Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In 2009, Defendant Cirilo Gonzalez-Zamora was arrested for an open container violation in Palm Beach, Florida. A warrant check by local police revealed an outstanding arrest warrant for murder in Colorado for âCirilo Hernandez-Zamora.â Police took Defendant into custody to resolve the discrepancy between the name Defendant gave when arrested in Florida, and the name on the Colorado arrest warrant. At the station, a Spanish-fluent officer read Defendant his Miranda rights in Spanish, and gave Defendant the opportunity to ask for further explanation should anything be unclear. Instead of an audible response, Defendant gave a gesture or facial expression that there were parts of the officerâs advisement he did not understand. When the officer was finished, he received no questions. Defendant signed an advisement card. Defendant was eventually charged with first-degree murder. At trial, Defendant filed a motion to suppress statements he gave in Florida. The trial court granted the motion, asserting that there were âsignificant questionsâ as to whether Defendant waived his Miranda rights knowingly, intelligently and voluntarily. On appeal, the Supreme Court reversed the trial courtâs order suppressing Defendantâs Miranda waiver. The Court found that the non-verbal gestures during Defendantâs advisement indicated that Defendant was aware and that he understood the rights he was waiving. Accordingly, the Court reversed the district court decision.

The district court reversed the county courtâs order to vacate Petitioner Nicanor Sanchez-Martinezâs guilty plea to third degree assault as âunknowing, involuntary and unintelligent.â Petitioner appeared pro se before the county court and pleaded guilty. He was sentenced to probation, and required to complete counseling sessions. Petitioner successfully complied with the terms of his probation, and subsequently the court terminated his sentence. One month following the termination, Petitioner filed a motion with the court that his sentence be set aside in light of new evidence that allegedly negated his guilt. At the hearing, the prosecution elicited testimony from Petitioner that he could not read or write Spanish or English, and was never informed of the constitutional rights he waived by pleading guilty. As a result, the magistrate expressed concern that Petitioner knowingly and voluntarily pleaded guilty. The magistrate informed both parties that he would set the plea aside as unconstitutional. The prosecution then appealed the magistrateâs decision to the district court. The district court reversed the county court, holding that the county court improperly addressed the constitutionality of Petitionerâs plea. The Supreme Court determined that the county court acted within its discretion and found the lower courtâs conclusion was supported by the record. The Court reversed the district courtâs decision and reinstated the county courtâs judgment vacating Petitionerâs guilty plea.

Early in the morning on October, 2009, Pueblo police received a 9-1-1 call from an unidentified caller who asked for assistance on â2143 East Thirteenth Street.â When officers arrived, they discovered there was no such address. Looking for the source of the 9-1-1 call, officers began contacting other addresses on the street. Respondent Frank Glickâs home was one of the addresses the officers checked. The officers asked if they could come inside and speak with the other occupants in the home to make sure they were safe. Respondent said the officers could speak with the other occupants, but he asked the officers to remain outside. When respondent went to find his girlfriend, he left the front door wide open. No lights were on. Without crossing the threshold, officers used flashlights to peer inside the home. They saw drug paraphernalia on a small table. When the girlfriend arrived at the door, officers noticed Respondent near the table with the suspected drugs. They entered the house believing Respondent was trying to destroy the paraphernalia on the tabletop. Officers arrested Respondent. At the hearing, Respondent disputed whether the officers conducted an illegal search of his home by using their flashlights while standing at the threshold to see inside. The trial court found the officers conducted an illegal search, and ordered evidence of the drugs suppressed. The Supreme Court reversed the lower court, holding that the arresting officers did not conduct an illegal search of Respondentâs home when they used their flashlights to observe evidence plainly visible inside Respondentâs home.

The trial court ruling at issue in this case arises out of post-conviction proceedings following the imposition of the death sentence for Robert Ray. Ray was convicted of first degree murder for killing Javad Marshall-Fields, a key prosecution witness, and his fiancée Vivian Wolfe. Leading up to Rayâs trial, his counsel provided him with discovery from which Ray and a co-defendant figured out who the key prosecution witnesses were. On several occasions, Ray tried to arrange to have those witnesses killed. Ray, through associates, made a number of threats against Marshall-Fields and even offered him money not to testify. Marshall-Fields would later die from a âdrive-byâ shooting by one of Rayâs associates. The prosecution placed a large number of witnesses into witness protection. For those witnesses who did not want protection, the prosecution promised to keep their addresses from defense counsel and the defendant to secure their cooperation at trial. The trial court issued protective orders, and set up a procedure where defense counsel could call witnesses from the prosecutionâs office without learning their phone numbers, if the witnesses were willing to be interviewed. A jury convicted Ray of murder and returned a death sentence. Ray appealed the conviction and sentence, arguing the protective order and witness interview procedure violated his constitutional rights to confront witnesses against him. Recognizing that a trial court must balance between the defendantâs right to discovery of key witnesses and the extraordinary threat to witness safety posed by defendantâs murder of another witness, the Supreme Court found that defendantâs rights were not violated in light of the circumstances of the case. The Court held that the trial court abused its discretion when it lifted the protective order and required the prosecution to disclose the addresses of the protected witnesses. The court reversed the trial courtâs disclosure order.