State v. Guerra

• Decision Date: 10 May 2012
• Docket Number: No. 31,973.,31,973.
• Citation: 2012 -NMSC- 014,278 P.3d 1031
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Graciela GUERRA, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

278 P.3d 1031

2012 -NMSC- 014

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Graciela GUERRA, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 31,973.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

May 10, 2012.

Robert E. Tangora, Robert E. Tangora, L.L.C., Santa Fe, NM, for Appellant.

Gary K. King, Attorney General, Nicole Beder, Assistant Attorney General Santa Fe, NM, for Appellee.

OPINION

DANIELS, Justice.

{1} A jury found Defendant Graciela Guerra guilty of first-degree murder for the stabbing death of her daughter-in-law, Brenda Guerra, in an Alamogordo motel room. The district court sentenced Defendant to a mandatoryterm of life imprisonment, giving this Court exclusive jurisdiction to hear her direct appeal. See N.M. Const. art. VI, § 2 (“Appeals from a judgment of the district court imposing a sentence of death or life imprisonment shall be taken directly to the supreme court.”); accordRule 12–102(A)(1) NMRA.

{2} We address Defendant's arguments that the district court: (1) erred by denying Defendant's self-defense instruction; (2) abused its discretion when it excluded, for lack of notice under Rule 5–602(F) NMRA, expert testimony about Defendant's incapacity to form specific intent; (3) abused its discretion when it excluded expert testimony related to whether the victim's wounds would have been fatal if treated; (4) abused its discretion when it excluded letters Defendant wrote while in prison; (5) and abused its discretion when it denied Defendant's motion for a new trial. Defendant also makes a claim of cumulative error. We affirm her conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

{3} Defendant's son Christian and Christian's wife, the victim, were going through a divorce at the time of the killing. Throughout the divorce proceeding, Christian and the victim vacillated about whether to reconcile. On May 13, 2008, Christian and the victim attended a divorce hearing in Alamogordo. Christian had expected the victim's attorney to withdraw from the case at that hearing to allow both parties to proceed in the divorce without representation, but the victim changed her mind about giving up her lawyer. The couple argued for much of the afternoon following the hearing.

{4} After the hearing, Christian dropped off the victim at her motel, went to his house, and told Defendant, who was living with Christian and the children, about what happened at the hearing. Later in the day, after Christian had dropped off the children at the victim's motel, he told Defendant that he and the victim had agreed to reconcile and that Defendant could either stay and help them with the children or move out. Defendant replied to Christian that she would “fix it for [him].” Christian indicated that he did not want Defendant talking to the victim; he wanted Defendant to stay home and “cool down.” After this exchange, Christian drove to the victim's motel.

{5} Defendant followed Christian to the motel. Christian saw Defendant in her car behind him and called her cellular phone to tell her not to follow him. Christian eventually lost sight of Defendant's car and continued driving to the motel. After Christian entered the room and while he was seated on the bed, Defendant knocked on the door. The victim opened the door and asked, in Spanish, “what is that doing here?” A hair-pulling fight then broke out between the two women.

{6} Christian rose from the bed to break up the fight but stopped when he saw that Defendant was armed with a large knife and that the victim was falling to the floor, bleeding. Christian grabbed his older son, covered the boy's eyes, and ran to put the child in his car. When he returned to the room to get his younger son, the door was locked. Christian could hear Defendant saying “bad” things in Spanish and could hear the victim screaming “God, God, God!” Eventually Defendant, covered in blood and holding a knife, opened the door and told Christian “take [your] kids, [you're] free.” Christian took his younger son, drove home with the children, and called 911.

{7} A motel guest saw Defendant enter the victim's room and saw Christian leave with the children about ten minutes later. The witness was able to see Defendant inside the room with blood on her hands and the victim lying on the floor. As the witness entered the room, Defendant was shouting obscenities and kicking the victim's body. Defendant told the witness not to call the police. The witness went to the motel office, asked an employee to call the police, and returned to his own room to call the police.

