## Facts

- Ricardo Martinez was charged in New Mexico state court with two counts of murder.
- At trial, the State relied in part on eyewitness-identification evidence obtained through police-arranged identification procedures.
- Martinez moved to suppress the eyewitness-identification evidence, arguing the procedures were unnecessarily suggestive and the resulting identifications were unreliable.
- The trial court denied the motion to suppress, and Martinez was convicted.
- Martinez appealed, arguing that New Mexico’s existing rule for admitting eyewitness-identification evidence—derived from the federal approach—should be overruled and replaced with a more protective state due process standard.

## Issues

1. Whether New Mexico should overrule its existing, federal-based due process test governing the admissibility of police-arranged eyewitness-identification evidence.
2. What standard should govern suppression of eyewitness-identification evidence when the defendant claims the police used an unnecessarily suggestive identification procedure.
3. Whether Martinez was entitled to relief based on the trial court’s admission of the challenged eyewitness-identification evidence under the prior standard.

## Decision

- The court reconsidered New Mexico’s existing approach to admitting police-arranged eyewitness identifications that had been modeled on federal due process doctrine.
- The court concluded that New Mexico’s due process protections required a more demanding admissibility analysis than the prior federal-based test when police procedures create a risk of mistaken identification.
- The court replaced the prior approach with a new state constitutional framework for evaluating suggestive, police-arranged eyewitness identifications.
- The court granted Martinez relief based on the erroneous admission of the identification evidence under the former standard and ordered further proceedings consistent with the new rule.

## Legal Principles

- Due process under the New Mexico Constitution may provide greater protection than federal due process in assessing the admissibility of police-arranged eyewitness-identification evidence.
- When a defendant makes a threshold showing that the police used an unnecessarily suggestive identification procedure, the trial court must conduct a strengthened reliability inquiry before admitting the identification.
- Reliability must be evaluated using a totality-of-the-circumstances analysis that accounts for both procedure-related risks (how the identification was conducted) and witness-related conditions (how the witness observed and later recalled the perpetrator).
- Trial courts have a gatekeeping duty to exclude identification evidence that, after the required reliability assessment, presents an unacceptable risk of misidentification.
- When identification evidence is admitted despite acknowledged risks, courts should consider safeguards such as tailored jury instructions and permitting the defense to present evidence addressing factors that can affect accuracy.

## Conclusion

State v. Martinez holds that New Mexico’s due process protections require a more protective admissibility standard for police-arranged eyewitness identifications than the prior federal-based rule, and it grants Martinez relief because the identification evidence was admitted under the now-replaced test.


State v. Martinez, 478 P.3d 880 (2018)