Latest / Murder Files Unsealed / N.M. Supreme Court rules Alexee Trevizo’s alleged hospital confession can’t be used at trial

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N.M. Supreme Court rules Alexee Trevizo’s alleged hospital confession can’t be used at trial · Murder Files Unsealed

0:00
Speaker 1: Imagine you are arriving at an emergency room. You are
0:03
just an agonizing ten out of ten pain.
0:06
Speaker 2: Oh, the kind of pain that just completely hijacks your
0:08
central nervous.
0:09
Speaker 1: System, right, it just blots out the rest of the world,
0:12
and you are rushed into triars. You're given these heavy
0:15
mine altering narcotics. You're bleeding profusely, and you are terrified.
0:20
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're in a wildly vulnerable state.
0:22
Speaker 1: Exactly, completely stripped of your normal physiological and well psychological defenses.
0:27
So in that moment, do you expect the things you
0:30
say to your doctor to remain private?
0:32
Speaker 2: I mean, I think we all do. That assumption of
0:34
a safe harbor is you know, arguably the foundational bedrock
0:37
of modern medicine. Absolutely, when we cross the threshold of
0:40
a hospital, we operate under this unspoken and fiercely legally
0:45
protected expectation that the clinical space is a sanctuary.
0:50
Speaker 1: A place where you can just be honest and get help.
0:52
Speaker 2: Right, we assume the person in the white coat is
0:55
focused entirely on triage and treatment, not you know, on
0:58
building a prosecutorial case against you.
1:00
Speaker 1: But what happens when that hospital room suddenly transforms into
1:04
an active crime scene.
1:05
Speaker 2: Which is terrifying to even think about.
1:07
Speaker 1: It really is, And that is the exact collision of
1:10
realities we are unpacking on today's deep dive. We are
1:13
looking at a unanimous New Mexico Supreme Court ruling handed
1:17
down just days ago on July thirty, twenty twenty six.
1:20
Speaker 2: Such a massive ruling huge.
1:22
Speaker 1: It suppressed an alleged confession and a highly publicized first
1:26
degree murder case. This involved a nineteen year old high
1:29
school student named Alexe Treviso and a newborn infant found
1:32
deceased in a hospital trash can.
1:35
Speaker 2: And this case, I mean it is a profound stress
1:38
test for the American legal and medical.
1:40
Speaker 1: Systems because it pits two totally unyielding forces against each other.
1:44
Speaker 2: Right, exactly, you have the absolute, non negotiable duty of
1:47
the state to investigate a homicide running headlong into a
1:51
citizen's fundamental right to medical privacy.
1:53
Speaker 1: The sanctity of the patient physician privilege.
1:56
Speaker 2: Right. And this isn't just about a single criminal trial
1:59
in New Mexico. It is about the architectural integrity of
2:02
medical confidentiality everywhere.
2:04
Speaker 1: Which is why the mechanics of this case, the legal arguments,
2:07
and this resulting Supreme Court decision, they define the literal
2:11
boundaries of your own rights.
2:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, this affects everyone listening.
2:14
Speaker 1: It really dictates what constitutional protections remain intact the next
2:17
time you walk through hospital doors seeking help on the
2:20
worst day of your life.
2:21
Speaker 2: Absolutely.
2:22
Speaker 1: Okay, let's unpack this because to understand the Supreme Court's ruling,
2:26
which hinges on this incredibly complex legal concept of capacity,
2:31
we can't just look at the moment the police ask questions.
2:35
Speaker 2: No, you have to rewind the tape, right.
2:37
Speaker 1: We have to analyze the severe medical realities this patient
2:41
was experiencing leading up to that exact moment.
2:44
Speaker 2: The timeline is the entire foundation of the legal analysis here.
2:47
Speaker 1: So walk it through why that timeline matters so much well.
2:51
Speaker 2: To determine if someone has the legal capacity to waive
2:54
their constitutional rights, you have to establish their physical, chemical,
2:58
and cognitive state long before law enforcement ever enters the frame.
3:02
Speaker 1: Okay, So the date is January twenty seven, twenty twenty three.
3:05
We are at Artesia General Hospital, which is a small
3:08
community facility down in southeastern New Mexico. Around midnight, nineteen
3:13
year old Alexei Treviso, a high school senior, arrives at
3:16
the emergency department and she's accompanied by her mother, right, yes,
3:19
accompanied by her mom. Her primary complaint is severe lower
3:23
back pain, which she actually attributes to cheerleading practice earlier
3:27
that day.
3:28
Speaker 2: Okay, so a sports injury is what she's claiming.
3:30
Speaker 1: Yeah, But during the initial triage, the staff naturally asks
3:34
if she might be pregnant, and she denies it, stating
3:37
she is currently on her period and experiencing vaginal bleeding.
3:41
Speaker 2: Which, from a clinical triage perspective, any young woman presenting
3:45
with severe pelvic or lower back pain combined with vaginal
3:49
bleeding that triggers a very specific diagnostic algorithm.
3:53
Speaker 1: Right, you can't just ignore that combination of symptoms exactly.
3:57
Speaker 2: The standard of care dictates that you have to assume
4:00
a pregnancy related complication like.
4:02
Speaker 1: An ectopic pregnancy or something, yeah.
