Court overturns guilty vehicular homicide verdict
SANTA FE — Convictions in a high-profile vehicular homicide case involving the death of a baby born immediately after the accident have been reversed by the New Mexico Court of Appeals, which remanded the case to District Court for a new trial.
The first trial had resulted in a nineyear prison sentence for Ramon A. Hernandez, accused of driving drunk and causing the accident on Interstate 25 near Rowe, east of Santa Fe.
The Court of Appeals said District Judge Gerald E. Baca should have declared a mistrial in the case of Hernandez, who was convicted in 2013 in the death of the
baby born after the mother was injured in the crash.
Hernandez was convicted of vehicular homicide, causing great bodily harm and reckless driving for the June 2012 crash. Police said the baby lived only about a minute following delivery after the woman from the other car was taken to Christus St. Vincent Regional Hospital. She was seven months pregnant, and doctors decided to deliver the baby immediately by Caesarean section.
During the trial, and contrary to a pretrial ruling by the judge, a New Mexico State Police officer testified that Hernandez had confessed to being behind the wheel when the wreck took place. Baca earlier had declared the purported confession inadmissible hearsay evidence.
“We hold that the improper testimony regarding the purported confession was extremely prejudicial and warranted a mistrial,” Court of Appeals Judge Timothy L. Garcia wrote in an opinion from last month.
Even though Judge Baca issued a “curative instruction” to the jury about the officer’s testimony, the Court of Appeals determined the instruction was vague and referenced an objection that never occurred. The Court of Appeals said that the officer’s testimony “not only undermined Defendant’s overall credibility but provided erroneous corroboration for the State’s circumstantial evidence regarding who it claimed was driving at the time of the accident.”
“It’s pretty devastating to us, to be honest,” Aileen Smith of Colorado Springs, whose baby, Dimitri, was killed in the accident, said in a phone interview this week.
“Going through the trial process once was gutwrenching. To have to go through it again four years after the crash is tremendously upsetting.”
It’s unclear whether the case will actually be retried. Las Vegas District Attorney Richard Flores, whose office prosecuted the case, is out of the office this week and unavailable to take questions, a staff member told the Journal on Thursday.
Hernandez’s attorney said he expects to file a motion asking the court to dismiss the case on grounds of double jeopardy.
High-profile case
Gov. Susana Martinez had used the case of the Smith baby to highlight the need to toughen the state’s DWI laws. Hernandez had at least three prior convictions for driving while intoxicated.
Two versions of “Dimitri’s Law” that aimed to stiffen DWI laws, especially for repeat offenders, died during the legislative session in 2013. The Smiths helped lobby for stiffer DWI punishments.
Although Smith said she understands that people make mistakes, she said it was also disappointing Hernandez was never submitted to a field sobriety test.
That’s because State Police didn’t initially think he was the driver, based on statements made at the scene by Hernandez and a witness to the accident. Consequently, Hernandez, who was 43 at the time of the crash, was not asked to submit to standard field sobriety tests. The jury acquitted him of a DWI charge.
“It’s very disappointing that it came down the way it did, with the police officer’s testimony,” Smith said. “I understand that everyone there was so focused on me, getting me out of the vehicle, into an ambulance and to the hospital. But the police officers should have picked up the protocol.”
The loss of a child is bad enough, but Smith said she and her husband have suffered in other ways.
“Our personal lives haven’t reset back to where they were,” she said. “It’s been expensive for us. Zach and I were almost homeless.”
And although the couple have had two children since losing their first, “both of them have had trouble,” Aileen said. Doctors told them that due to the injuries she suffered in the accident, she might have trouble giving birth. One child was delivered by C-section six weeks early. The other was an asymmetrical intrauterine growth restriction baby that went full term but weighed just 3 pounds, 12 ounces at birth.
Hernandez’s attorney, Ben Andrew Mondragon, said he has mixed emotions about the prospect of having to retry the case.
“We’re excited about the Court of Appeals’ decision to overturn it,” he said in a phone interview Thursday. “However, our happiness is tempered by the death of the child.”
Mondragon added that perhaps the hardest things he had to do in his career was to cross-examine Aileen Smith, “but I’m there to represent my client.”
Hernandez, who has been in jail since 2012, is currently being held at the Roswell Correctional Center.
He’s an immigrant from Honduras who has been in the United States since at least 2000, when he was charged with his first DWI. He received a New Mexico driver’s license in 2002, and Motor Vehicle Division and court records show he had been issued a Social Security number. But after his arrest, he was placed on a federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer hold and remains on an immigration hold today.