Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

The Colorado Supreme Court granted review in two cases to determine what remedy is appropriate for juvenile defendants who were given sentences that would be unconstitutional under the federal Supreme Court's decision in "Miller v. Alabama," (132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012)). The issue in a third case centered on whether that remedy applies retroactively. Tenarro Banks and Michael Quinn Tate, were convicted in 2004 of class 1 felonies for acts committed when they were juveniles. Tate was convicted of felony murder for the stabbing death of a friend's father during a burglary when Tate was sixteen. Banks was convicted of first degree murder for shooting another teenager outside of a house party when he was fifteen. Under the sentencing scheme in place at the time, which governed offenses committed between 1990 and 2006, both Banks and Tate were given mandatory sentences to life in prison without the possibility of parole ("LWOP"). While both cases were pending on appeal to the court of appeals, the Supreme Court released its opinion in "Miller." The Miller decision rendered the Colorado statutory scheme for mandatory LWOP in place between 1990 and 2006 unconstitutional as applied to juveniles, including Tate and Banks. The Colorado Court determined that the state legislature had not acted to adopt a new sentencing scheme in light of Miller. The Court therefore remanded these cases for such a determination: if the trial court should determine, after an individualized sentencing process, that LWOP was not warranted, the appropriate sentence (in the absence of legislative action) was life in prison with the possibility of parole after forty years ("LWPP"). This was the sentence that was in place both before and after the mandatory LWOP scheme at issue in this case—that is, before 1990 and after 2006. Eric Jensen was convicted in 1998 of first degree murder for helping a friend kill the friend's mother and dispose of the body. He committed this crime when he was seventeen. Under the sentencing scheme in place at the time, Jensen was given a mandatory sentence to LWOP. On direct appeal, the court of appeals affirmed the judgment. The Colorado Court denied Jensen's certiorari petition, and the judgment became final. Jensen later filed two Crim.P. 35(c) motions for post-conviction relief, the second of which was at issue here: the trial court denied the motion, and Jensen appealed to the court of appeals. While that appeal was pending, the Supreme Court released Miller. Jensen moved for post-conviction relief in light of Miller. The issue Jensen's case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review was whether Miller's holding was retroactive to Jensen's case. The Court concluded that the new rule announced in Miller was procedural, rather than substantive, in nature, and that therefore it did not apply retroactively. The Court therefore affirmed the trial court's order denying his motion for post-conviction relief. View "Colorado v. Tate" on Justia Law

The Douglas County School District implemented its Choice Scholarship Pilot Program (CSP), a program that awarded taxpayer-funded scholarships to qualifying elementary, middle, and high school students. Those students could use their scholarships to help pay their tuition at partnering private schools, including religious schools. Following a lawsuit from Douglas County taxpayers, the trial court found that the CSP violated the Public School Finance Act of 1994, as well as various provisions of the Colorado Constitution. The trial court permanently enjoined implementation of the CSP. The court of appeals reversed, holding that: (1) Petitioners lacked standing to sue under the Act; and (2)the CSP did not violate the Colorado Constitution. The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine whether the CSP comported with both the Act and the Colorado Constitution. After review, the Court held that Petitioners lacked standing to challenge the CSP under the Act. Further, the CSP violated article IX, section 7 of the Colorado Constitution. Accordingly, the Court reversed the court of appeals' judgment and remanded the case to that court with instructions to remand back to the trial court so that the trial court could reinstate its order permanently enjoining the CSP. View "Taxpayers for Public Education v. Douglas Cty. Sch. Dist." on Justia Law

The trial court completely closed the courtroom during the testimony of two undercover officers in respondent Omer Hassen's trial. The Colorado Supreme Court granted review of this case to determine whether this closure constituted structural error. The Court concluded that the closure violated respondent's Sixth Amendment right to a public trial, rejecting the State's argument that the closure was so trivial that it did not implicate respondent's constitutional rights. View "Colorado v. Hassen" on Justia Law