4:04
Speaker 2: Ectopic pregnancy or a placental abruption until you can definitively
4:07
prove otherwise. So triage begins at twelve thirteen am, and.
4:12
Speaker 1: The hospital protocol initiates this massive pharmacological intervention to manage
4:17
her pain. And I really want to look at that
4:19
medication cascade.
4:21
Speaker 2: It's so important to the legal outcome.
4:22
Speaker 1: It really is, because the chemical cocktail they administer is
4:25
essential to the Supreme Court's later findings on her mental state.
4:29
They don't just give her like a mild painkiller.
4:32
Speaker 2: Oh no, No.
4:32
Speaker 1: The medical staff administers keterolac, a staminofin, on dancetron, and
4:37
this muscle relaxing called cyclobenzaprene.
4:41
Speaker 2: Right, And if we break down the pharmacokinetics of those drugs,
4:44
we see a heavy, heavy assault on the central nervous.
4:47
Speaker 1: System, starting with the keterolla ac.
4:50
Speaker 2: Yeah. Keterolac is a powerful nonstroidal anti inflammatory. It's often
4:55
used as non narcotic alternative to opioids for acute pain.
4:59
Speaker 1: Okay, so pain management and the on densitron that.
5:02
Speaker 2: Blocks the actions of chemicals in the body. They can
5:05
trigger nausea and vomiting, which is critical when a patient
5:08
is an extreme pain because pain makes you nauseous.
5:10
Speaker 1: Makes sense. But the cycleo benza brain, that's where things
5:12
get blurry.
5:13
Speaker 2: Right, That is where the cognitive impairment really begins. It's
5:17
a central nervous system muscle relaxed, but it doesn't actually
5:21
work directly on the muscles. Wait, really, yeah, it works
5:23
on the brain stem to reduce motor activity, so it
5:25
causes significant drowsiness, dizziness, and this heavy cognitive clouding.
5:29
Speaker 1: And they don't even stop there. By twelve two eight am,
5:33
which is just fifteen minutes after triage began. They start
5:36
an intravenous line right an IV, Yeah, an IV, and
5:40
they administer additional doses of the previous drugs and then
5:43
they introduce IV morphine into the equation.
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Speaker 2: And morphine is the absolute game changer.
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Speaker 1: Here because it's intravenous.
5:49
Speaker 2: Yes, administered intravenously, it totally bypasses the digestive system. It
5:54
hits the mulepioid receptors in the brain almost instantly. Wow.
5:58
It's a profound analgy, sure, but its side effects include
6:03
significant sedation, respiratory depression, and a severe degradation of executive function.
6:08
Speaker 1: Like situational awareness just goes out the window completely.
6:11
Speaker 2: You are essentially putting a chemical wet blanket over the
6:14
prefrontal cortex.
6:15
Speaker 1: Uh huh.
6:15
Speaker 2: And that's the part of the brain responsible for logical
6:18
decision making and understanding complex consequences.
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Speaker 1: Which is going to be incredibly relevant when the police
6:23
show up later. Absolutely, But I was reading the timelines
6:26
in our source documents, and there is this gaping hole
6:29
in the clinical communication that occurs right after this morphine
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is given.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, the forty eight minute cap right.
6:35
Speaker 1: Because of her symptoms, the hospital orders a serum pregnancy
6:39
test a blood test around twelve thirty am. By twelve
6:43
five one AM, the laboratory results are back. The test
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is positive.
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Speaker 2: And just to clarify, a serum test looks for the
6:51
presence of human coreonic coinatotropin or hCG in the blood.
6:56
It is definitive.
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Speaker 1: There's no false positive ambiguity here exactly.
7:00
Speaker 2: So at twelve fifty one am, the hospital possesses empirical
7:04
clinical proof that this patient is pregnant, but they.
7:07
Speaker 1: Do not tell her. The records indicate they kept the
7:10
IVY running, continuing to pumple with medications, including the morphine,
7:14
for roughly forty eight more minutes without informing her of
7:17
the positive test result.
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Speaker 2: Which is just astounding, right.
7:20
Speaker 1: I mean, from a purely lay perspective, if I go
7:22
to the hospital with terrible abdominal pain and they draw
7:24
my blood, I expect to be told the results the
7:26
second they have them.
7:27
Speaker 2: Yeah, especially in an emergency room setting.
7:30
Speaker 1: Is there any clinical justification for a forty eight minute
7:33
delay in communicating a positive pregnancy test to a patient
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who is actively bleeding and complaining of ten out of
7:40
ten pain.
7:41
Speaker 2: In emergency medicine, a forty eight minute delay in communicating
7:45
critical lab results regarding a potential obstetric emergency is an eternity,
7:50
absolute eternity. When a pregnancy test comes back positive for
7:53
a patient presenting with extreme pain and bleeding, the entire
7:57
diagnostic trajectory has to instantly pivot.
8:00
Speaker 1: Can't just proceed as normal.
8:01
Speaker 2: No, the medications being administered must be immediately reevaluated. Many
8:05
of those drugs are contraindicated during pregnancy or active labor, so.
8:09
Speaker 1: They shouldn't even be giving them to her.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, This forty eight minute window of silence isn't just
8:13
a minor administrative lag. It actually becomes the central pillar
8:17
of a subsequent civil wrongful death lawsuit against the hospital.
