State v. Winters, 2015 NMCA 050

Defendant was convicted of larceny and criminal damage to property (CDP) from the same incident; the larceny trial included Deputy Daugherty’s testimony that shoe prints at the scene and near Defendant’s residence were substantially similar.
Defendant challenged the shoe-print testimony as improper lay witness opinion because there was no foundation for the similarity conclusion and the exact basis for the comparison was not specified.
Deputy Daugherty did not lay a proper evidentiary foundation for his similarity opinion, did not specify which shoe prints matched, and failed to establish linkage between the prints and Defendant.
Defendant entered a conditional no contest plea to CDP after the larceny conviction, reserving an appellate issue, but the court’s acceptance conditioned on reversal of an unstated issue; the State did not object.
On appeal, the court held the shoe-print testimony was improper lay opinion due to lack of foundation and reversed the larceny conviction, upheld the CDP plea as properly entered.
The court further held there was sufficient evidence to support the larceny conviction when considering the record as a whole, but this did not save the larceny verdict from reversal; retrial could be allowed if appropriate.

Issue	Plaintiff's Argument	Defendant's Argument	Held
Admissibility of Deputy Daugherty’s lay opinion	State argued the opinion was admissible under lay-witness rule	Daugherty lacked foundation and failed to identify specific prints	Opinion improper; misapplication of Rule 11-701
Validity of the conditional plea preserving appeal	CDP plea preserved issue for appeal	No valid preservation of issue; no specific issue reserved	No valid conditional plea; issue not preserved
Sufficiency of the evidence for larceny	Evidence showed Defendant’s truck at scene with stolen property; prints linked to Defendant	Evidence did not prove Defendant’s presence or authorship beyond reasonable doubt	Evidence sufficient to support verdict, though reversal still warranted due to improper testimony

State v. Luna, 92 N.M. 680, 594 P.2d 340 (N.M. Ct. App. 1979) (lay opinion admissibility and perception-based testimony standards)
State v. Rondeau, 89 N.M. 408, 553 P.2d 688 (N.M. 1976) (recognizes lay opinion on shoe/print similarity with foundation)
State v. Martinez, 36 N.M. 360, 15 P.2d 685 (N.M. 1932) (measured-track/shoe comparison admissibility for lay witnesses)
State v. Ancheta, 20 N.M. 19, 145 P.2d 1086 (N.M. 1915) (recognizes rudimentary lay witness footprint comparisons)
State v. Jells, 559 N.E.2d 464 (Ohio 1990) (foundation requirement for footprint similarity testimony)