SANTA FE – The state Supreme Court today upheld a Lincoln County man’s conviction of intentional child abuse resulting in the death of his 2-year-old son.
In a unanimous opinion, the Court concluded there was sufficient evidence to support Ricardo Soto’s conviction and that the trial court acted within its discretion in admitting statistical testimony by the state’s medical experts.
The justices also held that any error was harmless by the trial court in a pretrial ruling that would have allowed prosecutors under certain circumstances to introduce evidence that Soto had a prior conviction of perjury.
Soto was sentenced to life in prison for the death of Jeremiah Nevarez in 2018. The boy was staying with Soto during a visitation away from the custody of his mother. After suffering a seizure, the boy was taken to a hospital in Ruidoso and then flown to an El Paso hospital, where he later died.
At Soto’s trial, the state’s medical experts testified that the boy’s skull had been fractured in two places and that it caused fatal brain swelling. The expert witnesses said the injuries were the result of blunt force trauma. According to medical testimony for the defense, the boy’s brain swelling could have resulted from an earlier fracture caused by a fall off a slide at a daycare center.
In an opinion by Justice Briana H. Zamora, the Court provided legal guidance to lower courts about testimony from medical experts in cases when people are charged with intentional child abuse.
“Experts must be permitted to testify to the level of certainty warranted by the evidence,” the Court wrote. “We therefore caution trial courts to avoid unduly restricting the testimony of medical experts, especially by precluding testimony explaining the process by which they used differential diagnosis to rule in or rule out diagnoses. It will be for the opposing party to attack the weight and sufficiency of the evidence through cross-examination and the introduction of competing expert evidence, if available.”
In determining there was enough evidence to support Soto’s convictions, the Court noted that medical experts for the state “testified that Jeremiah’s injuries were inflicted within hours of when he was seen by doctors and the State presented uncontested evidence that Defendant was the only adult present with Jeremiah in the hours before he fell ill.”
Prosecutors also introduced evidence that Soto failed to call 911 immediately after the boy had the seizure and instead called a neighbor. Other evidence was presented that Soto fled to Mexico after learning that doctors suspected the boy’s injuries were not accidental.
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To read the decision in State v. Soto, No. S-1-SC-39785, please visit the New Mexico Compilation Commission’s website using the following link:
https://nmonesource.com/nmos/
