Prosecutors in New Mexico will not be allowed to use bodycam-recorded statements from a teenager accused of placing her newborn in a hospital trash can, after the state’s highest court ruled the remarks are shielded by doctor-patient confidentiality.
In a unanimous decision Thursday, the New Mexico Supreme Court said statements Alexee Trevizo, who was 19 at the time, made in the presence of police while receiving hospital care in 2023 cannot be introduced at her murder trial, People reported.
“I’m sorry, it came out of me. I didn’t know what to do,” Trevizo is heard saying in the footage.
“I was scared,” she said, later telling nurses that “it was not crying or nothing.”
The New Mexico Supreme Court also left in place a Fifth Judicial District Court ruling that hospital surveillance video and police body camera footage showing Trevizo at the medical facility are covered by the same confidentiality protections and are not admissible at trial, according to the outlet.
Prosecutors had argued that conversations involving Trevizo, her mother and hospital staff should be permitted as evidence because officers were present in the room when the exchanges took place.
At the time, police had not read Trevizo her Miranda rights. Still, prosecutors maintained that because her comments were made in front of officers rather than directly in response to police questioning, a Miranda warning was not required.
Trevizo, a high school cheerleader, was undergoing medical treatment when officers entered her hospital room with body cameras recording.
“Despite her unresolved medical crisis, Dr. [Heather] Vaskas, without authorization, ambushed Defendant, bringing with her two armed officers who stood in the doorway of her hospital room, and disclosed her personal medical information to all persons in the room without warning,” the court stated in an opinion written by Justice Michael E. Vigil.
The opinion added that because Trevizo was “not given the opportunity to exclude anyone from the room before Dr. Vaskas discussed her condition in the presence of others,” and was in a “compromised medical condition,” the court “cannot conclude that Defendant’s waiver of her physician-patient privilege was voluntary.”
The now-22-year-old was charged with first-degree murder on May 10, 2023, after her newborn baby was found dead in a hospital trash bin.
Months earlier, on Jan. 27, Trevizo went to the Artesia General Hospital complaining of severe back pain, and hiding her pregnancy from her mother and doctors even as she was actively in labor.
Trevizo is seen in security footage running out of her hospital room toward a hallway bathroom while clutching her bum.
Her mother followed Trevizo toward the bathroom and knocked multiple times but was not allowed in and waited with nurses for around 20 minutes.
Before a nurse was able to unlock the door, Trevizo opened the bathroom door and was found cleaning up a heavy amount of blood on the floor.
Doctors originally thought the bloody mess was from the teen attempting to terminate her pregnancy.
But a custodian sent to clean up the bathroom discovered a newborn baby boy inside the trash that was no longer breathing.
The New Mexico Office of the Medical Investigator later determined the newborn died by homicide.
While Trevizo maintained the baby was stillborn, the district attorney’s office filed charges against Trevizo based on her confession as well as video taken from hospital security cameras that showed the teen coming and going from the bathroom where the newborn was discovered.
Following her arrest, Trevizo was released from jail and permitted to finish the school year without an ankle monitor or house arrest while waiting for trial.
She attended prom and had planned to walk in her high school graduation while awaiting trial, but the school ultimately asked that she not attend the ceremony.
Trevizo was allowed to attend New Mexico State University, where at one point, students launched a petition that amassed over 30,000 signatures demanding she be banned from campus.
It is unclear whether Trevizo is still enrolled at NMSU.
Trevizo’s long-awaited trial has experienced a number of delays as prosecutors continue to fight for the right to use the footage and confessions in court.
