State v. Vigil, Docket No. 30,896 (N.M. 1/5/2010), Docket No. 30,896.
| Decision Date | 05 January 2010 |
| Docket Number | Docket No. 30,896. |
| Parties | STATE OF NEW MEXICO, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. THOMAS VIGIL, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF SAN JUAN COUNTY, William C. Birdsall, District Judge.
Hawk Law, P.A. Sharon B. Hawk Glbuquerque, NM Romero & Associates, P.A. Joe M. Romero, Jr. Albuquerque, NM for Appellant.
Gary W. King, Attorney General Andrew S. Montgomery, Assistant Attorney General Santa Fe, NM for Appellee.
{1} Defendant Thomas Vigil, convicted of first-degree murder on a theory of accessorial liability, raises several challenges on appeal. Because we conclude that his conviction must be reversed for insufficiency of evidence, we find it unnecessary to reach any other issue.
{2} Defendant was charged with several criminal offenses in connection with the October 21, 2005, shooting death of Carlos Escobar: Count I, first-degree murder, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-2-1 (1994); Count II, shooting at or from a motor vehicle and causing injury, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-3-8 (1993); Count III, assault with intent to commit a violent felony, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-3-3 (1977); Count IV, receipt, transportation, or possession of firearms or destructive devices by a felon, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-7-16 (2001); and Count V, intentionally distributing or possessing with intent to distribute methamphetamine, contrary to NMSA 1978, Section 30-31-22(A) (2005) (amended 2006).
{3} Counts IV and V were severed for a separate trial and present no issues in this appeal. At his jury trial on the remaining counts, Defendant was acquitted on Counts II and III and convicted only on Count I, first-degree murder. Because he was sentenced to the mandatory term of life imprisonment, we review Defendant's conviction on direct appeal. See N.M. Const. art. VI, § 2 ().
{4} Defendant has challenged his conviction on the ground, among others, that it is not supported by substantial evidence. As we observe in State v. Flores, No. 29,650, slip op. ¶ 2 (N.M. Sup. Ct. Jan. 5, 2010), filed this same date:
Our substantial evidence review of the sufficiency of the evidence to support a conviction must take into account both the jury's fundamental role as factfinder in our system of justice and the independent responsibility of the courts to ensure that the jury's decisions are supportable by evidence in the record, rather than mere guess or conjecture.
To avoid usurping the jury's important responsibilities, "we resolve all disputed facts in favor of the State, indulge all reasonable inferences in support of the verdict, and disregard all evidence and inferences to the contrary." State v. Rojo, 1999-NMSC-001, ¶ 19, 126 N.M. 438, 971 P.2d 829 (filed 1998) ( a kidnapping conviction and affirming other convictions on a substantial evidence review). While we cannot substitute our own judgment for that of the jury in weighing the evidence, our own responsibility as a court requires "scrutiny of the evidence and supervision of the jury's fact-finding function to ensure that, indeed, a rational jury could have found beyond a reasonable doubt the essential facts required for a conviction." State v. Baca, 1997-NMSC-059, ¶¶ 7, 13, 56, 124 N.M. 333, 950 P.2d 776 (quoting State v. Garcia, 114 N.M. 269, 274, 837 P.2d 862, 867 (1992)) (internal quotation marks omitted) (affirming conviction of aiding and abetting where there was evidence that the defendant knew his passenger was carrying a gun, pursued the decedent's car in a threatening manner, aligned his car next to decedent's to put his passenger into a position to fire into decedent's car, and laughed after the passenger fired the fatal shot). This responsibility to ensure that the State has introduced sufficient evidence to justify a finding of guilt is founded on "the constitutional requirement of due process." Id. ¶ 13.
{5} The State has candidly acknowledged that, because the jury found Defendant not guilty of personally shooting Escobar, the substantial evidence analysis necessarily must address whether the evidence was sufficient to support a finding of guilt under a theory that Defendant aided and abetted one or more other persons in the murder for which he was convicted. We therefore turn to an examination of the trial evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, resolving all conflicts and indulging all permissible inferences in favor of upholding the conviction, while exercising our own responsibility to ascertain whether there was sufficient evidence for any reasoning factfinder to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that there was evidence establishing Defendant's guilt.