8:21
Speaker 1: Which establishes a baseline of alleged medical negligence before the
8:25
criminal elements even materialize.
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Speaker 2: Right. It sets the stage for literally everything that follows.
8:30
Speaker 1: Because while that clock is ticking and the patient remains
8:32
totally in the dark about her own blood work, the
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physiological reality of what is happening to her body is
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escalating rapidly.
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Speaker 2: It's a runaway train.
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Speaker 1: At this point, at approximately one three nine am, Treviso,
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who is still an agonizing pain and heavily under the
8:47
influence of intravenous morphine and cycle of benzapren, requests to use.
8:51
Speaker 2: The bathroom, which they allow her to do.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. She walks down the hall and locks herself inside,
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and she remains in that bathroom for nineteen minutes.
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Speaker 2: In those nineteen minutes to where the tragedy physically unfolds.
9:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
9:03
Speaker 2: The court records, which rely on medical expert testimony, describe
9:07
the events in that bathroom as being consistent with precipitous.
9:11
Speaker 1: Labor, and the term precipitous labor. It sounds almost clinical,
9:15
but the biological reality of it is.
9:17
Speaker 2: Violent, extremely violent.
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Speaker 1: It's defined as an extraordinarily rapid labor and delivery, typically
9:22
where the entire process from the onset of regular contractions
9:25
to the birth occurs in under three hours.
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Speaker 2: And the physiological shock to the system cannot be overstated here.
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Normal labor allows the body time to gradually release a cascade.
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Speaker 1: Of hormones like endorphins and oxytocin.
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Speaker 2: Exactly to manage the pain and the sheer physical trauma
9:43
of childbirth. But in precipitous labor, that endocrine storm happens
9:48
all at once. Wow, the pain receptors are just flooded.
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The adrenaline spikes massively, triggering a severe phytoplight response.
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Speaker 1: And when you compound that evolutionary physiological shock with fact
10:00
that she is nineteen, she's experiencing this for the first time,
10:04
completely unassisted in a locked hospital bathroom, and her brain
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is saturated with ivy morphine.
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Speaker 2: I mean, her cognitive processing capabilities would be profoundly compromised,
10:14
to say the least.
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Speaker 1: So inside that locked bathroom, Treviso gives birth to a
10:18
full term newborn boy, and according to the statement she
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later made, which are the exact statements that become the
10:24
center of the Supreme Court battle, she claimed the infant
10:27
showed no movement, no crying, and no breathing.
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Speaker 2: Right, that was her account of the moment.
10:31
Speaker 1: She places the baby in a plastic trash bag. Inside
10:34
the trash can, She then unlocks the door and returns
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to her hospital room at one fifty seven am, at.
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Speaker 2: Which point she is back in the direct care of
10:43
the emergency department physician doctor Heather Voscas right.
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Speaker 1: Doctor Voscos immediately recognizes that something catastrophic has occurred physically,
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She orders a transvaginal ultrasound and performs a pelvic examination.
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Speaker 2: And what did she find.
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Speaker 1: Well, during this exam, doctor Voscos observes signs magnificant active bleeding,
11:02
large blood clots, and a widely dilated cervix.
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Speaker 2: Okay, so, medically speaking, a widely dilated cervix combined with
11:09
severe postpartum hemorrhage in a patient who had a confirmed
11:12
positive pregnancy test an hour prior there presents an unmistakable
11:17
clinical picture. It's not subtle, not at all. It is
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the definitive aftermath of a recent delivery or a late
11:22
term severe miscarriage.
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Speaker 1: But here's where the narrative in the source material becomes
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incredibly difficult to parse.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, this part is wild.
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Speaker 1: Despite observing the physical trauma of childbirth, and despite having
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the positive pregnancy test from an hour earlier, the medical
11:37
staff still does not immediately inform Traviso that she had
11:40
been pregnant. Unbelievable, nor did they tell her that the
11:43
physical evidence clearly shows she just gave birth.
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Speaker 2: The continued clinical silence is probably the most confounding aspect
11:49
of this entire medical timeline. Yeah, you have a physician
11:53
looking at the biological aftermath of childbirth, yet the communication
11:59
loop with the patient remains completely closed.
12:01
Speaker 1: I mean, I try to put myself in the shoes
12:03
of the medical staff in that exact moment.
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Speaker 2: It's tough.
12:06
Speaker 1: It is. You have an er that is likely busy,
12:09
a patient who previously denied pregnancy, and you are suddenly
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looking at a massive, unexplained medical trauma.
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Speaker 2: You're in triage mode, right.
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Speaker 1: I can see a scenario where the doctor is mentally
12:20
scrambling trying to stabilize this life threatening hemorrhage before initiating
12:24
a really complex conversation about a concealed or unknown birth.
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It might not be malicious concealment on the doctor's part.
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It could simply be a physician overwhelmed by a medical
12:35
crisis that makes absolutely no sense given the patient's initial
12:38
intake history.
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Speaker 2: And that is a very fair assessment of the clinical reality.
12:43
I mean, emergency medicine is inherently chaotic, and doctors have
12:47
to prioritize immediate stabilization over.
