State v. Bregar, 2017 NMCA 28

Background

Late-night single-vehicle rollover on NM Highway 217 killed passenger Thomas Spurlin; Darla Bregar survived with serious injuries and was found near the driver side.
Deputies interviewed Bregar at the hospital around 5:00 a.m.; she made inculpatory statements admitting she had been driving but later denied it when told Spurlin died. Her blood-alcohol was tested at 0.09 (estimated ~0.19 at time of crash).
Bregar was indicted for vehicular homicide and per se DWI; she argued at trial that she could not have been driving (claimed knee brace) and that statements given at the hospital were involuntary.
District court denied Bregar’s pretrial motion to suppress hospital-bed statements (found deputies’ testimony credible) but suppressed post-arrest statements for lack of Miranda warnings.
At trial, Deputy Garcia, an accident-reconstruction deputy, testified as an expert that Bregar was the driver based on scene marks, window damage, and positions of the bodies; the court allowed the testimony over defense objections.
Jury convicted Bregar on both counts; on appeal she challenged (1) voluntariness of hospital statements, (2) admission/qualification and methodology of Deputy Garcia’s expert testimony, and (3) sufficiency of independent evidence for corpus delicti.

Issues

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument (State)	Defendant's Argument (Bregar)	Held
Voluntariness of hospital-bed statements	Officers’ testimony showed Bregar was coherent and not coerced; statements voluntary under totality of circumstances	Statements were involuntary due to traumatic injuries, intoxication, and hospital setting; police exploited her impairment	Affirmed denial of suppression; statements not involuntary (no coercive police conduct shown)
Failure to record interview	Not raised below as preserved issue	State’s failure to record prevents proof of voluntariness as a matter of law	Not addressed on appeal (argument not preserved)
Admission of Deputy Garcia’s expert opinion (occupant kinematics)	Garcia qualified as accident-reconstruction expert; his opinion was helpful and admissible	Garcia lacked scientific methodology/qualifications to opine about occupant trajectories and ejection; testimony should be excluded	Admission of some reconstruction testimony not preserved as to kinematics; but ultimate opinion that Bregar was driver was erroneously admitted under Rule 11-702 for lack of demonstrated reliable methodology—however, not plain error given other evidence; conviction stands
Corpus delicti / sufficiency of independent evidence	Photographs and circumstantial evidence (seat position, vehicle ownership, lack of passenger license, caretaker relationship) independently support that a crime occurred and Bregar was driver	Conviction rested solely on her confession; independent evidence is equivocal or affected by officer testimony	State proved corpus delicti with independent circumstantial evidence; sufficiency challenge rejected

Key Cases Cited

Colorado v. Connelly, 479 U.S. 157 (1986) (mental condition alone insufficient; must show coercive police conduct to render confession involuntary)
Culombe v. Connecticut, 367 U.S. 568 (1961) (framework for assessing voluntariness; three-phase inquiry)
State v. Cooper, 124 N.M. 277 (1997) (New Mexico adoption of Culombe three-phase totality-of-the-circumstances test)
State v. LaCouture, 146 N.M. 649 (2009) (upholding short hospital-bed admissions as voluntary absent coercion)
Andrews v. U.S. Steel Corp., 149 N.M. 461 (2011) (expert admissibility under Rule 11-702 requires qualification, helpfulness, and reliable methodology)
Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 509 U.S. 579 (1993) (reliability-based admissibility standard for scientific expert testimony)
State v. Montoya, 345 P.3d 1056 (2015) (plain-error review requires grave doubt about verdict validity)
State v. Lucero, 116 N.M. 450 (1993) (plain error and limits on expert testimony that impermissibly comments on credibility)