Jan. 10—A woman convicted of first-degree murder in connection with the deaths of a police officer and retired firefighter who died in a head-on collision is appealing her convictions.
A judge sentenced Jeannine Jaramillo, 49, to two terms of life in prison last month after a jury convicted her of causing the deaths of Santa Fe police Officer Robert Duran and retired Las Vegas, N.M. firefighter Frank Lovato. Their vehicles crashed as the officer, who at the time believed her to be a kidnapping victim, was chasing her the wrong way on Interstate 25.
Jaramillo was, in fact, alone in her vehicle at the time and fleeing from police after having asked a bystander to call 911. She said she was being held hostage in her own car by a man with a knife, according to testimony presented at her trial.
In the appeal, filed Thursday in state Supreme Court, Jaramillo’s lawyer argues in part, New Mexico case law does not support her convictions.
Prosecutors charged Jaramillo with two counts of first-degree murder under two theories, one being felony murder and one being depraved-mind murder.
Felony murder is generally charged when someone kills a person during the commission of another felony, in this case aggravated fleeing. Depraved-mind murder is charged in cases where a person commits an act that shows utter disregard for human life. Both are crimes that allow prosecutors to convict someone of first-degree murder without proving an intent to kill. Jurors in the case against Jaramillo were given an option of finding her guilty under either theory.
In her appeal, Jaramillo’s lawyer David Silva cites a 2004 opinion from the state Court of Appeals in a case in which a Las Cruces man, Hellman Tellez, came out of his apartment and pointed his gun at a group of men who were beating his friend at gunpoint in the parking lot. In an attempt to defend his friend, Tellez exchanged gunfire with one of the attackers, Jimmy O’Kelly, killing an innocent bystander in the process.
Authorities charged O’Kelly with both first-degree murder and depraved-mind murder, though none of O’Kelly’s shots had hit anyone. The appellate court ruled neither charge fit the circumstances due in part to the lack of relationship between O’Kelly and the person who died.
The state argued the court “should extend the depraved mind murder statute to include cases where the defendant sets in motion a chain of events that leads to the accidental death of a bystander,” says the appeal. “The Court disagreed and held that it refused to expand the doctrine to cover ‘unintentional killings in which the lethal act was not committed by the defendant or his or her accomplices.’ “
In this case, the appeal says, the lethal act, albeit an accident, was committed by Duran colliding with southbound Frank Lovato.
Similarly, in the case of the felony murder charge, Silva wrote New Mexico “espouses an agency theory that does not hold defendants responsible for lethal acts of third parties who are not accomplices,” and Duran was not an accomplice of Jaramillo’s.
Silva’s pleading also challenges the legality of a great bodily harm conviction against Jaramillo connected to injuries sustained by another motorist who was injured after colliding with another officer involved in the chase. It also challenges her conviction for receiving or transferring stolen motor vehicle, arguing the state didn’t present sufficient evidence the vehicle was stolen.
And, it says the court should not have allowed jurors to hear that Jaramillo had been accused of similar actions in Cibola County just six months before the March 2022 crash in Santa Fe. There, she fled Cibola County sheriff’s deputies in a stolen car, leading them on a chase in the wrong lanes of an interstate and later told authorities she had been held hostage at the time by a man who was never found.
She pleaded guilty there in August 2022 to aggravated fleeing and unlawful taking of a motor vehicle as part of a plea agreement that calls for her to serve 18 months in prison.
Silva represented Jaramillo at trial and filed the statement of issues for her appeal. However, online court records indicate he’ll be allowed to withdraw from the case and Jaramillo will be represented by a public defender going forward.