SANTA FE – The state Supreme Court today reinstated the convictions of a Grants man for raping an intoxicated woman and tampering with evidence about the crime.
The state’s highest court unanimously reversed the Court of Appeals, which had ordered a new trial in the case, and affirmed Joseph Apodaca’s convictions on two counts of criminal sexual penetration and one count of evidence tampering. He was sentenced to 36 years in prison.
The justices rejected arguments by Apodaca that the jury should have been instructed to consider a “mistake-of-fact defense” — that he mistakenly and reasonably believed the victim consented to the sexual activity.
Apodaca and the victim were middle school acquaintances who reconnected years later through social media. They agreed to meet at an Albuquerque bar in 2014. After multiple drinks, they went outside to a pickup truck and had sex. Apodaca penetrated the victim with his hand, which caused vaginal and rectal tears that required surgery.
The defendant, with the help of his cousin, left the victim in her car in a parking lot in Belen, where her family lived. Her father was called and he found her alone, unconscious, wearing only a top, and with blood covering her legs and running down onto the car’s floor mats.
The trial court instructed the jury to determine if Apodaca unlawfully penetrated the victim using force or coercion under two legal theories: whether he knew or had reason to believe that the victim was incapable of giving consent because of her intoxication – an “Incapacity Theory” – or he penetrated the victim when she did not consent – an “Express Non-Consent Theory.”
The Supreme Court concluded that Apodaca was not entitled to a separate mistake-of-fact instruction.
In an opinion written by Chief Justice David K. Thomson, the Court explained that a “mistake-of-fact instruction concerning a defendant’s knowledge of a victim’s level of intoxication is not required where the instructions given require ‘finding that the defendant knew, or reasonably should have known, that the victim was unable to resist due to [the victim’s] intoxication.”’
The justices also rejected arguments that Apodaca was entitled to a mistake-of-fact jury instruction on the evidence tampering charge. Apodaca contended that if he did not believe he was committing a crime in sexually penetrating the victim he could not have formed the criminal intent for evidence tampering by removing the victim’s blood from the back seat of the truck.
“The specific intent required – to hamper an investigation or mislead law enforcement – is not negated by a subjective belief that, ultimately, no crime was committed,” the Court wrote.
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