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Speaker 1: Communication keep the patient alive first.
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Speaker 2: Exactly, However, from a legal standpoint, the reason for the
12:56
delay in communication actually matters less than the effect of
13:00
that delay on the patient's capacity and awareness.
13:02
Speaker 1: Oh, that makes sense. The timeline presses forward. It is
13:06
now two point two seven am. Custodial staff are called
13:09
to clean up the blood in the bathroom in the hallway.
13:11
Right while cleaning, they open the trash can and they
13:13
discover the newborn. At two twenty eight am. Doctor Voscis
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pronounces the infant dead.
13:18
Speaker 2: And we really need to look closely at the clinical
13:21
facts established by the subsequent autoxy here.
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Speaker 1: Because they inform the criminal charges later.
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Speaker 2: They inform both the criminal charges and our understanding of
13:28
the medical environment that night. The baby was approximately thirty
13:31
eight weeks gestational age, so full term, yes, which is
13:35
full term and entirely compatible with life outside the uterus.
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Speaker 1: The crucial forensic detail from the medical examiner's report was
13:42
the discovery of air in the lungs and the stomach.
13:45
Speaker 2: Right. Forensic pathologists use something called a hydrostatic test or
13:48
a lung float test to determine if an infant took
13:51
a breath.
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Speaker 1: How does that work?
13:53
Speaker 2: Basically, if the lungs float in water, it indicates aeration.
13:58
The presence of air in the lungs and stomach is
14:00
the primary forensic indicator of a live birth.
14:03
Speaker 1: Because of that finding, the cause of death was listed
14:06
as entrapment, meaning oxygen depletion inside the tided plastic bag,
14:11
and the manner of death was ruled a homicide.
14:14
Speaker 2: But the toxicology report for the infant is equally illuminating.
14:18
Speaker 1: Yeah, that part is fascinating.
14:19
Speaker 2: The acts as a mirror reflecting the mother's chemical state.
14:23
The autopsy showed free morphine in the newborn's.
14:25
Speaker 1: Heartblood, and that is a direct result of the hospital
14:28
administering a vimorphine while the positive pregnancy test was just
14:32
sitting in the lab results.
14:33
Speaker 2: Precisely, the morphine crossed the placental barrier. The toxicology also
14:38
showed fhentromine, which is a prescription weight loss drug, consistent
14:42
with maternal use prior to arriving at the hospital, but.
14:45
Speaker 1: Those drugs didn't cause the death.
14:47
Speaker 2: No, The medical examiner clearly noted that neither the morphine
14:51
nor the centromine was the cause of death, but their
14:54
presence scientifically verifies that chaotic, heavily medicated environment. This teen
15:00
was enveloped in during the labor process.
15:02
Speaker 1: So we have this catastrophic medical crisis, a massive breakdown
15:06
in clinical communication, the administration of potent narcotics, an unassisted
15:12
bathroom birth, and a tragic death.
15:14
Speaker 2: And now the situation morse from a medical emergency into
15:18
a law enforcement investigation.
15:20
Speaker 1: And this transition is where the legal architecture of the
15:22
entire case is built.
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Speaker 2: It really is.
15:24
Speaker 1: Doctor Voscis recognizes that Treviso is facing life threatening postpartum
15:28
hemorrhage complicated by a severe risk of a retained placenta.
15:32
Arteesia General cannot handle this level of trauma, so the
15:35
doctor arranges for an emergency helicopter airlift to Lovelace Regional
15:38
Medical Center in Roswell.
15:40
Speaker 2: So she's getting ready to fly her.
15:41
Speaker 1: Out right, but before speaking with her patient about the
15:44
life threatening hemorrhage, or the impending airlift, or even the
15:47
fact that she knows a birth occurred, doctor Voscis goes
15:51
and confers that the Artesia police officers who have just
15:54
arrived in response to the discovery of the infant, and
15:57
the source documents show that the officers were immediately told
15:59
by hospital staff that Trevisa wouldn't tell us she was
16:03
pregnant and that she had killed the kid.
16:06
Speaker 2: Wow, that specific phrasing delivered to the police is highly consequential.
16:11
Speaker 1: Because it's so accusatory.
16:12
Speaker 2: Yes, it frames the patient not as a woman suffering
16:15
as severe medical trauma, but immediately as a murder suspect.
16:20
It primes law enforcement for criminal confrontation rather than just
16:24
a medical fact finding.
16:25
Speaker 1: Inquiry, which brings us to two point four one am.
16:29
This is the exact interaction the Supreme Court analyzes the
16:32
ambush the ambush, The entire confrontation was captured on police
16:36
body camera footage. Doctor Voscos, the hospital charge nurse, and
16:40
two fully uniformed armed police officers enter Treviso's room. Trevisa's
16:44
mother is also present in the room, and.
16:47
Speaker 2: The physical geometry of this moment is vital to understanding
16:51
the legal arguments about custody and.
16:54
Speaker 1: Coercion because of where everyone is standing.
16:57
Speaker 2: Exactly, you have a patient who is bleeding, heavily medicated,
17:01
and confined to a hospital bed. The only exit to
17:05
the room is physically blocked by armed law enforcement officers.
