Opinion ID: 891652
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Testimony Regarding Fight at the Hub

Text: {42} Defendant argues that the admission of testimony about a fight, to which Defendant was a party, at the Hub, a liquor store, hours prior to the murders was not relevant and more prejudicial than probative. The State argues that it was relevant and probative to whether Defendant and his associates acted in concert the night of the murders. {43} Witness Jeff Hoff (Hoff) testified about an incident at the Hub many hours prior to the murders. According to Hoff, Defendant, Coley Ingram (Coley), Jamall Young (Young), Wayne Ingram (Wayne), and Hoff drove to the Hub and Defendant, Coley, and Young entered into an altercation with a group of individuals in the parking lot, at the end of which Defendant punched a woman. Defendant objected that the testimony was not relevant, and the district court overruled the objection. Defendant did not object under any other rule of evidence, and thus our review is limited to whether the testimony was relevant under Rule 11-401. See State v. Lopez, 84 N.M. 805, 809, 508 P.2d 1292, 1296 (1973) (stating that an issue is preserved for appeal only when a timely objection that alerts the trial court of the nature of the claimed error is made and invokes an intelligent ruling thereon). Because we find that the Hub fight testimony has at least a small tendency to make the existence of the fact that Defendant and his cohorts acted in concert on the night of the murders, we hold that the district court did not err in admitting this testimony. [3]