NM high court cites technicality to free murderer of 71-year-old disabled man
The New Mexico Supreme Court has overturned the conviction of Seig Isaac Chavez, a Las Vegas man who had been sentenced for the brutal 2019 murder of 71-year-old William Smith, a disabled elderly man. Chavez was originally found guilty of first-degree murder and tampering with evidence by a jury in 2022. Smith’s body was discovered in August 2019, bearing 24 stab wounds. Chavez’s conviction was overturned due to the improper admission of key evidence during his trial.
According to court records, a witness saw Smith getting into Chavez’s truck on the night of the murder, and investigators later found Smith’s blood inside Chavez’s vehicle as well as on his jacket. This evidence was used to build the prosecution’s case against Chavez, tying him directly to the crime.
During the trial, prosecutors introduced a jailhouse phone call between Chavez and his teenage son. This call, however, became the center of the New Mexico Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the conviction. The court found that the audio recording of the conversation should not have been admitted as evidence. In its opinion, the court noted that the call “significantly affected the verdicts.”
In the phone call, Chavez instructed his son that he was now the “man of the house” and had the responsibility to protect the family. He gave disturbing instructions, telling his son to stab anyone who got close to him or attempted to harm him, particularly instructing him to aim for the throat. Chavez also expressed his own belief that he would soon be imprisoned, saying, “Daddy’s going to prison,” as outlined in the Supreme Court’s decision.
The key issue, as the court pointed out, was that the phone call was not directly related to the murder of Smith but instead revealed Chavez’s propensity for violence. This evidence was deemed “highly inflammatory” by the justices and prejudiced the jury against Chavez. “The district court committed plain error by allowing the jury to hear evidence that was relevant only to Defendant’s propensity for violence. This evidence was highly inflammatory and deprived Defendant of a fair trial,” Justice C. Shannon Bacon wrote in the opinion.
The court’s decision to overturn the conviction hinged on the improper admission of this inflammatory evidence. The justices ruled that this error deprived Chavez of his right to a fair trial, leading to the decision to vacate his conviction.
Despite the overturned conviction, the court ruled that Chavez could be retried for the murder. This means the state has the option to pursue the case again, but without the tainted evidence that led to the initial conviction.
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