{6} The fatal encounter was precipitated by a dispute over a debt Escobar owed Defendant's cousin, Anthony Jacquez. Around noon on the date of the killing, Escobar and two friends were traveling in his truck to a cousin's house looking for money to pay off his debt to Jacquez when they passed Jacquez and Defendant. Jacquez turned his vehicle around and followed Escobar's truck to its destination. After the occupants got out of their vehicles and began walking toward Escobar's cousin's house, Jacquez "blindsided" Escobar, grabbed his arm, and hit him in the head with a pair of brass knuckles, knocking him to the ground. After Defendant and Jacquez kicked Escobar as he lay on the ground, they drove away from the scene. Escobar, who was dizzy and disoriented after the assault, had to be helped by his friends back into his truck.
{7} Escobar's mother, Terry Duran, came home later that afternoon and became angry when she saw that her son had been severely beaten. Without telling Escobar, she decided to drive over to Yvonne Martinez's trailer home to find out where Jacquez was living. Duran had known Jacquez and Defendant for over a decade and knew that Yvonne Martinez was the mother of Defendant's girlfriend, Heather Martinez. Defendant was known to have lived from time to time with Heather and Yvonne Martinez.
{8} Terry Duran arrived at the Martinez mobile home at the same time as Yvonne Martinez arrived. In response to Duran's question about where Jacquez lived, Martinez pointed to Shawn Casaus's mobile home, which was located one hundred yards away, across a county road. Jacquez was house sitting for Casaus at the time because Casaus was out of town. Jacquez, his brother Jared, Casaus, and Defendant were lifelong friends who were known to "hang out together."
{9} Escobar realized his mother was gone shortly after she left, and he and two friends jumped into his truck to follow her over to the Martinez trailer. Within moments of the time Duran and Martinez arrived at the trailer, a number of vehicles converged in front. Escobar pulled up behind his mother's car, then Escobar's girlfriend, Darcy Clevenger, who followed Escobar upon seeing him drive up the road, pulled in behind Escobar. Shortly afterward, Defendant and Heather Martinez were coincidentally dropped off at her home after the two of them had visited a friend's house. The car Defendant was riding in pulled into the driveway sideways behind Clevenger's car, blocking her in.
{10} Angered at Escobar's unexpected presence at his residence, Defendant got out of the vehicle in a rage, yelling obscenities and throwing rocks at Clevenger's car and Escobar's truck. As he went toward Escobar's truck, Defendant screamed, "Why are you fucking disrespecting my house like this?" When Defendant reached the driver's side of Escobar's truck, he punched Escobar twice through the open window. Escobar then pulled a .45 caliber pistol from his waistband and shot Defendant several times, with the first shot going into Defendant's chest. Defendant immediately fell to the ground and remained there until he was later taken to get emergency medical care. Defendant survived gunshot wounds to his hand and abdomen, which were characterized as "extremely serious" and "very life-threatening" by his trauma surgeon. While no gun attributable to Defendant was recovered, there was conflicting testimony as to whether Defendant fired a shot before he fell or had a gun with him at all.
{11} Immediately after Escobar shot Defendant, he threw his truck into reverse and sped backwards down the driveway toward the road, showering gravel as he went. As the truck was reversing, one of Escobar's passengers, Jacob Young, started shooting a gun over the truck and yelling at Escobar to "shoot him . . . he ain't dead." Anthony Jacquez, Jared Jacquez, and Larry Abeyta, who had not arrived with Defendant, had not been with Defendant and Heather Martinez on their preceding visit to their friend's house, and had not been previously observed during the confrontation between Defendant and Escobar at the Martinez trailer, then appeared in the area and fired a barrage of gunshots into Escobar's truck as it reached the county road between the Martinez property and the Casaus property. The vehicle came to a stop across the road in the bar ditch. Escobar was hit several times, dying instantly. Jacob Young survived gunshots to his chest and back.
{12} The State and defense stipulated to the jury (1) that Larry Abeyta had admitted firing multiple shots into Escobar's vehicle after Defendant had been shot and (2) that Abeyta had been convicted of the felony of shooting at a motor vehicle resulting in great bodily injury.
{13} To support Defendant's charge of first-degree felony murder, the State relied on alternative theories: either Defendant personally committed the predicate felony of shooting at a motor vehicle resulting in great bodily harm, thereby causing the death of Escobar, or Defendant was an accessory to another person's shooting...
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