Opinion ID: 891666
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Relevant Evidence

Text: {4} The State's evidence showed that Defendant and Green had previously been living together as lovers in Las Vegas, Nevada. Approximately two weeks before the stabbing, Green left Defendant and moved to Carlsbad to live with his parents. Green enrolled for an alcohol server certification class at the Carlsbad Quality Inn, where the crime ultimately took place. {5} Shortly after Green left Las Vegas, Defendant made fifteen or more phone calls to Green's ex-wife. Defendant reported to Green's ex-wife not only that Green had left him, but also that Green intended to hide and hurt their young son in many ways that should never happen to a child. Defendant also faxed to her what he claimed were pages from Green's notebook depicting the abuse that Green purportedly was planning to inflict on his son. The ex-wife called the Eddy County Sheriff's office and reported the calls, along with the phone number for Defendant which had been recorded by her telephone's caller identification. A deputy sheriff called Defendant on September 13, 2004, eleven days before the September 24 killing of Green, and asked about his calls to Green's ex-wife. Defendant repeated his claims about Green's plans to hurt his own son, telling the officer that Green planned to sodomize the boy, tie him up, kill him, and drop him by a river. Defendant also claimed to the officer that he was married to Green, but that Green had been abusive to him. He finally told the officer that he was planning to move to Houston, Texas. {6} The State's evidence also traced Defendant's movements in the days between the breakup and the stabbing of Green, which took place during the lunch break of the alcohol server class Green was attending on September 24. {7} Defendant's former employer, a sheet metal contractor in Las Vegas, testified that Defendant had approached him to get an advance on his salary, claiming that he had a son who had died in Arizona and that he needed $1200 to travel to New Mexico to bury him. In addition to advancing Defendant the $1200, the employer let Defendant use his credit card to rent a car in Las Vegas for the trip to New Mexico. {8} Green's mother testified that while she was driving Green to work several days before the stabbing, Defendant pulled alongside their car at a stop light in Carlsbad. She testified that Green looked over at Defendant and spontaneously stated, There's Joseph, while appearing to be very agitated and scared. She immediately looked over at the man her son was referring to and later identified Defendant in court as the man she had seen driving the adjacent car. When the light changed to green, Defendant turned his car and drove away without making contact. {9} A hotel receptionist identified Defendant and testified that she had seen him loitering around the Carlsbad Quality Inn on two separate days. On the first occasion, several days before Green was stabbed at the hotel, Defendant approached her desk to inquire about room rates, claimed that his vehicle had broken down in the hotel parking lot, and said that he was waiting for someone to come from Arizona to retrieve him and his vehicle. He stayed around the hotel for most of that day. At some point, he inquired about the alcohol server class at the hotel, and the receptionist advised him that it was not being held that week. The next time she saw Defendant was on September 24, the day when the servers' class attended by Green was actually held. She noticed Defendant in the lobby four different times that morning. At one point before noon, he came over to her desk and asked what time the servers' class would recess, claiming he had a friend in the class he was planning to take to lunch. {10} The evidence of Defendant's presence at the Quality Inn during the hours before the stabbing was substantial. As Defendant candidly acknowledged in his own brief-in-chief, [t]here were many witnesses that saw a person they later identified as Joseph Flores hanging around the Quality Inn on September 24, 2004. A second hotel employee testified that, in response to her inquiry to Defendant as to his presence at 8:30 a.m., he explained that he was waiting for someone who would be attending the class. After later seeing him in the dining room and the hallway, she asked him to wait outside. Numerous other witnesses saw him at various locations in and around the hotel on that morning. {11} The class broke for lunch just before noon. During the break, Defendant was seen arguing with Green in front of an alcove on the side of the hotel. The argument was loud enough to be heard by several witnesses from around the corner of the hotel. When cries of pain rang out from the alcove, Green's classmates and hotel employees rushed toward the sounds and found Green lying in a fetal position covered in his own blood. He died nearly two months later from complications caused by the twenty-one stab wounds to his face, skull, chest, and left shoulder. {12} Although no one reported seeing the actual stabbing, several witnesses testified to having seen Defendant calmly, even non-chalant[ly] walk away from the alcove directly after the cries were heard. Witnesses described Defendant's shirt, jeans, and hands as covered in blood. One witness testified that she saw Defendant holding a neon-green Phillips screwdriver with blood on it, while other witnesses saw Defendant remove a bloodied shirt from his torso as he left the scene. While neither the murder weapon nor the bloody clothing removed by Defendant was ever recovered, a medical expert testified that the majority of Defendant's eighteen head wounds were perfectly cross-shaped and between a quarter of an inch to a half inch in diameter, which the State argued were consistent with the cruciform point of a Phillips screwdriver. {13} The State also presented evidence of Defendant's behavior after the stabbing. The Eddy County deputy sheriff who had called Defendant about his calls to Green's ex-wife eleven days earlier called him again at the same number within an hour after the stabbing. Defendant hung up on the officer twice as soon as the officer identified himself and asked Defendant where he was. On the third call, after the officer again started by asking Defendant where he was, Defendant did not answer the question but responded instead with questions of the officer, most significantly asking about [w]hat happened to Vernon before the officer mentioned anything at all about Green. When asked again about his whereabouts, Defendant claimed he was somewhere in California before the phone connection abruptly ended again. {14} Defendant was next seen at work in Las Vegas, noticeably nervous, smoking a lot of cigarettes and drinking a lot of water, on Monday, September 27, three days after Green was stabbed in Carlsbad. Defendant asked a coworker and his employer to sign affidavits representing that they had seen him at work in Las Vegas on September 24, the date of the stabbing. Both men testified at trial that the affidavits presented to them were false, because they had not really seen Defendant on that day. {15} Defendant did not testify or present any other evidence.