State v. Vega

• Court: New Mexico Supreme Court
• Writing for the Court: RICHARD C. BOSSON
• Decision Date: 09 January 2014
• Docket Number: NO. 33,363,33,363
• Citation: State v. Vega, NO. 33,363 (N.M. Jan 09, 2014)
• Parties: STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DAVID VEGA, Defendant-Appellant.

STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. DAVID VEGA, Defendant-Appellant.

NO. 33,363

SUPREME COURT OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO

Filing Date: January 9, 2014

This decision was not selected for publication in the New Mexico Appellate Reports. Please see Rule 12-405 NMRA for restrictions on the citation of non-precedential dispositions. Please also note that this electronic decision may contain computer-generated errors or other deviations from the official paper version filed by the Supreme Court.

APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF CHAVES COUNTY

Charles C. Currier, District Judge

Gary K. King, Attorney General

Olga Serafimova, Assistant Attorney General

for Appellee

Jorge A. Alvarado, Chief Public Defender

Mary Barket, Assistant Appellant Defender

for Appellant

DECISION

BOSSON, Justice.

{1} David Vega (Defendant) appeals from his two convictions for first-degree murder and three convictions for attempted first-degree murder. A jury found that Defendant fatally shot his twenty-five year-old son and his son's girlfriend at close range with a shotgun and that he later fired on police officers, wounding three, when they responded to the scene. Because the district court imposed life sentences for each of the first-degree murders, we review his convictions on direct appeal under Rule 12-102(A)(1) NMRA and affirm.

BACKGROUND

{2} Defendant and his wife lived together at their home in Roswell. From time to time their adult son, Chris, and his girlfriend, Michelle, would move in with them and stay for an extended period of time. The last such occasion was in the spring of 2010, about a month before the tragic events underlying this case.

{3} The evidence at trial showed that the situation in Defendant's home had been deteriorating in the days leading up to the night of the shootings. Just two days earlier, Defendant had summoned the police to his home to remove Chris and Michelle for trespassing. Defendant complained to the responding officer that the couple had refused to leave after he tried to evict them for providing his wife with prescriptionpain medication. Defendant's wife confirmed for the officer that Chris and Michelle had been living in the house with her permission for at least a month. The officer then explained to Defendant that, because his wife had given Chris and Michelle permission to stay, they were not trespassing and that Defendant's only option was to pursue civil eviction proceedings. The officer warned Defendant and Chris that if the Roswell police had to respond to the house again, one or both of them would likely be arrested under the local public nuisance ordinance, colloquially referred to as "disorderly house." Chris assured the officers that he and Michelle were planning to move back to Albuquerque the next day.

{4} Two days later, Defendant again called the Roswell police out to his home, renewing his request to have Chris and Michelle removed from his home. As before, the officers explained that removing the couple was a civil matter and that the officers could not arrest them.

{5} At about 10:30 p.m. that same evening, Officer Keith Rightsell responded to another call to Defendant's address, this time from Chris and Michelle. When Officer Rightsell arrived, he found Chris and Michelle sitting outside because Defendant had locked them out of the house. Officer Rightsell testified that the pair appeared "pleasant" and "articulate;" they explained that they had been arguing with Defendantabout staying in the house. They also reported that Defendant was intoxicated and that the police had been out to the house earlier that evening. During this conversation, Officer Rightsell could hear Defendant inside the house slamming doors, cursing, and yelling. Officer Rightsell asked Chris and Michelle whether Defendant had any weapons in the home, and upon learning that there were guns inside, he radioed the other officer who had responded to the scene and asked him to provide armed backup assistance.

{6} Defendant then appeared in the front doorway, and Officer Rightsell asked him to step outside. Defendant was cooperative and unarmed but kept getting distracted by Chris and Michelle and would begin yelling "profanities" and saying "very hateful things" about them, that they were "leeches" and "tweakers and drug users" and that he did not want them in his house. Due to Defendant's behavior, Officer Rightsell placed him in handcuffs and detained him in the back of the officer's patrol car so that he could continue his investigation. He learned from Chris and Michelle that Defendant's wife was at the hospital and that Defendant's nephew, Jeremy, who also lived at the house, was inside. Officer Rightsell went inside and spoke with Jeremy, confirming that Defendant's wife had given Chris and Michelle permission to stay. Officer Rightsell then returned outside. Fearing that the dispute would continue toescalate into a "domestic violence issue," the officer arrested Defendant for operating a disorderly house.