In 2009, a jury found defendant Kevin Elmarr guilty of first degree murder for strangling his ex-wife. In an unpublished decision, the court of appeals reversed Elmarr’s conviction and remanded for a new trial, concluding that the trial court erred by excluding evidence of two alternate suspects Before the new trial, the State moved to exclude evidence of similar acts by one of those alternate suspects, as well as out-of-court statements made by that alternate suspect implicating himself in both the other similar acts and the charged crime. The trial court, relying largely on the court of appeals’ decision remanding the case, denied the State's motion. The State appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing that the trial court failed on remand to conduct the proper analysis to determine the admissibility of the alternate suspect evidence, in particular, evidence of other similar acts committed by the alternate suspect and statements made by the alternate suspect to law enforcement. The State contended that this area of the law has generated considerable confusion and asked the Supreme Court to clarify the proper framework for examining the admissibility of such evidence. Upon review, the Court agreed with the State that the trial court failed to conduct the proper analysis and thus make absolute our rule to show cause. The trial court understood the court of appeals’ decision remanding the case to require admission of the alternate suspect However, the court of appeals applied an incorrect framework for analyzing the admissibility of alternate suspect evidence. The Court used the opportunity of this opinion to set forth the proper framework, and remanded this case back to the trial court for further proceedings. View "In re Colorado v. Elmarr" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on how both trial and appellate courts should determine whether a party has used a peremptory challenge to purposefully discriminate against a prospective juror on account of her race, in violation of the U.S. Supreme Court’s rule in "Batson v. Kentucky," (476 U.S. 79 (1986)). The State charged respondent Romielo Rodriguez with three counts of felony menacing after his neighbors alleged that he and a co-defendant pointed guns at them during a dispute. Rodriguez pled not guilty, and his trial began in August 2009. During jury selection, the prosecutor used his first peremptory strike to excuse Ms. D., a black woman. Rodriguez raised a Batson objection, but the juror was excused nonetheless. Rodriguez raised another Batson objection when the prosecutor used his second peremptory strike to excuse Ms. A., who has a Hispanic surname. On her juror questionnaire, Ms. A. had stated that she was affiliated with a church. Ms. A. was also dismissed. The prosecution exercised three more peremptory challenges, and Rodriguez used all six available to him. The trial court denied Rodriguez' Batson-challenged jurors for lack of a pattern of strikes against members of a cognizable racial group. The court of appeals reversed Rodriguez’s convictions and ordered a new trial because it held that the trial court clearly erred by denying Rodriguez’s Batson challenges for failure to show a pattern of discrimination. The Colorado Court granted the State's petition for certiorari to review the court of appeals’ decision to reverse Rodriguez’s convictions and order a new trial. After review, the Court reversed, holding that the proper remedy for an inadequate inquiry into a Batson challenge at the time of jury selection was to remand the case to the trial court with directions to conduct the three-part Batson analysis and make the required factual findings. An inadequate Batson inquiry occurs when the trial court’s findings are insufficient to determine whether the opponent of the peremptory strike has proved that the proponent used the strike to purposefully discriminate against prospective jurors at issue. The case was remanded for the trial court to conduct the three-part Batson analysis. View "Colorado v. Rodriguez" on Justia Law

After entry of a guilty verdict, defense counsel obtained juror affidavits suggesting that one of the jurors exhibited racial bias against the defendant during deliberations. The trial court refused to consider these affidavits, finding that Colorado Rule of Evidence ("CRE") 606(b) barred their admission, and the court of appeals affirmed. The Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether CRE 606(b) applied to such affidavits and, if so, whether the Sixth Amendment nevertheless required their admission. After review, the Court concluded that the affidavits regarding the juror's biased statements fell within the broad sweep of CRE606(b) and that they did not satisfy the rule's "extraneous prejudicial information" exception. Furthermore, the Court held that the trial court's application of CRE 606(b) did not violate the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to an impartial jury. Accordingly, the Court affirmed the court of appeals' judgment. View "Pena-Rodriguez v. Colorado" on Justia Law

