A high school cheerleader, Alexee Trevizo, was charged with first-degree murder for dumping her newborn baby in a trash can at the hospital. Now, the New Mexico Fifth Judicial Court concluded that her confession and video footage from the hospital were not admissible proof, so she may be able to avoid any criminal charges.
As per the court, all the statements made by the accused from the hospital bed, including the surveillance video and body cam recordings, are not admissible in court. The footage conflicts with the doctor-client privilege. This goes against the case built by the prosecution against the accused while they are filing an amicus brief with the Supreme Court.
According to them, the conversation between the medical staff, the accused, and her mother should be admissible in court. Meanwhile, the defense team has argued Miranda’s rights were not read to her before she engaged in the conversation.
Assistant Solicitor General Michael Thomas has argued that police were not interviewing her, so they did not need to read the Miranda rights. Moreover, she waived her privileges as she made statements in the presence of law enforcement agents and her mother.
Surveillance footage from January 2023 shows Alexee Trevizo going into the bathroom to give birth. She then allegedly dumped the child in a trash can and left him to die.
Prosecutors claim that she strangled the baby to death, basing their theory on the fact that the baby had… pic.twitter.com/m5Zxkajj3v
— Morbid Knowledge (@Morbidful) June 28, 2024
Trevizo’s mother was unaware of her pregnancy until she gave birth. The defense lawyers have argued successfully that her rights were violated when law enforcement agents walked into the hospital room while she was getting treatment.
The brief explains she was not restrained or under arrest, so she could leave the room and not answer any questions. The justice argued that she could have known this beforehand, given that several armed police officers were standing outside the hospital room.
The only thing admissible is the hospital staff alerting the police about the crime. This may change once the Supreme Court ruling comes. The defense lawyer claims the change in ruling will impact the privacy laws on people who go for medical treatment.
Woman charged with 1st degree murder after throwing her newborn baby into a hospital’s trash bag. pic.twitter.com/ZR5kZYLmHV
— Censored Men (@CensoredMen) May 18, 2023
Trevizo was 19 when she went to the hospital for treatment of severe back pain on Jan. 27, 2023, and the staff gave her morphine while running tests. She went to the bathroom, where she delivered and dumped the baby but said nothing to the staff.
A cleaning crew reported having found the baby in the trash. The accused allegedly said, “I’m sorry, it came out of me, I didn’t know what to do.” She suspected it was stillborn, and the baby died because of morphine, while the reports say the baby was strangled and died of hypoxia.
After the findings were inconsistent, she was arrested on May 10, 2023, and got pretrial release while also being allowed to attend college.
