alex), Victim Gutierrez's fifteen-year-old daughter, was asleep. Alex woke up to the sound of two gunshots. She found both Victims Griego and Gutierrez lying unresponsive in her mother's bedroom. She ran out to the living room and saw two men in dark clothes get into the passenger side of a vehicle, with someone else in the driver's seat. Alex called 911 and then gave her statement to Deputy Luis Herrera after the police arrived on scene.

{¶10} When Defendant's brother and two associates returned to the house where Defendant and Joey were waiting, Victim Griego was not with them. They discussed what had happened at Victim Gutierrez's house. Joey heard one of Defendant's associates say that he had shot both Victims Griego and Gutierrez. Defendant, his two associates, and Joey traveled back to Arizona in the rental vehicle. The next day, Melisa returned to her house in Alamogordo, where she found blood splattered in the kitchen and the back bedroom where she had left Victim Griego the day before.

{¶11} The case went cold until Joey came forward in 2019. After a three-day trial in 2022, the jury convicted Defendant of two counts of first-degree murder and the district court sentenced him to two consecutive life sentences. Defendant appeals directly to this Court.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

1. Standard of review

{¶12} Defendant argues that the State presented insufficient evidence to convict him of first-degree murder. Our standard of review for sufficiency of the evidence is highly deferential to the jury's verdict. State v. Garcia, 2011-NMSC-003, ¶ 5, 149 N.M. 185, 246 P.3d 1057. "New Mexico appellate courts will not invade the jury's province as factfinder by second-guess[ing] the jury's decision concerning the credibility of witnesses, reweigh[ing] the evidence, or substitut[ing] its judgment for that of the jury." Id. ¶ 5 (alterations in original) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "When reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we ask whether any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." State v. Martinez, 2021-NMSC-012, ¶ 36, 483 P.3d 590 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted). "In performing this review, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the guilty verdict, indulging all reasonable inferences and resolving all conflicts in the evidence in favor of the verdict." State v. Chavez, 2009-NMSC-035, ¶ 11, 146 N.M. 434, 211 P.3d 891 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

2. Sufficient evidence supports Defendant's first-degree murder convictions

{¶13} Defendant argues that the State did not present sufficient evidence to convict him of the murders because only one witness, Joey, "could tie [Defendant] to the murders in this case." This, according to Defendant, is "troublesome" because Joey was an accomplice to the murders and testified against Defendant in exchange for a lighter sentence in a separate matter. Defendant also argues that Joey's testimony was uncorroborated and conflicted with the testimony of other witnesses. Specifically, only Joey testified that he heard Defendant instruct another man (one of Defendant's associates who did not testify at trial) to kill Victims Griego and Gutierrez. For these reasons, his testimony, Defendant contends, should be viewed with suspicion.

{¶14} Defendant's argument is unpersuasive for two reasons. First, an...