State v. Ruiz

617 P.2d 160, 94 N.M. 771
CourtNew Mexico Court of Appeals
DecidedAugust 26, 1980
Docket4431
StatusPublished
Cited by29 cases

This text of 617 P.2d 160 (State v. Ruiz) 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. Ruiz, 617 P.2d 160, 94 N.M. 771 (N.M. Ct. App. 1980).

Opinion

OPINION

WOOD, Chief Judge.

Convicted of burglary, defendant appeals. We discuss three issues: (1) failure to admit hospital records; (2) instruction on defendant’s competency to make a statement; and (3) whether criminal trespass was a lesser offense included within burglary. Other issues listed in the docketing statement were not briefed and, thus, were abandoned. State v. Brown, 93 N.M. 236, 599 P.2d 389 (Ct.App.1979).

The first two issues involve defendant’s use of PCP (phencyclidine, known as “angel dust”).

The victim discovered the burglary of his residence about 9:00 p. m. Various items of property were missing from the residence. At 9:47 p. m. police officers arrived at the residence. The victim found some of his missing property in his neighbor’s yard. More property was found in nearby yards. Defendant was also found in a nearby yard, in an apparently unconscious state, lying on his back with the victim’s property on his chest and nearby.

The officer who discovered defendant tried to talk to, and revive defendant, who responded only with moaning. The rescue squad was called; defendant was taken to a hospital by ambulance. Defendant arrived at the hospital at 10:55 p. m.

Dr. Tandberg, the emergency room physician, had his attention directed to defendant within a minute of defendant’s arrival in the emergency room. Defendant was acting in a bizarre manner; he was thrashing about, screaming and trying to bite people. Nothing anyone said to defendant seemed to register; it took ten people to subdue defendant. Dr. Tandberg administered a sedative, which rapidly brought defendant out of his confusion and, although not completely oriented, defendant was able to communicate in some degree.

Dr. Tandberg testified that defendant’s symptoms in the emergency room were a classic case of a PCP reaction; his diagnosis was a PCP overdose. That defendant was suffering from such an overdose when admitted to the emergency room of the hospital is not disputed. There is evidence that PCP has undesirable side effects which include psychotic-like behavior while under its influence and an impairment of memory for events occurring while under its influence. The first issue is concerned with defendant’s statement at the emergency room concerning his use of PCP. The second issue is concerned with the consequences of the use of PCP on defendant’s competency to make a statement to the police about three weeks later.

Failure to Admit Hospital Records

Defendant sought to have the hospital records of his emergency room admission and treatment admitted as exhibits. The trial court refused to admit them.

Burglary, as defined in § 30-16-3, N.M.S.A. 1978, requires that entry be with the specific intent to commit a felony or theft. State v. Elliott, 88 N.M. 187, 539 P.2d 207 (Ct.App.1975), rev’d on other grounds, 89 N.M. 756, 557 P.2d 1105 (1977). Intoxication may be shown to negate this specific intent. State v. Gonzales, 82 N.M. 388, 482 P.2d 252 (Ct.App.1971).

Defendant did not contend that he did not take property from the residence of the victim. His defense was that because of being under the influence of PCP, he had no intent to commit a theft upon entry. His “no intent” defense depended on the manner and time of ingesting the PCP, and the amount ingested.

There is testimony that if PCP is smoked, inhaled or taken intranasally, the PCP takes effect in about 15 minutes. The symptoms depend on the amount of the dosage. With high doses, PCP acts as a coma-producing drug. At moderate to high doses, PCP causes psychotic-like activities. PCP affects the brain chemically, so that the user’s perception is out of tune with reality. PCP affects the user’s ability to speak, think, perceive and form concepts.

Defendant’s statement to Dr. Ferraro was in evidence. The statement was that the PCP was ingested between 6:00 and 7:00 p. m. on the evening the victim’s house was entered. The evidence shows that this statement was made by defendant in preparation for trial and, thus, according to the prosecutor’s statement to the jury during closing argument, made the statement suspect.

Other evidence of the time of ingestion of the PCP was in the emergency room records excluded from evidence. The prosecutor did not refer to the excluded evidence in closing argument. However, the importance of the excluded evidence appeared in the prosecutor’s argument that “all” the other evidence before the jury contradicted the statement defendant made to Dr. Ferraro as to the time of ingestion. The prosecutor recognized that defendant could not have had an intent to steal at the time he was discovered in a neighboring yard. However, because of evidence that defendant had ingested the PCP by smoking and “snorting,” and because the effect from this method may appear within 15 minutes, a permissible inference, argued by the prosecutor, was that the PCP was taken after entry and had no bearing on defendant’s intent upon entry. Thus, the excluded evidence in the emergency room records was crucial to the “no intent” defense.

On appeal, the State suggests that the answer to the question of excluding the emergency room records is simply that the admission or exclusion of evidence is a matter of the trial court’s discretion. See State v. Maestas, 92 N.M. 135, 584 P.2d 182 (Ct.App.1978). That is the starting point; the question is whether the exclusion was an abuse of discretion. In this case, the evidence excluded was crucial to the “no intent” defense. If the records were admissible under evidence rules, it was an abuse of discretion to exclude them.

The excluded records report that defendant stated he had smoked and snorted PCP. This not only was cumulative of evidence that was admitted, the method of ingestion was not in dispute. The excluded records show that defendant related that he had smoked “different” marijuana around 7:00 p. m. and shortly thereafter became acutely confused and disoriented. The excluded records also show that the marijuana was purportedly rolled in PCP. This “time” statement, if admitted, would have supported the “no intent” defense.

The exclusion of the records involves a question of double hearsay. The first hearsay question goes to the records; the second hearsay question goes to the time statement contained in the records. As stated in McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence, § 313A (2nd Ed., 1972) at 731:

Under standard practice, a trained attendant at hospitals enters upon the record a “personal history,” including an identification of the patient and an account of the present injury or illness and the events and symptoms leading up to it. ... This, of course, is the “double hearsay” problem. The first issue is whether the hospital record is admissible to prove that the statement was made.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
617 P.2d 160, 94 N.M. 771, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/state-v-ruiz-nmctapp-1980.