NMSC News:
SANTA FE — The state Supreme Court Thursday upheld the convictions of an Albuquerque man for killing his 86-year-old aunt and stealing $98,000 from her.
The Court unanimously rejected arguments by Craig Talbert Smith that a trial court judge improperly denied motions for a mistrial after a juror became ill during deliberations and that he received ineffective legal assistance. A majority of the Court also concluded there was sufficient evidence for a conspiracy conviction, but Justice C. Shannon Bacon dissented from that holding.
Smith was sentenced to life in prison and an additional 45 years for first degree murder, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, evidence tampering, and conspiracy to commit murder. The victim, Josephine Ortega, was suffocated with plastic bags. She was found in her home in 2017 with her hands bound behind her back with zip ties.
Smith’s trial occurred in 2022 while state courts operated with protocols to protect public health during the COVID-19 pandemic. A day after the jury deliberations started, a juror reported having a fever and could not pass health screening questions to enter the courthouse. The trial court judge rejected a motion for a mistrial and suspended jury deliberations for a week after considering possible alternatives with attorneys for the state and the defense.
On the day deliberations were to resume, two jurors reported that they had been exposed to family members who tested positive for COVID-19. They could not pass health screening questions for courthouse access.
The trial court rejected another motion for a mistrial and jury deliberations resumed after the court obtained a COVID-19 protocol exemption from the Supreme Court to allow the exposed jurors to deliberate. Alternative public health safeguards were implemented in the jury deliberation room. The jury reached a verdict just over an hour after resuming deliberations. In an opinion by Chief Justice David K. Thomson, the Court concluded “the circumstances warranted a continuance and the recess did not deny Defendant his right to a fair trial. The recess in deliberations thus fell within the wide ‘scope of the trial court’s inherent authority to control and manage trial proceedings and preserve the integrity of the trial process.”’
The Court rejected Smith’s argument that his legal representation was deficient because three months was not enough time to prepare his defense. His initial privately retained attorney had to withdraw from the case. An appointed public defender took over the case and successfully obtained a continuance for the trial.
“After reviewing the record, we conclude that Defendant has not shown his trial counsel’s performance was deficient. Although counsel was appointed only three months prior to trial, the case was relatively straightforward and trial counsel had the benefit of prior counsel’s preparations,” the Court wrote.
The Court’s majority determined there was sufficient evidence to support Smith’s conspiracy conviction. Smith’s girlfriend, Evonne Jaramillo, was the prosecution’s main witness. She testified that she knew Smith had a motive for killing his aunt because he owed a $50,000 drug debt. About a week before the murder, Smith and Jaramillo went shopping and he purchased zip ties, latex gloves, a flashlight and wet wipes.
On the night of the murder, Jaramillo drove separately in a rental car to meet Smith in his aunt’s neighborhood. They took drugs and went together in Smith’s truck to Ortega’s home. He used Jaramillo’s cell phone to call his aunt, who let him into her house. Jaramillo waited outside.
After Smith left the house with a bag of money they drove off together in the truck, abandoning the rental car. Jaramillo testified that Smith told her later that night he had to kill his aunt to get the money. He gave Jaramillo part of the money, repaid the drug debt and purchased more drugs.
“From the testimony and exhibits presented, the jury could reasonably infer that Defendant and Jaramillo both knew of and participated in a scheme that involved burglarizing, kidnapping, and killing Ortega in order to obtain the cash in her home, and we defer to such reasonable inferences,” the Court held.
In a dissenting opinion, Justice Bacon wrote: “The majority is right in concluding that the State presented sufficient evidence to prove Defendant and another, Jaramillo, arrived at an agreement to commit some act. However, the State did not present sufficient evidence to show murder was the objective of the agreement, or Jaramillo intended to commit murder.”
The prosecution “needed to put forward any fact about the murder probative of mutual agreement and intent to commit murder specifically,” Justice Bacon explained. “However, no such fact was presented, and thus the evidence left open a gap wherein inferences of agreement and intent to commit non-murder were equally as plausible as murder.”
