State v. Delgado

2009 NMCA 061, 210 P.3d 828, 146 N.M. 402
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedMay 14, 2009
Docket27,192
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 2009 NMCA 061 (State v. Delgado) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering New Mexico Court of Appeals primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
State v. Delgado, 2009 NMCA 061, 210 P.3d 828, 146 N.M. 402 (N.M. Ct. App. 2009).

Opinion

OPINION

WECHSLER, Judge.

{1} Defendant Pablo Delgado appeals his convictions of possession of cocaine and tampering with evidence. With regard to the possession charge, a forensic chemist from the New Mexico Department of Public Safety Crime Lab (Crime Lab) testified concerning the analyses of another chemist from the Crime Lab based on the reports of his test results. The district court received one of the reports in evidence as a business record. We conclude that the report was properly received as a business record and that the chemist’s testimony did not violate Defendant’s right of confrontation. We further conclude that there was sufficient evidence to convict Defendant of both charges. We therefore affirm.

BACKGROUND

{2} In their bike patrol on June 18, 2004, at approximately 10:00 p.m., Officers Irma Palos and Wavie Brown of the Las Cruces Police Department observed Defendant in the vicinity of mobile homes. He was bent down behind a wooden fence. Officer Palos called out to Defendant. Defendant stood up, looked at the officers, and walked quickly away from them toward a nearby storage shed. Officer Palos called out to Defendant to stop. She lost sight of Defendant for “a quick moment” as Defendant walked toward the shed. Defendant then turned around and started walking back to the officers.

{3} When Officer Palos asked Defendant what he was doing, Defendant responded that he was “drinking a beer and talking to his wife on the phone.” Officer Palos testified, however, that the beer can that Defendant was holding was not open, and there was no one on Defendant’s cell phone. Officer Palos asked Defendant what he had thrown because, based on his body movements, she believed that he had disposed of something. Defendant repeated that he was drinking a beer and talking with his wife on the phone. Officer Cindy McCants, who had arrived at the scene, found a baggie with a white powdery substance in front of the shed. Officer McCants gave the baggie to Officer Brown, who showed it to Officer Palos. At that point, without provocation, Defendant put his hands behind his back and turned around. He asked if he could make a phone call. The officers then detained him. A field test of the substance indicated that it was cocaine.

CHEMIST’S REPORT

{4} At trial, Danielle Elenbaas, a forensic chemist at the Crime Lab, testified that the Crime Lab is accredited by an accrediting body that inspects the lab every five years to ensure that it uses current procedures, validated methods, and good science. She stated that Eric Young, another forensic chemist at the Crime Lab, tested the substance and prepared a report of his analysis. Ms. Elenbaas testified as the records custodian of Mr. Young’s report. She identified the report and described the routine process by which it was created. She stated that only she and Mr. Young were authorized to generate such reports on controlled substances. She further stated that the reports record the results of the tests the chemists performed and that, after the chemists approve the reports, they provide them to the submitting agency.

{5} The State moved for the admission of Mr. Young’s report as a business record. The district court received the report in evidence over Defendant’s objection. Ms. Elenbaas testified that the report showed that Mr. Young identified the substance as 1.53 grams of cocaine.

{6} On appeal, Defendant argues that the district court erred in receiving the Crime Lab report in evidence. “We review the admission of evidence under an exception to the hearsay rule with deference to the trial court’s discretion; we review to determine whether there has been an abuse of discretion.” State v. McClaugherty, 2003-NMSC-006, ¶ 17, 133 N.M. 459, 64 P.3d 486, aff'd, 2008-NMSC-044, 144 N.M. 483, 188 P.3d 1234. We will not conclude that the district court “abused its discretion by its ruling unless we can characterize it as clearly untenable or not justified by reason.” State v. Mora, 2003-NMCA-072, ¶ 8, 133 N.M. 746, 69 P.3d 256 (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

{7} The district court admitted Mr. Young’s laboratory report into evidence under the business records exception to the hearsay rule. See Rule 11-803(F) NMRA. Under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, the following documents are admissible:

A memorandum, report, record or data compilation, in any form, of acts, events, conditions, opinions or diagnoses, made at or near the time by, or from information transmitted by, a person with knowledge, if kept in the course of a regularly conducted business activity, and if it was the regular practice of that business activity to make the memorandum, report, record or data compilation, all as shown by the testimony of the custodian or other qualified witness[.]

Id. The rule further provides that the exception is not to be applied if the “source of information or the method or circumstances of preparation indicate lack of trustworthiness.” Id. Although the district court expressly received Mr. Young’s laboratory report in evidence under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, Defendant primarily focuses his argument on appeal on the public records exception to the hearsay rule, claiming that the two exceptions are analogous. The public records exception to the hearsay rule permits the admission of “[r]ecords, reports, statements or data compilations, in any form, of public offices or agencies” that set forth “the activities of the office or agency” or “matters observed pursuant to duty imposed by law as to which matters there was a duty to report, excluding, however, in criminal cases matters observed by police officers and other law enforcement personnel.” Rule ll-803(H)(l)-(2).

{8} In State v. Christian, 119 N.M. 776, 778, 895 P.2d 676, 678 (Ct.App.1995), limited on other grounds by State v. Ruiz, 120 N.M. 534, 537, 903 P.2d 845, 848 (Ct.App.1995), this Court considered the admissibility of a blood alcohol report created by an employee of the Scientific Laboratory Division of the New Mexico Department of Health (SLD) under both the business records and public records exceptions to the hearsay rule. First, we concluded that the report was properly admitted into evidence under the business records exception. Id. at 780-81, 895 P.2d at 680-81. We reasoned that, even though the report in question was made in the furtherance of the prosecution of the defendant, the testimony given at the trial indicated that the report was nonetheless made no “differently from any of the thousands of other reports similarly situated.” Id. at 780, 895 P.2d at 680. Second, we rejected the defendant’s argument that the admission of the report was improper under the public records exception. Id. at 782, 895 P.2d at 682. We explained that the defendant’s argument that the preparer of the report was “law enforcement personnel” for the purposes of Rule 11-803(H)(2) failed because the laboratory in which the report was created was “not an arm of law enforcement.” Christian, 119 N.M. at 781, 895 P.2d at 681. We further noted that “even documents prepared by the state police crime laboratory can satisfy the public records exception where an adequate foundation for reliability is laid.” Id.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
2009 NMCA 061, 210 P.3d 828, 146 N.M. 402, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-delgado-nmctapp-2009.