State v. Rivera, 33,908

Background

On Dec. 25, 2012 Joe Rivera was involved in an altercation at a party; he shot Nick Baker and John Griego, both of whom died. Rivera fled, discarded a gun and clothing, was arrested Dec. 31, 2012, and gave a recorded statement to detectives after initially asking for his lawyer.
Rivera was tried and convicted of second-degree murder (Griego), voluntary manslaughter (Baker), tampering with evidence, and conspiracy to tamper.
At trial the State introduced: Rivera’s video statement to detectives, recordings of his jail phone calls, expert testimony from a New Mexico State Police crime-scene investigator (Agent Goret) on bullet trajectories, and computer-generated simulations used by that expert.
Rivera did not object at trial to the jury instructions on self-defense/defense of another nor to the computer-generated simulation exhibits; he did object to admission of his statement and the jail-call recordings and contested the expert’s qualifications and methods.
The Court of Appeals reviewed the evidentiary rulings for abuse of discretion (or plain error where issues were unpreserved) and reviewed the failure to request a multiple-assailant jury instruction for fundamental error.
The court affirmed, holding any Miranda-related error was harmless, the jail-call recordings were adequately authenticated, the expert was properly qualified and his methods admissible, and no fundamental error arose from the jury instructions.

Issues

Issue	State's Argument	Rivera's Argument	Held
Admission of post-arrest video statement (Miranda)	Detectives obtained a valid waiver after reading rights; statement admissible	Request for counsel during Miranda was an unequivocal invocation and interview should have ended; admission violated Miranda	Even if error, Rivera failed to show prejudice; admission harmless given cumulative trial testimony and Rivera testified consistently with statement
Admission/authentication of jail phone-call recordings	Recordings linked to Rivera’s PIN and contain jail preamble; custodian testified to producing copies	Foundation insufficient: custodian didn’t identify exact discs or dates/times	Authentication satisfied by PIN linkage and preamble; contents showed calls occurred during pretrial incarceration; admission not an abuse of discretion
Qualification/reliability of Agent Goret’s trajectory testimony and methods	Goret had relevant training and experience; opinions based on physical evidence and simulations that aided the jury	Goret lacked sufficient experience for trajectory analysis; assumptions/methodology unreliable	Trial court properly qualified Goret as a crime-scene reconstruction expert; his assumptions were tied to facts and admissible; reliability and weight were for the jury
Admission of computer-generated simulation exhibits	Simulations were used by an expert to form opinions; State need only show they were generated validly	Insufficient foundation for simulations; unobjected at trial so plain error review	No plain error: no evidence simulations were scientifically unreliable and absent evidence of unfairness admission stands
Failure to give a multiple-assailant self-defense instruction (unrequested)	Given standard self-defense/defense-of-another instructions and counsel’s closing, jury could consider multiple-assailant context	District court should have given an instruction tailored to multiple-assailant theory	No fundamental error: jury was not misdirected or confused and Rivera presented his multiple-assailant defense at trial

Key Cases Cited

State v. Tollardo, 275 P.3d 110 (N.M. 2012) (harmless-error standard for constitutional errors)
State v. Alberico, 861 P.2d 192 (N.M. 1993) (standards for expert qualification and admissibility)
State v. Downey, 195 P.3d 1244 (N.M. 2008) (expert reliability: methodology must be properly applied to facts)
State v. Dylan J., 204 P.3d 44 (N.M. Ct. App. 2009) (plain-error review for unpreserved evidentiary issues)
State v. Cunningham, 998 P.2d 176 (N.M. 2000) (fundamental-error review for unpreserved jury-instruction claims)
State v. Sandoval, 258 P.3d 1016 (N.M. 2011) (assessing whether jury instructions confused or misdirected a reasonable juror)