## Facts

- Cecil Boyett and Deborah Rhodes had a hostile history connected to their relationships with Renate Wilder, Boyett’s fiancée and Rhodes’s former intimate partner.
- Days before Boyett and Wilder’s planned wedding, Wilder left the home she shared with Boyett and spent time with Rhodes; Boyett tried unsuccessfully to locate Wilder and suspected she was with Rhodes.
- On February 5, 2004, Wilder returned home after a car accident near Rhodes’s residence; shortly thereafter, Rhodes came to Boyett and Wilder’s home.
- The confrontation ended when Boyett shot Rhodes in the head with a .357 revolver from approximately four feet away.
- Trial evidence indicated Rhodes was outside the house when shot, about four feet from the doorway, with no evidence of forced entry or attempted forced entry.
- Boyett testified he believed Rhodes was reaching for a gun she often carried and claimed self-defense, defense of Wilder, and defense of habitation.
- Boyett was convicted of first-degree murder under New Mexico law.
- Before trial, Boyett’s defense expert withdrew; Boyett proceeded without expert testimony connecting alleged organic brain damage to his ability to form intent at the time of the shooting.

## Issues

1. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to instruct the jury on defense of habitation.
2. Whether the trial court erred by refusing to instruct on inability to form specific intent based on alleged organic brain damage.
3. Whether the trial court abused its discretion in denying a motion for a new trial after the defense expert withdrew shortly before trial.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Mexico affirmed the conviction.
- The court held Boyett was not entitled to a defense-of-habitation instruction because the evidence did not support that Rhodes was attempting to enter the home or commit a violent felony inside.
- The court held Boyett was not entitled to an inability-to-form-specific-intent instruction because no expert testimony linked any brain damage to incapacity at the time of the offense.
- The court held the denial of a new trial was not an abuse of discretion where the defense did not pursue available alternatives after the expert withdrew (including seeking a continuance or obtaining a substitute expert).

## Legal Principles

- A defendant is entitled to a theory-of-defense instruction only when there is evidence sufficient for reasonable jurors to differ on the facts necessary to support the instruction.
- Defense of habitation may justify deadly force against a person outside the dwelling only when evidence supports that the person is attempting to enter and commit a violent felony; proximity to the doorway, without evidence of attempted entry, is insufficient.
- A claim that a mental disease or defect prevented formation of specific intent requires expert testimony linking the condition to the defendant’s capacity at the time of the offense.
- Denial of a motion for a new trial is reviewed for abuse of discretion; a defendant must show actual prejudice, not merely the loss of a preferred witness, particularly when alternatives were available but not pursued.

## Conclusion

The court affirmed Boyett’s first-degree murder conviction because the record did not support a defense-of-habitation instruction, diminished-capacity-type intent instructions required expert linkage evidence that was not presented, and the trial court reasonably denied a new trial where the defense’s lack of expert testimony resulted from choices and inaction rather than judicial error.


State v. Boyett, 185 P.3d 355 (N.M. 2008)