Opinion ID: 198913
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The Queretaro Bypass Highway

Text: 30 The defendant objects to the prosecutor's following statements: 31 Let's briefly talk about the murder. You know that the Defendant picked up Brian McCarthy between ten and eleven in Mexico City. The Defendant uses the directions provided to him by Martin Marquez to get on the road to Queretaro. Two days earlier, of course, he's had lots and lots of time to go through in daylight and at night to check out any sites he might want to use for killing Brian McCarthy. And it's late at night, and the evidence is that the Defendant took the Queretaro bypass. 32 He had a lot of time, a lot of time to scope out a location where he would kill McCarthy on the way to San Luis Potosi. Against the advice of Martin Marquez, he chose to drive that lonely dark road in the middle of the night, when there was just no reason to. 33 Hughes insists that this is a prejudicial misstatement of fact because there is no evidence that Hughes and McCarthy took the bypass road around Queretaro, or that Hughes spent time during the previous two days checking out a site to murder McCarthy. We disagree. 34 Marquez testified that Hughes told him he planned to pick up McCarthy at the Mexico City airport and drive to San Luis Potosi. The city of Queretaro is on the way from Mexico City to San Luis Potosi, about half way between those two cities, and it would have been logical for Hughes to take the bypass highway. There was also ample evidence from which the jury could infer that Hughes spent time during his trip from Laredo to Mexico City checking out potential murder sites. Special Agent Murphy testified that Hughes told him that he crossed the border into Mexico at about 4:00 p.m. on February 1, and did not arrive in Mexico City until 2:00 p.m. on February 3, forty-six hours later. The drive from Laredo to Mexico City normally takes about twelve hours and the route runs past Queretaro. Thus, Hughes had plenty of unaccounted-for time in the area of the murder. Finally, because Marquez testified that he told Hughes that the roads between Queretaro and San Luis Potosi were under construction and dangerous, and he advised Hughes against driving at night, the prosecutor's statement to that effect was accurate.