Shortly before the 2011 election, the Chaffee County Clerk and Recorder received a Colorado Open Records Act (CORA) request from Marilyn Marks for access to voted paper ballots from the 2010 general election. Because the Clerk believed that Colorado law prohibited disclosing voted ballots, and because Marks requested the ballots within twenty days of an upcoming election, the Clerk filed an action in district court under section 24-72-204(6)(a) seeking an order prohibiting or restricting disclosure of the ballots. Before the district court ruled on the merits of the Clerk's request, however, the General Assembly enacted section 24-72-205.5, C.R.S. (2014), providing that voted ballots are subject to CORA and describing the process by which records custodians must make them available. The Clerk then produced a single voted ballot for Marks to inspect, and the parties agreed that the only remaining issue in the case was whether Marks was entitled to costs and attorney fees. The Supreme Court held that where an official custodian sought an order prohibiting or restricting disclosure under section 24-72-204(6)(a), a prevailing records request or is entitled to costs and attorney fees in accordance with section 24-72-204(5). "Under section 24-72-204(5), a prevailing records requestor is entitled to costs and attorney fees unless the district court finds that the denial of the right of inspection was proper. Here, the district court's order reflects that the Clerk's denial of Marks' request was proper. Consequently, Marks is not entitled to attorney fees in this case." The Court reversed the judgment of the court of appeals holding to the contrary. View "Reno v. Marks" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on a series of questions arising under the Colorado Sex Offender Lifetime Supervision Act ("the LSA") which established indeterminate sentencing for felony sex offenses. Specifically, the Court addressed whether a minimum sentence in the aggravated range on a conviction for sexual assault on a child–pattern of abuse is legal when there is no explicit finding of aggravating circumstances. The Court also addressed three related procedural questions: is the prosecution authorized to appeal a legal sentence entered on resentencing?; if a defendant received an illegal sentence on one count, does Crim. P. 35(a) entitle him to resentencing on other counts with legal sentences?; If not, does Crim. P. 35(b)nonetheless authorize a resentencing court to reconsider and reduce the defendant's legal sentences? The Court held: (1) when a conviction is for a sex offense that requires sentencing in accordance with the mandatory sentencing statute, the prosecution is not required to prove aggravating circumstances to support a bottom-end sentence in the aggravated range; (2) the prosecution here is authorized to appeal the post-conviction court's ruling on the defendant's Rule35(a) motion because it challenged the legal basis for the range the post-conviction court used to impose the sentence; (3)under Crim. P. 35(a), the illegality of a sentence on one count does not entitle a defendant to resentencing on other counts with legal sentences; and(4) if a sentence is subject to correction on one count, Crim. P. 35(b) authorized a resentencing court to reconsider and reduce the legal sentences as to all counts after it has corrected the entire sentence. View "Hunsaker v. Colorado" on Justia Law

The issue this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was the narrow question of whether the trial court's improper admission of unfairly prejudicial 404(b) evidence offered to establish the defendant's intent in a single count warranted reversing defendant Armando Perez' two remaining convictions. The trial court allowed 404(b) evidence for the limited purpose of showing Perez's intent to commit sexual assault or unlawful sexual contact upon a child for the count of enticement of a child. In so doing, it excluded the jury's use of the 404(b) evidence for any element for the two remaining counts, sexual assault on a child and second-degree kidnapping. On appeal, the court of appeals concluded that the trial court abused its discretion when it allowed the evidence and that the error was not harmless, and reversed the enticement conviction. The court of appeals, however, affirmed the defendant's sexual assault and kidnapping convictions because it presumed that the jury followed the limiting instructions not to consider the evidence for any element of those two counts. The State did not appeal the court of appeals' ruling that the trial court erred in admitting the 404(b) evidence. After review of Perez' arguments on appeal, the Supreme Court concluded the trial court abused its discretion in admitting 404(b) evidence of Perez's prior bad acts for a single count, and that the error was not harmless as to the convictions on the two remaining counts. The Court therefore vacated Perez's convictions for sexual assault on a child and second-degree kidnapping and remanded to the court of appeals with instructions to return the case to the trial court for further proceedings. View "Perez v. Colorado" on Justia Law

The State argued on appeal to the Supreme Court that the trial court erred in ruling that "Miller v. Alabama," (132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012)) applied retroactively to cases on collateral review of a final judgment. Defendant Frank Vigil, Jr. Filed a Crim. P. 35(c) motion for post-conviction relief of his final judgment, arguing that his sentence was unconstitutional under "miller." The trial court applied "Miller" retroactively and granted his motion. The Supreme Court held that "Miller" did not apply retroactively, and reversed. View "Colorado v. Vigil" on Justia Law