17:08
Speaker 1: Right if you are lying in a hospital bed and
17:11
your doctor walks in flanked by armed police who blocked
17:14
the doorway, there is no universe where that feels like
17:16
routine medical care.
17:18
Speaker 2: No, it is inherently an interrogation setting.
17:20
Speaker 1: So the legal concept here revolves around whether a private
17:24
citizen the doctor in this case, can inadvertently become an
17:28
agent of the state.
17:29
Speaker 2: Yes, because usually the Fourth and Fifth Amendments only protect
17:33
you against government actors. Right Like, if your neighbor asks
17:35
you a question and you confess to a crime, you
17:38
have no Miranda rights to suppress that confession.
17:41
Speaker 1: Because your neighbor isn't the government exactly.
17:43
Speaker 2: But if the police ask your neighbor to go interrogate
17:45
you on their behalf, your neighbor becomes a de facto
17:48
state actor.
17:49
Speaker 1: So the question is did doctor Vascez cross the line
17:53
from a healing physician into a state interrogator?
17:57
Speaker 2: And the Supreme Court looked very closely at who led interaction.
18:01
The police didn't start asking questions, No, they didn't. No,
18:05
doctor Vascus took the lead. She utilized the trusted spase
18:09
of the patient physician relationship. But she brought the police
18:13
in as an intimidating presence, right without clearing the room,
18:17
without asking the patier for consent for law enforcement to
18:20
be present, and without any prior warning. Doctor Vascus flatly
18:23
states we discovered a dead baby in the bathroom.
18:26
Speaker 1: She doesn't even ask a medical question. She doesn't say, Alexi,
18:30
you are bleeding heavily. We need to know what happens
18:32
so we can treat you. Nope, she just drops an
18:34
accusatory statement effect into the room while the police watch.
18:37
Speaker 2: And Theresa responds. According to the recording, she says, I'm sorry.
18:41
It came out of me. I didn't know what to do.
18:42
She adds that she had held a baby and there
18:45
was no movement, no breathing, nothing.
18:47
Speaker 1: And then she's detained.
18:48
Speaker 2: Within three minutes of the officers entering that room, Trevisa
18:52
is officially detained. She is no longer free to leave.
18:55
Speaker 1: But the events of that night didn't stay confined to
18:57
that hospital room, oh far from it. They exploded into
18:59
the public sphere, triggering a massive, highly polarized societal debate.
19:04
Travia isn't arrested that night. She is airlifted, treated for
19:08
her morhage, and eventually returns home. She goes back to school,
19:11
finishes her senior year, attends prom, and prepares for graduation.
19:16
Speaker 2: Because the legal machinery moves slowly, forensic analysis, pathology reports,
19:20
and police investigations. They all take months. The final autops
19:24
who report classifying the death as a homicide wasn't even
19:27
issued until late.
19:28
Speaker 1: March, so it isn't until May tenth, twenty twenty three,
19:31
that the Artesia Police arrest Treviso, and the charges are
19:35
massive first degree murder or alternatively, intentional abuse of a
19:39
child resulting in death, and tampering with evidence.
19:42
Speaker 2: And that is when the public spectacle truly ignited.
19:45
Speaker 1: The Internet consumed this case. Social media sleuths began dissecting
19:49
old cheerleading videos, analyzing her physical appearance, and debating endlessly
19:53
about whether she knew she was pregnant all along.
19:56
Speaker 2: It was everywhere.
19:56
Speaker 1: Yeah, a petition with over twenty thousand signatures even circulated
20:00
opposing her subsequent remote enrollment at Mexico State University.
20:04
Speaker 2: But it is so critical we separate the court of
20:06
public opinion from the court of law.
20:08
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
20:09
Speaker 2: The Internet operates on rumor, out of context video clips,
20:13
and moral outrage. The legal system operates on precedent, statutory interpretation,
20:19
and constitutional rights.
20:21
Speaker 1: And to be incredibly clear, our deep dive today is
20:23
looking strictly at the legal architecture of this case. We
20:27
are entirely impartial regarding the criminal charges.
20:30
Speaker 2: Right, We're not taking a side.
20:31
Speaker 1: We are examining how the legal system attempts to resolve
20:34
a catastrophic collision of rights, not endorsing any of the
20:37
public speculation regarding her guilt or innocence.
20:40
Speaker 2: So, looking at the legal side, the defense's response to
20:43
these severe charges relied heavily on establishing those constitutional boundaries.
20:48
Defense attorney Gary Mitchell filed the motion to suppress all
20:51
the statements TRAVISO made in that hospital room, as well
20:54
as the related body camera footage.
20:56
Speaker 1: And his argument was anchored in New Mexico a rule
20:58
of Evidence eleven five OO yes.
21:01
Speaker 2: Which outlines the physician patient privilege alongside arguments regarding miranda
21:05
rights violations.
21:06
Speaker 1: Because rule eleven five oh four essentially codifies that safe
21:10
harbor we discussed at the beginning, it explicitly states that
21:14
a patient has a privilege to refuse to disclose and
21:17
to prevent any other person from disclosing confidential communications made
21:21
for the purpose of diagnosis or treatment.
21:23
Speaker 2: And in August of twenty twenty three, Eddie County District
21:26
Judge Jane Shiller Gray granted the defense's motion to suppress.
