Portales Murder Conviction Overturned

The first-degree murder conviction of a defendant in a 1993 Portales shooting has been reversed by the New Mexico Supreme Court because the defense was unable to cross-examine the author of an autopsy report.

The high court said Arnoldo Navarette’s constitutional right to confront witnesses against him was violated when Dr. Ross Zumwalt, head of the Office of the Medical Investigator, testified about the autopsy report, rather than the report’s author, Dr. Mary Dudley. The case was sent back to the 9th Judicial District for retrial.

The opinion takes its lead from recent significant U.S. Supreme Court rulings – including one with New Mexico origins – dealing with confrontation rights in the context of testimonial evidence such as reports created for use at trial.

Navarette, 42, fled from Portales after the shooting and wasn’t arrested until a June 2009 tip led officers to Odessa, Texas, where Navarette was working under another name. He was extradited to New Mexico and convicted in a 2010 jury trial before District Judge Teddy Hartley.

The conviction was overturned in the opinion filed Thursday.

Navarette was tried for the murder of Reynaldo Ornelas, 30, and the nonfatal shooting of Reynaldo’s brother, Daniel. The brothers were leaning into the driver’s side window of a parked car in which Dolores “Lolo” Ortega was the driver and Navarette was the passenger.

Against a background of conflicting evidence about who was the shooter, prosecutors called Zumwalt to testify about how close the shooter was, based on observations contained in the autopsy report about entry and exit wounds and the absence of soot or stippling – a kind of spray of small dots from a gun discharge.

“The disputed issue was who shot Reynaldo – the driver, who was closest to Reynaldo, or Navarette, who was several feet away from Reynaldo,” the opinion noted.

The prosecution emphasized Zumwalt’s testimony in its closing argument, saying the driver could not have been the shooter.

The autopsy report itself was not admitted into evidence, and prosecutors argued on appeal that Zumwalt offered an independent expert opinion based on his review of the facts and data, so it did not constitute testimonial hearsay and did not violate the accused’s right to confront a witness.

Navarette’s attorney said prosecutors should not be allowed to “circumvent the confrontation clause by allowing a substitute medical examiner to rely exclusively on facts from the autopsy report which are not in evidence.”

Justice Edward Chávez, writing for a unanimous court, said the Navarette case underscores the importance of a “bright-line” rule requiring cross-examination of someone who prepared a statement but is not in court.

At the time of trial, Dudley was the chief medical investigator in Kansas City, Mo.
— This article appeared on page C1 of the Albuquerque Journal