State v. Saiz

• Decision Date: 22 July 2008
• Docket Number: No. 29,386.,29,386.
• Citation: 2008 NMSC 048,191 P.3d 521
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Martin SAIZ, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

191 P.3d 521

2008 NMSC 048

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Martin SAIZ, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 29,386.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

July 22, 2008.

Albright Law & Consulting, Jennifer Rebecca Albright, Albuquerque, NM, for Appellant.

Gary K. King, Attorney General, Andrew S. Montgomery, Assistant Attorney General, Santa Fe, NM, for Appellee.

OPINION

DANIELS, Justice.

{1} Defendant Martin Saiz was convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree kidnapping, and tampering with evidence in connection with the killing of Carolyn Rustvold, an occupational therapist at Montezuma Elementary School in Albuquerque. We address Defendant's numerous claims of error and determine that (1) his wallet was lawfully searched without a warrant after his lawful arrest; (2) his convictions for both kidnapping and deliberate first-degree murder did not constitute double jeopardy; (3) double jeopardy considerations require reducing the number of separate convictions for tampering with evidence from nine to three; (4) the trial court did not err either in refusing to permit a defense witness to take the stand solely to invoke his self-incrimination privilege before the jury or in declining to order immunity for the witness; (5) the trial court did not abuse its discretion in determining which photographs of the victim's body should be admitted; (6) none of Defendant's claims of reversible error in the jury instructions are meritorious; (7) the record in this direct appeal does not support a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel; and (8) there is no cumulative error.

I. BACKGROUND

{2} There were no known eyewitnesses to the assault and murder of Carolyn Rustvold other than herself and her killer, but the State presented a great deal of circumstantial evidence pointing clearly to Defendant and his crimes over the course of his fifteen-day jury trial.

{3} Rustvold was working late on a Friday afternoon after most people had left the grounds of Montezuma Elementary School for a three-day holiday weekend. At around 5:00 p.m., she approached a coworker to ask for help in getting into her portable classroom (building "P-17") after she had accidentally locked her keys inside. The coworker spotted Defendant, who was the only night custodian, down the hall. Knowing that he would be the only person on the premises who would have a key to P-17, she called out to him to help Rustvold. Rustvold rushed down the hall toward Defendant before the coworker lost sight of her.

{4} Rustvold was never seen alive again by any known witness. When she failed to come home that evening, her family went to the school to look for her, finding only her car at the deserted school grounds. They called the police and school personnel for help, and a search of her classroom disclosed clear signs of a violent and very bloody struggle between Rustvold and Defendant. The classroom clock had been unplugged and was stopped at 8:00 p.m. A great deal of evidence of an extensive but unsuccessful cleanup of the scene by Defendant, using school janitorial equipment and supplies, was found throughout the classroom, in the dumpster, in the custodian's closet, and at numerous other locations around the school. Evidence at the scene also indicated that Defendant had placed Rustvold or her body in the trunk of his car and had driven away from the scene after trying to wash away blood from his parking spot. A massive amount of scientific and other evidence developed during the course of the investigation, including DNA comparisons, fingerprint comparisons, blood analyses, hair analyses, clothing analyses, palmprint comparisons, shoeprint comparisons, tireprint comparisons, soil and fiber analyses, examinations of Defendant's car, examinations of Carolyn Rustvold's body after it was ultimately found, and mutual injuries of the two, confirmed both the violent struggle between them and the attempted coverup that was already obvious to the police before Defendant was arrested the next day.

{5} Despite the fact that Defendant's normally minimal duties as the only night custodian included vacuuming, emptying trash cans, and doing other routine cleaning, he never got around to completing those tasks that night. He clocked out of the school at approximately 11:07 p.m., after he normally would have completed all his assigned duties, but he never showed up that night at his home in Los Lunas, where he lived with his parents, or at his girlfriend's house, where he was expected to drop by that night after getting off work. No one in his family was able to find him until almost noon the next day, when they spotted him at a gas station. They told him the police wanted to come by his house to talk to him about the missing teacher.