21:30
Speaker 1: She actually granted it.
21:31
Speaker 2: She did. She ruled that Trevisa's communications were confidential, that
21:35
she lacked the capacity to waiver for privilege, and she
21:37
made a really striking legal finding.
21:39
Speaker 1: What was it?
21:40
Speaker 2: Judge Gray ruled that by delaying the disclosure of her
21:43
medical findings until the police arrived to flank her, doctor
21:46
Voscz effectively acted as an agent of law enforcement.
21:49
Speaker 1: She essentially ruled that, in that specific moment, the doctor
21:53
traded her stethoscope for a badge.
21:55
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly.
21:56
Speaker 1: And this ruling sent absolute shock waves through the broader
21:59
legal and medical communities. We saw a flood of amicus
22:03
briefs filed by major organizations like the American Civil Liberties
22:08
Union and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
22:11
Speaker 2: Right, and just for contexts, an amicist brief is a
22:14
friend of the court filing by organizations that aren't directly
22:17
involved in the lawsuit but have a massive vested interest
22:21
in the legal precedent. It will set right. And the
22:23
ACLU and ACAG presented a unified urgent argument regarding public health.
22:28
Speaker 1: What exactly were they arguing?
22:30
Speaker 2: They argued that prioritizing criminal investigations over patient care endangers
22:35
highly vulnerable people. The entire premise of public health relies
22:40
on patients trusting that they can seek medical help without
22:43
fear of immediate prosecution.
22:44
Speaker 1: Right if you don't trust the doctor, you don't go.
22:47
Speaker 2: Exactly, if the legal precedent becomes that your doctor can
22:50
secretly gather evidence, invite the police into your room and
22:54
interrogate you while you are bleeding and medicated, the chilling
22:58
effect would be catastrophe.
23:00
Speaker 1: It really would.
23:01
Speaker 2: People suffering from drug overdoses, complications from sex work, or
23:06
obstetric emergencies will simply stop going to the hospital. They
23:10
will choose to risk death rather than risk prison.
23:13
Speaker 1: It's also worth noting that running parallel to this criminal
23:16
case is a civil wrongful death lawsuit. It was filed
23:20
on behalf of the infants estate against the hospital and doctor.
23:23
Speaker 2: Vascas Right the civil side of things.
23:26
Speaker 1: That suit alleges severe medical negligence, failing to diagnose the pregnancy,
23:30
promptly administering contraindicated medications, and prioritizing the police over patient stabilization.
23:37
Speaker 2: Yeah arguing that the tragic outcome was rooted in a
23:39
profound failure of the medical standard of care.
23:42
Speaker 1: So back to the criminal side. The district judge's suppression
23:45
of the confession was a major blow to the prosecution.
23:48
The state filed an interlocutory appeal, pausing the trial process
23:52
and pushing the evidentiary question all.
23:54
Speaker 2: The way up the chain, which brings us to the
23:56
core of our.
23:56
Speaker 1: Deep dive right the July thirty, twenty sive unanimous decision
24:01
by the New Mexico Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had
24:04
to untangle two very aggressive arguments made by the state
24:08
attempting to pierce the patient physician privilege. Let's break down
24:12
argument number one.
24:13
Speaker 2: Okay, argument number one.
24:14
Speaker 1: It revolves around the mandatory reporting statue under New Mexico law,
24:18
specifically NMSA nineteen seventy eight, Section thirty two A four
24:22
to three. Doctors are legally required to immediately report suspected
24:26
child abuse or neglect.
24:28
Speaker 2: To law enforcement, so they have a duty to report.
24:30
Speaker 1: Yes, The state argued that because a deceased infant was
24:33
found in a trash can, the doctor had a mandatory
24:36
duty to report it. Therefore, the state claimed the mandatory
24:40
report statue completely erase the medical privilege for the entire situation.
24:44
Speaker 2: All right. I read the state's brief on this, and
24:45
their logic basically argues that mandatory reporting laws act like
24:49
a skeleton chase. Was a skeleton can? Yeah? Like, once
24:52
the key is turned, all the doors of medical privacy
24:55
are unlocked for the police.
24:56
Speaker 1: But Justice Michael E. Vigil, writing for a unanimous Supreme Court,
25:00
completely rejected that broad interpretation.
25:02
Speaker 2: He really did, just as Vigil drew a very precise,
25:06
hard boundary line regarding where a doctor's duty ends. The
25:09
best way to understand the court's ruling is to think
25:12
of the mandatory reporting statute like a fire alarm in
25:15
a building.
25:16
Speaker 1: Oh, I like that analogy. How does it apply here?
25:19
Speaker 2: Well, when a doctor discovers suspected abuse, in this case,
25:23
the deceased newborn, they are legally obligated to pull the
25:26
fire alarm. They must call the police and report the
25:30
specific discovery. Right. But once that alarm is pulled and
25:33
the fire department arrives, the doctor's duty is fulfilled. The
25:37
doctor does not get to put on a fire chief's
25:39
helmet and start interrogating the people inside the building to
25:42
figure out how the fire started.
25:44
Speaker 1: So the court ruled that the report itself is the
25:46
only exception to the privilege exactly.
25:48
Speaker 2: The court ruled that once the report is made, law
25:51
enforcement takes over the investigation and the patient's confidentiality for
25:55
all other communications, including anything she says to the doctor afterward.
