NMSC News:

SANTA FE — The New Mexico Supreme Court (NMSC) has reversed the convictions of a Doña Ana County woman for her role in an alleged murder-for-hire plot.

Cristal Cardenas was sentenced to life in prison for the 2018 murder of her ex-boyfriend, Mario Cabral, and 24 additional years for conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and criminal solicitation to commit first-degree murder.

The jury acquitted Cardenas of one count of first-degree murder for the death of Cabral’s girlfriend, Vanessa Mora. The victims were found shot to death in their Doña Ana County home in 2018. 

Cabral and Cardenas had a six-month-old daughter with her boyfriend Luis Flores, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy resulting in a death. In a split decision, the Court concluded that Cardenas failed to receive a fair trial because the prosecution was allowed to question the defendant about her six-month-old daughter testing positive for methamphetamine.

In her appeal, Cardenas argued that the prosecution’s questioning about the daughter’s drug test was inadmissible and unduly prejudicial. The Court’s majority agreed that the trial court erred by allowing the questioning. 

“In this case, the State was the source of the error; the evidence of Defendant’s guilt, although substantial, was circumstantial; the error affected an important issue in the case — credibility; the State, although it disavows the importance of the evidence at issue, went to great lengths to preserve its impact; and, finally, the evidence was not cumulative,” the Court wrote in an opinion by Justice Michael E. Vigil.

“We conclude there is a reasonable probability that the error affected the jury’s verdict,” the Court explained, ordering the case back to the Third Judicial District Court for a new trial on the charges Cardenas was convicted of in 2022. 

The Court’s majority determined that nothing in Cardenas’ testimony had “opened the door” to the questioning under exceptions to rules generally prohibiting character evidence to prove that a defendant would act in a certain way under the circumstances of the crime. The Court rejected arguments by prosecutors that Cardenas’ testimony portrayed her as a good mother who was law-abiding and peaceful, and that the questioning about the drug test was to rebut such evidence.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Justice David K. Thomson concluded that the questioning about the drug test was “proper rebuttal evidence” and there was no error by the trial court in allowing its use by the prosecution. 

“Ultimately, the State’s actions simply do not satisfy the requirements of reversible error; the State did not emphasize the information, it was not central or necessary to the State’s case while the other evidence of guilt was overwhelming,” Chief Justice Thomson wrote.