Justices uphold Alamogordo man's murder conviction

The New Mexico Supreme Court unanimously upheld the 2024 conviction of an Alamogordo man who was charged with murdering his mother and tampering with evidence.

An Otero County jury found Nicholas Hubbard, 29, guilty of first-degree willful and deliberate murder for his fatal beating of Esther Hubbard, 57, on Jan. 18, 2022. 

When Alamogordo police arrived at the scene at about 1 a.m., Hubbard was found naked in the bathroom with the shower running and his mother’s blood on his body. Her cause of death was ruled as blunt force trauma and strangulation. 

Nicholas Hubbard’s grandmother witnessed him beating his mother and reported that Hubbard told her, “I hate my mom because she spanked me when I was little,” according to an arrest affidavit.

Hubbard was sentenced to life in prison.

He appealed his case based on arguments that the evidence did not support conviction on the charges. Additionally, Hubbard held that the jury should have been provided with instructions on voluntary or involuntary manslaughter, that some evidence had been improperly admitted and that the trial court should have sanctioned the prosecution because police did not record some witness interviews with body-worn cameras.

In an opinion written by Justice Briana Zamora, released on Thursday, the state’s high court found that evidence presented at trial was sufficient to prove a deliberate intent to kill the victim, as the beating was carried out at length, in different rooms of the home, with stops and starts. Hubbard took his grandmother’s mobile phone away when she called 911 and told dispatch there was not an emergency, according to testimony in court, and he later provided his employer an excuse for missing work that day. The evidence reasonably demonstrated to the jury, the opinion states, that Hubbard “carefully weighed and considered the killing and his reasons for and against it.”

Although Hubbard had a blood-alcohol level of 0.18 when he was arrested, the justices said intoxication did not negate his capacity to act on deliberate intent. There was also no basis, from the facts of the case, supporting a reduction of the offense to manslaughter, the court held.

Hubbard had argued that testimony about his mixed martial arts training might have been prejudicial for the jury and should not have been admitted. He also challenged photographs of a bent broomstick and a knife with brass-knuckle handle, which police had photographed near the victim’s body, because they were not “definitively tied” to her death. The court’s opinion found that the evidence had probative value and was proper.

The ruling also knocked down Hubbard’s argument that, because he still had his victim’s blood on his body, he had not completed an act of tampering with evidence.

Finally, the justices ruled that “the district court did not err in concluding that the unrecorded statements were immaterial to (Hubbard’s) defense.”

State District Judge Stephen Ochoa presided over Hubbard’s murder trial in Otero County.

Algernon D’Ammassa is the Journal’s southern New Mexico correspondent. He can be reached at adammassa@abqjournal.com.