25:59
Rever's back to being fully protected.
26:02
Speaker 1: Because if the court had agreed with the state's interpretation.
26:05
Speaker 2: It would mean that reporting a suspected crime instantly nullifies
26:09
a patient's constitutional rights, which would completely destroy the public
26:13
policy behind medical confidentiality.
26:15
Speaker 1: Okay, So, with the mandatory reporting argument defeated, the state
26:19
leaned heavily on argument number two, which is the third
26:22
party presence or the waiver argument.
26:25
Speaker 2: This is a classic legal argument.
26:27
Speaker 1: The state essentially argued, look, there were two armed police
26:30
officers and the patient's mother in the room when she spoke.
26:34
You cannot claim medical privilege if you blurt out a
26:37
confession in front of an audience, right.
26:40
Speaker 2: The state was pushing for a per se rule, an
26:43
automatic rule, yeah, an automatic, black and white rule, stating
26:46
that the mere physical presence of unnecessary third parties instantly
26:50
destroys the confidentiality of the room. In normal, everyday circumstances,
26:54
if you tell your lawyer a secret while standing in
26:56
a crowded elevator. You've waived your attorney.
26:59
Speaker 1: Client privilege because you had no reasonable expectation of privacy.
27:02
Speaker 2: Exactly, And the state tried to apply that exact same
27:05
logic to the emergency room.
27:07
Speaker 1: But I look at the reality of a trauma bay
27:10
and that logic seems deeply flawed. How so, well, when
27:13
you are bleeding out, you don't exactly have the physical
27:16
agency or the authority to play bouncer and kick armed
27:20
police officers out of your room.
27:22
Speaker 2: Right You're literally trapped in a bed.
27:24
Speaker 1: It just seems absurd to claim that a patient voluntarily
27:27
allowed the police to hear their medical conversations simply because
27:30
of the patient lacked the physical strength to remove them.
27:34
Speaker 2: And the New Mexico Supreme Court agreed with your exact assessment.
27:37
They emphatically rejected the state's per se rule. The court
27:42
ruled that for a patient to waive their medical privilege,
27:45
the waiver must be truly voluntary.
27:48
Speaker 1: And what does voluntary mean in this context?
27:50
Speaker 2: Voluntariness requires two distinct elements, knowledge that the third parties
27:55
are present, and the actual mental and physical capacity to
27:59
make a conscious, reasoned decision to waive those rights.
28:02
Speaker 1: So to determine capacity, the court utilized a legal standard
28:07
known as the totality of the circumstances test. They don't
28:10
just look at a single factor, right, They look at
28:12
the compounding weight of everything the patient was experiencing at
28:15
that exact second.
28:17
Speaker 2: So let's review the totality of the circumstances for alex A.
28:20
Traviso in that hospital bed. She had arrived hours earlier
28:25
in excruciating blinding pain. She had been pumped full of
28:29
multiple central nervous system depressants, including psychobenzaprene and intravenous morphine.
28:34
Speaker 1: And the court specifically noted in its opinion that the
28:38
exact dosage of the opiates wasn't even fully documented in
28:41
the medical record, which is concerning on its own right,
28:44
meaning she could have been under a massive chemical load exactly.
28:47
Speaker 2: And on top of the narcotics, she had just endured
28:50
the immense physiological and endocrine shock of an unassisted precipitous birth,
28:55
She was suffering from hypovlemic shock due to ongoing life
28:59
threatening blaslood loss.
29:00
Speaker 1: And finally, the nature of the confrontation itself was deemed
29:03
an ambush by the court. The trusted physician brought armed
29:06
police into the room without warning and dropped an accusatory statement.
29:10
Speaker 2: When you take a brain that is actively suffering from
29:13
blood loss, saturated with ivy morphine, flooded with the adrenaline
29:18
of a trauma response, and then corner it with armed guards,
29:22
the idea that the prefrontal cortex can actively comprehend and
29:26
voluntarily waive complex constitutional privacy rights completely disintegrates.
29:31
Speaker 1: It's like trying to run a complex software update on
29:34
a computer whose motherboard is actively melting.
29:37
Speaker 2: That is precisely the court's conclusion. A patient in severe
29:41
medical distress, under the influence of opiates and actively bleeding
29:45
cannot legally waive their fundamental privacy rights just because a
29:48
doctor unexpectedly flanks themselves with armed police officers.
29:51
Speaker 1: The circumstances rendered any purported waiver completely involuntary.
29:56
Speaker 2: Yes, involuntary as a matter of law. Therefore, the confidentiality
29:59
remains in tact and the confession, along with the video
30:02
of it, is suppressed.
30:03
Speaker 1: So this ruling is a massive procedural victory for the defense.
30:07
But what are the whipple effects. What happens to the
30:09
criminal case against Alexei Treviso now, and how does this
30:13
ruling change the landscape of medical privacy for the general public.
30:17
Let's start with the immediate future of the trial.
30:20
Speaker 2: It is vital to understand that a suppression ruling does
30:23
not equate to an exoneration. Suppressing the confession does not
30:27
mean the events didn't happen. It simply removes the hospital
30:31
statements and the video of those statements from the state's
30:34
evidentiary arsenal. The prosecution cannot use her own words from
30:38
that hospital room against her at trial.
