CARLSBAD, N.M. (KRQE) – New Mexico’s Supreme Court ruled that the conviction of a Carlsbad man for the death of his 8-year-old daughter stands. In a unanimous decision, the court rejected arguments by Juan Lerma that he failed to receive a fair trial.
In 2020, Carlsbad Police arrested Lerma on suspicion that he had killed his daughter after Lerma’s mother went to the police. According to a detective’s statement filed in Eddy County Magistrate Court, Lerma told his mother that he had killed his daughter.
Police later found Samantha Rubino’s body inside black trash bags in a garbage can. An autopsy showed evidence of blunt head trauma and bruises.
Lerma’s son testified at trial, saying that his father beat him and his sister several times a week. The day before her body was found by police, the boy testified that his sister was kicked by the father, and she fell to the ground, making an unusual rasping noise. The father put a comforter over her, kicked her again, and the noises stopped.
Lerma told the jury he had spanked his daughter with a strap for misbehaving, she had a seizure on the floor after he struck her a second time, and that he placed a blanket on her after rolling her on her side. He testified that he later laid the girl on the couch to sleep and found her dead the next day.
In December 2022, Lerma was sentenced to life in prison for intentional child abuse resulting in the death of a child under 12 years old, which is a first-degree felony. He was sentenced to an additional three years for a conviction of tampering with evidence, but did not challenge that in the appeal before the Supreme Court. Under New Mexico law, life imprisonment requires serving at least 30 years in prison before becoming eligible for parole.
The court concluded there was nothing erroneous about the instructions to the jury explaining the law and what must be proven for a conviction. “A reasonable juror would not have been confused or misdirected as the jury was instructed on an accurate statement of the law,” the court wrote in a nonprecedential decision by Chief Justice David K. Thomson.
Lerma claimed there were multiple instances of prosecutorial misconduct, including a statement regarding the son’s testimony in which the prosecutor told the jury the boy was trying to be the “voice for all children in Eddy County” as well as that of his sister. The defense claimed the prosecutor was improperly appealing to the jury’s emotions
“This kind of pandering to the jury to decide the case on other than the particular guilt or innocence of the defendant is unprofessional, but it is not grounds for reversal,” the court wrote. The justices explained that the statement was “isolated in the context of the trial, and the jury was instructed not to issue its verdict on the basis of sympathy or prejudice.”
Lerma also argued that the trial court unduly restricted his attorney’s questioning of his mother and the son, but the justices disagreed and concluded there was no violation of the defendant’s constitutional right to confront the witnesses against him.
