## Facts

- Nevares and Eva Smith were a young couple who had become estranged.
- Nevares went to Smith’s home and tried to persuade her to go for a drive in his car.
- Smith refused and told him she was finished with him.
- Nevares left but soon returned to the house.
- Smith came out to Nevares’s car, spoke with him briefly, and then started walking back toward the house.
- Nevares called out to Smith; when she turned toward him, he shot her in the chest.
- Smith died instantly from the gunshot.
- Nevares was charged with murder and pleaded not guilty, raising insanity as his defense.
- The defense introduced evidence that Nevares had a “disordered mentality,” possibly from a prior head injury, and that he was unusually susceptible to emotional stress and sudden anger.
- The State offered psychiatric testimony, including from Dr. Paul Ely McChesney, that Nevares was not legally insane; McChesney testified his examination was essentially “negative,” with no abnormal findings except memory lapses on two occasions.
- After McChesney testified, defense counsel sought to reopen the evidence (after both sides had rested) based on an alleged conversation between McChesney and a newspaper reporter in which McChesney allegedly said Nevares was “not insane” but also answered “No” when asked whether Nevares was “normal.”
- The trial court refused to reopen the case to take the reporter’s testimony or to recall McChesney for further cross-examination.
- The jury found Nevares legally sane (capable of distinguishing right from wrong regarding the killing) and convicted him of second-degree murder.

## Issues

1. Did the trial court abuse its discretion by refusing to reopen the case after both sides rested to admit late impeachment evidence about the State psychiatrist’s out-of-court remark and/or to recall the psychiatrist for further cross-examination?
2. Did the trial court err by refusing to instruct on voluntary manslaughter where the defense argued that Nevares’s mental weakness and Smith’s rejection supplied provocation and heat of passion (sometimes described as “emotional insanity”)?

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of New Mexico affirmed the second-degree murder conviction.
- The court held there was no abuse of discretion in denying the request to reopen the evidence or to recall the State’s psychiatric witness for additional cross-examination.
- The court held the evidence did not require a voluntary manslaughter instruction because there was no legally sufficient provocation to reduce murder to manslaughter, even considering Nevares’s claimed mental weakness.

## Legal Principles

- Reopening a criminal case after both sides have rested, including recalling a witness for further cross-examination, is generally left to the trial judge’s sound discretion; reversal requires a showing of abuse of that discretion.
- A trial court may deny reopening when the proffered material is late, collateral, primarily impeaching, cumulative, or unlikely to change the result in light of the record already made.
- For voluntary manslaughter, provocation must be legally adequate and must produce heat of passion at the time of the killing; ordinary anger or jealousy tied to relationship conflict is not enough by itself.
- Words alone, including statements of rejection in a romantic relationship, do not constitute adequate provocation to reduce an intentional homicide from murder to voluntary manslaughter.
- A defendant’s emotional instability or mental weakness short of legal insanity does not lower the legal threshold for adequate provocation; if the defendant is found legally sane, “emotional insanity” does not substitute for the required provocation showing.

## Conclusion

State v. Nevares upheld a second-degree murder conviction where the defendant shot his estranged girlfriend after she refused to reconcile, holding that the trial court acted within its discretion in refusing to reopen the case for late impeachment of the State psychiatrist and that neither romantic rejection nor the defendant’s asserted mental weakness (short of legal insanity) supplied the legally adequate provocation needed for a voluntary manslaughter instruction.


State v. Nevares, 36 N.M. 41 (1932)