State v. Sanders

• Decision Date: 06 April 1994
• Docket Number: No. 20334,20334
• Citation: 117 N.M. 452,872 P.2d 870,1994 NMSC 43
• Parties: STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas E. SANDERS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court

Page 870

872 P.2d 870

117 N.M. 452

STATE of New Mexico, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Thomas E. SANDERS, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 20334.

Supreme Court of New Mexico.

April 6, 1994.

[117 N.M. 454] Sammy J. Quintana, Chief Public Defender, Amme M. Hogan, Asst. Appellate Defender, Santa Fe, for defendant-appellant.

Tom Udall, Atty. Gen., Anthony Tupler, Asst. Atty. Gen., Santa Fe, for plaintiff-appellee.

OPINION

MONTGOMERY, Chief Justice.

Defendant-Appellant Thomas E. Sanders appeals his convictions of first degree murder, conspiracy to commit first degree murder, tampering with evidence, conspiracy to commit tampering with evidence, attempted fraud greater than $20,000, conspiracy to commit fraud greater than $20,000, fraud greater than $2,500, and conspiracy to commit fraud greater than $2,500. We affirm.

I. FACTS

The evidence presented to the jury in Sanders' trial, viewed in the light most favorable to support the verdicts, see State v Sutphin, 107 N.M. 126, 131, 753 P.2d 1314, 1319 (1988), established the following facts: Sanders met Mrs. Christine Torres ("Christine"), wife of Robert Torres ("Robert"), in May 1988. Sanders and Christine became friendly and soon entered into an intimate relationship. During the course of their relationship, Sanders and Christine developed an interest in opening a nightclub together in Albuquerque.

In February 1990, Christine was caught embezzling about $21,000 from her employer, the University of New Mexico ("UNM"). She was fired from her job and turned over to the authorities. One week after being fired, Christine met with Sanders and explained her predicament, eventually telling him, "There won't be a nightclub." Sanders became angry and punched a wall after hearing this news, but then told Christine not to worry--that it "would be all right."

Two months later, Sanders called Christine and asked her to meet him in the parking lot of the Food Emporium at Coors Road and Central Avenue. When Christine arrived, Sanders got into her car and told her that he had a plan to help her pay her bills. He suggested that they burglarize her house and file an insurance claim for the "loss." He then asked her if her husband, Robert, had life insurance. When she responded affirmatively, Sanders said, "Well, kill Robert." Christine told him that she would have to think about it.

Over the next few weeks, Sanders called Christine two or three times to ask her if she had thought about what they had talked about that night, and she would tell him that she was "still thinking about it." On May 12, Robert and Christine attended a wedding, where they got into a horrendous fight. During the fight Robert made remarks to Christine that she found humiliating and degrading and that made her furious. The following day she called Sanders and told him that she wanted her husband killed. Sanders and Christine then met several times to plan to kill Robert and to defraud his insurance company.

They decided to murder Robert on May 24, the Torreses' fourth wedding anniversary. At around 3:00 p.m. on May 24, Sanders and Christine met in the parking lot of St. Joseph's Northeast Heights Hospital and then followed one another in their cars to Coronado Center ("Coronado"). Sanders left his car at Coronado and the two of them drove to the Torres residence in Christine's car. Once they arrived at Christine's house, they loaded her car with televisions, guns, stereo equipment, a VCR, a microwave, a camcorder, and jewelry. They then proceeded to ransack the house to make it appear that a burglary had taken place.

Sanders and Christine drove to Sanders' house and unloaded the items taken from the Torres residence and then returned to that residence, where Sanders got out of the car to lay in wait for Robert. While Christine went to pick up her children and take them to softball practice, Sanders went into her house and armed himself with a .270 caliber rifle belonging to Robert. When Robert came home at around 5:00 p.m., he entered the house and walked down the hallway toward the dining room, whereupon Sanders shot him in the back. After shooting Robert, Sanders picked up a box of roses Robert had brought home as an anniversary gift for Christine, took Robert's car keys and drove Robert's car to Coronado, and retrieved his own car. Sanders then drove home and gave the roses to his wife.

Following her husband's murder, Christine made an insurance claim on her mother's homeowner's policy for the items lost in the "burglary" and was compensated by the insurance company. She gave the money received to Sanders. She also made a claim for the proceeds under her husband's life insurance policy, but never received this money.

