Rolf Hueglin, owner of a New Mexico bakery, lived next door to the victim, a thirty-eight-year-old woman with Down's Syndrome. One day, Hueglin invited her to his bakery to watch him prepare Easter specialties. What should have been a simple demonstration on the making of these holiday treats eventually turned into a discussion about giving and receiving back massages. The walk from the bakery after the demonstration took the two to Hueglin's house. Their accounts of what followed contrast widely.

The victim testified that Hueglin hit her from behind and then gave her a “forceful, painful massage.” She alleged that she tried to stop Hueglin, but that he severely beat and then sexually assaulted her. A nurse who later conducted a forensic examination on the victim found a laceration in her genital area consistent with digital penetration of the vagina. However, she failed to find any evidence of the beating the victim claimed to have received.

Hueglin, meanwhile, maintained that the victim lay down on the floor and, after observing that she was sexually excited, he helped remove her pants. Nothing in his testimony suggests that the victim tried to end the encounter. Nevertheless, Hueglin was indicted on seven charges, ranging from kidnapping to varying degrees of criminal sexual penetration.

Before trial, the prosecution and defense filed a series of motions regarding the admissibility of the victim's prior sexual history, whether her testimony could be taken via videotape, and whether Ned Siegel, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist, would be allowed to testify about her capacity to consent to have sex or that she was incapable of lying. The trial court ruled in the State's favor, barring the introduction of the victim's prior sexual history, and allowing for both the videotaped testimony and for Dr. Siegel to testify. The court left the window open, however, for Hueglin to introduce evidence of the victim's history to the extent it might relate to the issue of consent. And though Dr. Siegel could testify, he would do so subject to objections raised at trial.

A jury ultimately found Hueglin guilty of three charges: criminal sexual penetration in the second, third and fourth degrees.

Still Qualified Eighteen Years Later

Hueglin appealed to the New Mexico Court of Appeals, claiming that the trial court abused its discretion in a variety of ways: by adjudging Dr. Siegel qualified to testify regarding the victim's mental capacity, and that this testimony assisted the jury; by allowing Siegel to testify without the State establishing the scientific validity of his opinion; by letting the victim testify despite being incompetent; and by not giving the defense the chance to inquire into the victim's prior sexual history.

The Court of Appeals ruled against Hueglin on every issue. In regards to Siegel's credentials, the Court stated that a trial court has “broad discretion” in ruling on an expert's qualifications. Dr. Siegel conceded that although he had extensive clinical experience with developmentally disabled people in general (and persons with Down's Syndrome, in particular), his last eighteen years did not focus on this area. However, Siegel testified that the “accepted principles of psychological testing and competency applicable to those with Down Syndrome had not changed over that time.” Noting that the defense offered no expert testimony to counter this, the Court ruled that the trial court did not abuse its discretion.

The Court further held that Siegel's testimony fulfilled the NMRA Rule 11-702 requirement to assist the jury. One of Hueglin's arguments on this point was that the victim's ability to comprehend the nature of the sexual acts was within the grasp of a layperson. The court noted that expert testimony is not automatically excluded merely because it overlaps an area of knowledge within the jury's understanding. Furthermore, it held that Dr. Siegel’s trial was helpful to the jury's understanding of how Down's Syndrome affected the victim's mental capacity. “Although some—if not most—of the jurors were likely to have been familiar with the term ‘Down Syndrome,'” wrote the Court, “we doubt that a typical juror would have had the detailed information about the effects of Down Syndrome provided by Dr. Siegel’s testimony.”

As to whether the State established the scientific validity of the Stanford-Binet test (which Dr. Siegel employed to determine the victim's mental capacity), the Court found that the defense failed to preserve the argument for appeal. By finding nothing in the record that would have fairly alerted the trial court to this argument, the Court held that the defendant waived this claim of error by failing to state the specific ground of objection.

She Understood “Big Trouble”

Regarding the victim's competency to testify, the Court noted that the question of competency is more commonly one of credibility. It stated that a trial court ensures that witnesses meet a “minimum standard regarding the matters on which they will testify.” Dr. Siegel testified that the victim's mental capacity was not much higher than that of a six-year old, but that she “would have and does have a concrete simple understanding of the difference between a truth and a lie.” Furthermore, the victim herself testified that she understood she could be in “big trouble” if she were to lie, and that she would tell the truth. This passed muster with the Court, which decided that the trial court properly found the minimum standard had been met.

Lastly, the defense argued that the trial court was incorrect in denying inquiry into the victim's prior sexual history. The rationale of this argument was that the defendant wanted to inquire into an earlier rape because counsel believed that the victim was “somehow recalling the violence of that rape and applying it to her encounter with Defendant.”

The Court of Appeals stated that there was “no indication in the record that Defendant presented this argument in a manner that would have fairly alerted the trial court to Defendant's intention to use the evidence of the earlier rape incident for this specific purpose.” Absent expert testimony explaining how a prior experience would affect the victim's recollection of her encounter with Hueglin, the Court asserted that the defense would merely be inviting the jury to speculate. In addition, the Court found that the defense was permitted to inquire about the victim's relationship with a boyfriend, but he never attempted to enlarge on this point when the boyfriend was referred to at trial. As the Court stated, “Defendant was not precluded from developing this line of questioning; rather, he simply never pursued it.”

It seems fair to ask whether the outcome of the appeal (and earlier trial) would have been different had defense counsel not made some crucial errors. Had counsel properly developed certain lines of questioning and/or reserved the aforementioned claim of error for appeal, and—most importantly—used an expert witness, he or she could have attacked Siegel's method of measuring the victim's capacity, or even shown that he was not sufficiently qualified as an expert.

Conclusion: Conviction affirmed.