{7} Defendant bonded out later that night, and his bondsman returned him home. According to the bondsman, Defendant did not seem intoxicated, although the bondsman smelled alcohol on Defendant and could tell that he had been drinking. The bondsman also testified that Defendant was not threatening or aggressive on the ride home, but that Defendant was "disappointed" with the police and "upset that he had called the police department [earlier in the day] and [yet] he was the one who got in trouble."

{8} A short time later, Defendant's nephew, Jeremy, who was in his room trying to sleep when Defendant returned home, heard Defendant walking through the house, pumping the action of a shotgun. Jeremy testified that he heard Defendant talking on the phone to a friend and repeatedly saying that he was "going to kill them." After Defendant hung up, Jeremy heard a series of sounds in rapid succession: footsteps approaching Chris and Michelle's room, loud banging on a door, a door being kicked and swinging open, and a shotgun blast. Jeremy then heard Michelle scream, "No, Dave. Dave, don't do it"—but before she could finish her sentence, the sound of three or four more shotgun blasts filled the house.

{9} Jeremy stayed in his room, too scared to come out. He again heard Defendant talking on the phone, this time saying, "I did it," that he was not going to be taken alive, and that "he was going to see how many he could take out before they took him out." Jeremy also heard the back door open and close multiple times, and after some time passed, he ventured out to check on Chris and Michelle. He saw Chris's body through the open door to their room, but before he could check on Michelle, he heard the back door open again, and he ran back to his room.

{10} About five minutes later, Defendant entered Jeremy's room and told him to leave because the police were going to arrive soon and Defendant did not want Jeremy to get hurt. Defendant also told Jeremy to give him some time before he called the police, stating that Jeremy owed him at least that much. Jeremy began to run for the door when Defendant stopped him and said, "get [your] shoes, dummy . . . . [y]ou're going to need them." Jeremy grabbed his shoes and his dog and ran out the back door. On his way out, Jeremy noticed three rifles propped against the sofa. He ran to a neighbor's house about three-and-a-half blocks away, called the police, and reported that Defendant had shot Chris, that he was armed, and that he would not be taken without a fight.

{11} Jeremy's phone call came at approximately 2:05 a.m., and the police dispatcherradioed that a shooting had occurred. Approximately nine officers from the Roswell Police Department responded to the scene, including Officer Ted Sandoval, Officer Doyle Baker, and Officer Rightsell, who had arrested Defendant earlier that evening.

{12} Officer Sandoval testified that he led the approach to the back of Defendant's home from an alley behind the house. Officer Sandoval took cover behind a wooden fence and, while he was assessing the situation, heard a voice over a loudspeaker announce that the Roswell Police Department was on the scene and directed Defendant to come out of his home. Officer Sandoval then stepped out from behind the fence, intending to approach the back door and to check for any survivors inside the house. Almost immediately, he heard a gunshot and felt "like [he] got hit with a baseball bat on [his] elbow." After hearing several more gunshots in quick succession, Officer Sandoval retreated from Defendant's back yard with the assistance of his fellow officer and ran back down the alley. Medical personnel later determined that Officer Sandoval had been hit with ten shotgun pellets—eight in his arm and two in his leg.

{13} While Officer Sandoval was approaching Defendant's home from behind, Officer Rightsell was organizing the officers who had arrived at the front. Officer Rightsell testified that after he "got everybody where [he] wanted them," heannounced his presence several times and ordered Defendant, Jeremy, and anyone else inside the home to come out with their hands up. Hearing no response, another officer pulled up in a police cruiser, activated its flashing lights, and repeated Officer Rightsell's announcement over the car's loudspeaker. Moments later Officer Rightsell heard "three shots fired from the rear of the residence" that sounded like they came from a shotgun, followed by Officer Sandoval radioing that he had been shot.

{14} Officer Rightsell had been taking cover behind the home of Defendant's neighbor, "stacked up" in a column with three other officers. After a brief lull, Officer Rightsell heard four more shots from Defendant's back yard—this time aimed towards the front of the house—and saw the bullets hit the ground at his feet. Officer Rightsell returned fire and, during the exchange of shots that followed, was knocked to his back by a shot to the head. As Officer Rightsell lay on the ground, he saw Defenda...