Sanders and Christine were indicted in November 1990 for the murder of Robert Torres, tampering with evidence, attempt to commit fraud, fraud, and four counts of conspiracy. Shortly before the scheduled trial in August 1991, Christine entered into a plea agreement with the State that contemplated her giving testimony against Sanders in exchange for a reduced sentence. Christine testified at Sanders' trial and detailed for the jury the planning and significant acts resulting in Robert's death, as well as Sanders' and her own efforts to conceal their involvement in the crime while sharing the insurance proceeds. The jury found Sanders guilty of each of the eight felony charges against him, including first degree, deliberate-intent murder, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment plus twenty-two and one-half years. Sanders appeals these convictions under Article VI, Section 2, of the New Mexico Constitution (providing for direct review in Supreme Court of conviction where sentence of life imprisonment is imposed).

On appeal, Sanders raises the following issues (among others): (1) that the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions for first degree murder, tampering with evidence, fraud, and attempt to commit fraud; (2) that the evidence was insufficient to support more than one conspiracy conviction; (3) that the trial court erred in refusing to admit the entirety of Sanders' statement to the police into evidence; and (4) that the court erred in not allowing any cross-examination concerning a polygraph examination taken by Christine. We discuss these issues in the following sections of this opinion.

II. DISCUSSION

A. Sufficiency of the Evidence

1. Standard of Review

Sanders argues that there is insufficient evidence in the record to support his convictions. When evaluating the sufficiency of evidence to support a conviction, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, resolving all conflicts and indulging all permissible inferences to uphold a verdict of conviction. See, e.g., State v. Garcia, 114 N.M. 269, 273, 837 P.2d 862, 866 (1992); State v. Lankford, 92 N.M. 1, 2, 582 P.2d 378, 379 (1978). Sanders suggests that this standard of review was changed by our opinion in Garcia, but we clarify today (if clarification is necessary) that the standard of review of sufficiency of the evidence to support a criminal conviction was not modified or altered in any way by Garcia. See State v. Orgain, 115 N.M. 123, 126, 847 P.2d 1377, 1380 (Ct.App.), cert. denied, 115 N.M. 145, 848 P.2d 531 (1993). The Court of Appeals was correct in Orgain "that Garcia merely reiterated the established law that the standard must be viewed in the context of the state's burden below--to prove each element of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt." Id. The reviewing court engages in a two-step process: First it reviews the evidence under the Sutphin/ Lankford standard with deference to the findings of the trial court; then it determines whether the evidence, viewed in this manner, could justify a finding by any rational trier of fact that each element of the crime charged has been established beyond a reasonable doubt. Id.; Garcia, 114 N.M. at 274, 837 P.2d at 867.

We did emphasize in Garcia the requirement that the evidence be such as to enable a rational jury to find the defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt with respect to every element essential to a conviction--a requirement that, we noted, had sometimes been omitted in this Court's (including Lankford 's) and the Court of Appeals' reiterations of the substantial-evidence standard of review. 114 N.M. at 273-74 & n. 8, 837 P.2d at 866-67 & n. 8. We also stressed the reviewing court's duty, recognized in Sutphin, to scrutinize the evidence to ensure that "a rational jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt the essential facts required for a conviction." Id. at 274, 837 P.2d at 867. But these requirements were nothing new; they had been established, as a matter of constitutional law, for well over a decade at least. See id. (citing Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), and In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970)).

2. Murder, Fraud, Attempt to Commit Fraud, and Tampering

with Evidence Convictions

Sanders claims that Christine's testimony concerning his motive for murdering Robert, committing insurance fraud, and tampering with evidence was so implausible that no rational jury could have believed it and that, accordingly, his convictions should be reversed. Sanders in effect asks this Court to disregard Christine's testimony that Sanders' motive for killing Robert was to obtain insurance proceeds to start a nightclub and to compensate UNM for the money Christine had embezzled. We do not, however, substitute our judgment for that of the factfinder concerning the credibility of witnesses or the weight to be given their testimony. State v. Riggs, 114 N.M. 358, 362-63, 838 P.2d 975, 979-80 (1992). Testimony by a witness whom the factfinder has believed may be rejected by an appellate court only if there is a physical impossibility that the statements are true or the falsity of the statement is apparent without resort to inferences or deductions. State v. Till, 78 N.M....