{8} When the police arrived, they found Defendant standing in the open doorway of the victim's room, covered in blood. The police took Defendant into custody. They found the victim lying on the floor and exhibiting no signs of life. While they investigated the scene, Defendant repeatedly said in Spanish, “I killed her!” On the way to the police station, Defendant made a number of additional volunteered admissions. She said that she told Christian she intended to kill the victim, but Christian did not believe her. She claimed that she and the victim “had some words,” that she told Christian to take the children and leave, that a scuffle ensued, and that she stabbed the victim several times. She told the police that she was tired of the way the victim treated Christian and the children.

{9} In the motel room, investigators found two knives covered with blood, a kitchen knife with a bent four-inch blade and a butcher's knife with a bent seven-inch blade. DNA analyses confirmed that the blood came from the victim. In the kitchen of Christian's residence, where Defendant had been living, investigators found a knife block with one of the matching steak-knives missing.

{10} An autopsy of the victim revealed forty-one injuries, thirty-one of which were stab wounds. The knives found at the scene were consistent with these wounds. One of the stab wounds in the back of the victim's neck cut her jugular vein. The victim had four stab wounds in her right back, two of which punctured her right lung. She also had many stab wounds in her chest, five of which punctured her left lung. The forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy testified that the cause of death was multiple stab wounds and the manner of death was homicide.

{11} The State introduced three letters Defendant wrote while in custody awaiting trial. In one, Defendant acknowledged attacking the victim. In another, she admitted killing the victim, whom she described as sick and obsessed, and wrote that on the day of the killing, she entered the motel room, told Christian to take the children and leave, and “pulled [out] the knife and ... did what [she] did.” In a third letter, Defendant indicated she felt no remorse for what she did, describing the victim as “trash.”

II. DISCUSSIONA. The District Court Properly Refused a Self–Defense Instruction.

{12} Defendant argues that the district court erred in denying her requested self-defense instruction. Although there appears to have been no evidence that the victim had previously threatened Defendant, the defense presented evidence that the victim had a “short temper,” that the victim once said she would rather see Christian dead than with another woman, and that the victim once told Christian she could easily buy a gun and shoot him. Defendant testified that she did not intend to kill the victim when she came to the motel room and only brought the two knives from her house in case she needed to defend herself. She also testified that when the hair-pulling fight started, she was afraid the victim would strangle or hit her, although she acknowledged that she expected Christian would not have allowed the victim to really harm her. She claimed that she did not know how she came to stab the victim the first time but admitted that after she first stabbed the victim in the stomach, the victim let go of Defendant's hair and asked if they could “talk.” Defendant testified that upon hearing the victim's request to “talk,” Defendant lost control of herself. The next thing Defendant claimed she remembered was kneeling over the victim, her hands covered in blood.

{13} “The propriety of denying a jury instruction is a mixed question of law and fact that we review de novo.” State v. Gaines, 2001–NMSC–036, ¶ 4, 131 N.M. 347, 36 P.3d 438. The applicable standards have been addressed thoroughly in our case law.

A defendant is not entitled to a self-defense instruction unless it is justified by sufficient evidence on every element of self-defense. Those elements are that (1) the defendant was put in fear by an apparent danger of immediate death or great bodily harm, (2) the killing resulted from that fear, and (3) the defendant acted reasonably when he or she killed. The first two requirements, the appearance of immediate danger and actual fear, are subjective in that they focus on the perception of the defendant at the time of the incident. By contrast, the third requirement is objective in that it focuses on the hypothetical behavior of a reasonable person acting under the same circumstances as the defendant.

State v. Rudolfo, 2008–NMSC–036, ¶ 17, 144 N.M. 305, 187 P.3d 170 (internal quotation marks and citations omitted). A self-defense instruction is warranted only when the evidence is “sufficient to allow reasonable minds to differ as to all [three] elements of the defense.” State v. Lopez, 2000–NMSC–003, ¶ 23, 128 N.M. 410, 993 P.2d 727 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

{14} In determining whether a jury should be permitted to consider the issue of self-defense, it is essential for both trial and appellate courts to honor the constitutional rights of the accused to have the jury decide whether the prosecution has proven legal guilt in accordance with the reasonable doubt and unanimity requirements that are fundamental to our system of justice. See Rudolfo, 2008–NMSC–036, ¶ 22, 144 N.M. 305, 187 P.3d 170. The test is not how the judge would weigh the self-defense evidence as a factfinder; the true test is...