{6} When Defendant arrived at his home in Los Lunas shortly after he found out that the police were looking for him, he was dirty and dusty. He explained to his brother that he had gotten his car stuck in the sand. Before the police arrived, he removed his clothes, showered and borrowed a change of clothes from his brother. He tried to clean and hide bloody items of clothing that contained both his and Rustvold's blood. When the police arrived at his house, they noticed that he still had sand in his ears and that large amounts of sand were in and under the car, extending up into the suspension and undercarriage. His wet shoes were in the bathtub with sand and blood still detectible in them.

{7} The officers arrested Defendant and transported him to Albuquerque. A wallet and lighter were taken from him during the search incident to his arrest, and an ATM receipt found in the wallet reflected that he had made a cash withdrawal in Belen before noon that day.

{8} An intensive search for Rustvold was unsuccessful until a railroad worker found her body in a Belen irrigation ditch two months later. Her body reflected that she had received numerous serious injuries. Her nose was broken and her face and head were lacerated in at least fifteen places by multiple blows with a blunt object. The battering caused a variety of simple, compound, complex, and intertwining fractures to various locations on her skull, including linear fractures, comminuted fractures, depressed fractures, and a hinge fracture. Although the body was too badly decomposed to determine scientifically whether a sexual assault had taken place, her underpants appeared to have been removed and replaced on her body inside out. Her pants, shoes and socks had been removed and were missing. The body had been wrapped in plastic trash bags matching those used by Montezuma janitors and had been secured by duct tape matching rolls that had been found at the school during the investigation.

{9} The deep sand along the ditch where Rustvold's body was found matched the sand that had been found on Defendant's clothing and car. A Belen resident whose picture had been captured standing alongside Defendant by the ATM camera when Defendant made his withdrawal the day after the killing eventually admitted that he had gone to the ATM with Defendant while Defendant made a withdrawal. The cash was to pay the witness and two other men for helping Defendant get his stuck car out of the ditchbank sand that morning near where the body had been found.

{10} Defendant was indicted on one count of first-degree murder by willful and deliberate murder, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-2-1(A)(1) (1994), or in the alternative by felony murder, contrary to Section 30-2-1(A)(2); one count of first-degree kidnapping (victim not freed in safe place and great bodily harm inflicted), contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-4-1 (1995, prior to 2003 amendment); 17 counts of tampering with evidence, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-22-5 (1963, prior to 2003 amendment); and one count of larceny, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-16-1 (1987). The jury returned verdicts of guilty as to both willful and deliberate murder and felony murder, first-degree kidnapping, and thirteen counts (subsequently reduced by the sentencing court to nine counts) of tampering with evidence. Defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment for one conviction of first-degree murder, 24 years for kidnapping, and 18 years for tampering with evidence, for a total penitentiary sentence of life plus 42 years. He comes before this Court on direct appeal from those convictions.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Arrest, Search and Seizure Issues

{11} Defendant raises several search and seizure issues regarding the admissibility of the ATM receipt found in his wallet after he was arrested and the fruits of the investigation that resulted from discovery of the receipt. He argues first that his initial arrest was unlawful because insufficient exigent circumstances existed to justify his warrantless arrest. He also argues that the police should have obtained a search warrant to examine the contents of his wallet after it was removed from his possession in connection with his arrest.

1. Standard of Review

{12} A ruling on a motion to suppress evidence presents a mixed question of law and fact. State v. Garcia, 2005-NMSC-017, ¶ 27, 138 N.M. 1, 116 P.3d 72. We first review findings of fact by a substantial evidence standard. We then review whether the district court correctly applied the law to the facts by a de novo standard, viewing the facts in the light most favorable to the prevailing party. Id.

2. Defendant's Warrantless Arrest Was Justified by Exigent Circumstances

{13} All warrantless arrests must comply with Article II, Section 10 of the New Mexico Constitution, which states in relevant part that "`[t]he people shall be secure . . . from unreasonable searches and seizures. . . .'" Campos v. State, 117 N.M. 155, 157, 870 P.2d 117, 119 (1994) (quoting N.M. Const. art. II, § 10) (alterations in original). This Court has previously stated that "in all cases the ultimate question is whether the search and seizure was reasonable." State v. Martinez, 94 N.M. 436, 440, ...