30:41
Speaker 1: But the state isn't entirely empty handed, are they?
30:43
Speaker 2: No, not at all. They still possess a significant amount
30:47
of objective physical evidence. They have the autopsy findings which
30:51
scientifically establish a live birth and classify the cause of
30:54
death as a homicide.
30:55
Speaker 1: And they have the physical evidence recovered from the hospital bathroom.
30:58
Speaker 2: Yes, and they have the timeline evidence from a hospital
31:01
records showing the nineteen minutes in the lock bathroom.
31:04
Speaker 1: The district attorney now faces a highly complex strategic.
31:07
Speaker 2: Dilemma, a very tough call.
31:09
Speaker 1: Do they proceed to a first degree murder trial relying
31:13
purely on circumstantial and forensic evidence without the emotional weight
31:17
of a confession. Do they offer a plea deal to
31:21
a lesser charge, or do they dismiss the charges entirely,
31:25
which is exactly what defense attorney Gary Mitchell is aggressively
31:28
urging them to do.
31:29
Speaker 2: Yeah. Mitchell is framing this Supreme Court ruling as a
31:32
total vindication of his client. He's stating publicly that she
31:36
sought medical help as expected and was severely mistreated by
31:39
a system that prioritized policing over patient care.
31:43
Speaker 1: And the state meanwhile has issued statement saying they respect
31:45
the ruling but remain confident they can pursue justice for
31:47
the infant with the remaining evidence. The coming months will
31:50
determine if a jury ever actually hears this case.
31:53
Speaker 2: But beyond the ultimate fate of Alexi Treviso, this Supreme
31:56
Court ruling casts a massive protective shadow over the sanctity
32:00
of the hospital room itself.
32:02
Speaker 1: The Court spent significant time in its opinion emphasizing the
32:06
core philosophical purpose of the physician patient privilege. It is
32:10
designed to promote full, honest, unflinching disclosure between a patient
32:15
and their doctor so that accurate diagnosis and treatment can occur.
32:20
Speaker 2: Because doctors are scientists, not mind readers, they rely on
32:24
accurate data to save lives, and sometimes accurate care depends
32:29
on a patient revealing highly embarrassing, stigmatized, or even potentially illegal.
32:34
Speaker 1: Facts like drug use.
32:35
Speaker 2: Exactly, if a teenager overdoses on fentanyl, the er doctor
32:39
needs to know exactly what they took to administer the
32:42
right countermeasures.
32:43
Speaker 1: But if that teenager is terrified that telling the doctor
32:46
the truth will immediately result in the doctor acting as
32:48
an agent of the police and handing them over for arrest,
32:51
they might.
32:51
Speaker 2: Lie, and if they lie, they might die.
32:53
Speaker 1: By insisting on genuine cognitive capacity and true voluntariness before
32:57
waiver can happen, the new Mexico Supreme Court or ensure
33:00
that the medical privilege isn't just a fragile technical formality
33:03
that evaporates the second and uniform walks into.
33:05
Speaker 2: The er right. It affirmed that the privilege is a robust,
33:09
substantive shield designed to protect public health. This ruling reaffirms
33:14
that the therapeutic relationship is paramount.
33:16
Speaker 1: This is fundamentally about your right to walk into an
33:19
emergency room on your absolute worst day, when your body
33:23
is broken and you are entirely at the mercy of
33:25
the medical staff, and know with legal certainty that your
33:28
doctor is your healer, not your interrogator.
33:31
Speaker 2: It is a fascinating case study in how the appellate
33:34
courts attempt to balance the scales when the chaos of
33:37
extreme medical trauma collides with the rigid demands of a
33:40
criminal investigation.
33:42
Speaker 1: We have covered incredible bround today. We navigated a chaotic
33:45
midnight hospital visit that spiraled into a tragedy. We dissected
33:49
the complex pharmacological and physiological timelines that destroyed a patient's
33:53
legal capacity, and we track the subsequent legal battle all
33:57
the way to a landmark Supreme Court ruling that fiercely
33:59
patient physician privilege. A lot to process, it really is.
34:03
But before we wrap up, I want to leave you
34:05
with one final thought to moll Over. It's a question
34:08
that builds on a very brief mention in our source
34:11
material about the rapidly evolving modern environment.
34:14
Speaker 2: We live in, Okay, what is it?
34:16
Speaker 1: Well? The Supreme Court protected Treviso's privacy legally because she
34:20
specifically lacked the chemical and physical capacity to waive her
34:23
rights in that agonizing moment. But as we move into
34:26
an era where hospital hallways, triage bays, and even patient
34:30
rooms are increasingly monitored, by perpetual security systems, AI driven
34:35
audio care logs, and always rolling police body cameras. Oh wow, right,
34:40
Will the legal promise of medical privilege actually matter if
34:44
patients become too terrified of the ever present surveillance state
34:47
to even step foot inside a hospital in the first place.
34:50
Speaker 2: It is a truly chilling question about the future intersection
34:53
of technology and healthcare.
34:54
Speaker 1: Thank you for joining us on this deep dive. Keep
34:57
questioning the world around you, and we'll catch you next time.