Justia Colorado Supreme Court Opinion Summaries

In an interlocutory appeal, the State challenged the trial court's order suppressing statements made by defendant Douglas Thames during a custodial interrogation. Investigators gave defendant an oral Miranda advisement, defendant confirmed that he understood them, and he then signed a written waiver for before making the statements the prosecution wished to use in its case-in-chief. The trial court, relying on a defense expert witness who testified that defendant had difficulty understanding spoken paragraphs concerning abstract ideas, concluded that defendant did not knowingly or intelligently waive his Miranda rights. Reviewing the totality of the circumstances, the Supreme Court concluded that defendant indeed knowingly and intelligently waived his rights. Therefore, the Court reversed the trial court's order. View "Colorado v. Thames" on Justia Law

The Tip Jackwater right was originally decreed to service the Tip Jack Ditch, which is part of a 4,000-acre ranch now owned and operated by the Jim Hutton Educational Foundation. The State and Division 1 Engineers added the Tip Jack water right to the 2010 Revised Decennial Abandonment List for Water Division One because they found that the Foundation had abandoned the right. The Foundation challenged the listing. After trial, the water court concluded that the Engineers had not established by a preponderance that Jim Hutton or the Foundation had failed to use the Tip Jack water right, and even if they had, the Foundation had rebutted the presumption of abandonment. The Engineers appealed. The issue this case presented on appeal for the Supreme Court's review was one of first impression: how the presumption of abandonment applied when the water right holder continued to put decreed water to the use for which it was decreed, but nevertheless failed to divert water from the decreed diversion point for a period of ten years or more. The Supreme Court held that hold that when the Engineers prove that the water right holder has not used the decreed point of diversion for ten years or more, the Engineers trigger the rebuttable presumption of abandonment under C.R.S. section 37-92-402(11).Once triggered, the burden shifts to the water right holder to demonstrate a lack of intent to abandon. Because the water court erroneously believed that proof of nonuse at the decreed point of diversion was insufficient to raise the presumption, it failed to require evidence excusing such nonuse in order to rebut the presumption. The Court therefore reverse the water court’s judgment and remand for reconsideration of whether the Foundation met its burden of rebutting the presumption of abandonment. View "Wolfe v. Jim Hutton Educational Foundation" on Justia Law

Petitioner Joe Anthony Martinez was convicted by jury for first-degree murder after deliberation under a complicity theory. When the court instructed the jury on "after deliberation," it used language that the Supreme Court had previously held as constitutionally deficient. At trial, defense counsel objected to the language on grounds that it was cumulative and unnecessary, but erroneously acknowledged that it correctly stated the law. The trial court overruled the objection and the jury found defendant guilty as charged. On appeal, petitioner raised for the first time the argument that the Supreme Court previously disapproved the definition of "after deliberation" used in the jury instructions, and that the erroneous instruction was so prejudicial as to require reversal as plain error. He also renewed claims that the evidence presented against him was insufficient to sustain his conviction. The court of appeals reviewed the instruction for plain error and ultimately upheld petitioner's conviction. Finding no reversible error in the court of appeal's judgment, the Supreme Court also affirmed. View "Martinez v. Colorado" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was whether several food and beverage concessionaires at the City-owned airport held taxable possessory interests under the test in "Board of County Commissioners v. Vail Associates, Inc.," (19 P.3d 1263 (Colo. 2001)). Relying on "Vail Associates," the City and County of Denver assessed property taxes on the concessionaires' possessory interests in their airport concession spaces. The concessionaires protested the valuation and eventually sued. The court of appeals affirmed, concluding that the concessionaires' interest were taxable under Vail Associates. The Supreme Court also affirmed: the concessionaires' interests were sufficiently exclusive because the concessionaires had the right to exclude others from using their respective concessions spaces; the totality of the circumstances reflected that the concessionaires' revenue-generating capability was independent of the City; and the valuation of the interests was consistent with the General Assembly's possessory interest valuation scheme set forth by statute, and supported by the record. View "Cantina Grill, JV v. City & Cty. of Denver Cty. Bd of Equalization" on Justia Law

The Department of Corrections directly appealed to the Supreme Court the grant of habeas relief to petitioner-appellee Randal Ankeney. Complying with a mandate from the court of appeals (in an earlier appeal), the district court interpreted various statutory provisions regarding good time and earned time credit to require Ankeney's release from prison almost three years before the date calculated by the Department. Because the lower courts erred in their conclusions that for inmates convicted after July 1, 1993, good time credits awarded pursuant to C.R.S. 17-22.5-301 (2014), were to be applied against an inmate's mandatory release date rather than to determine his parole eligibility. The Supreme Court concluded that had the credits been properly applied, Ankeney had not completed service of his required parole term. Therefore, the Supreme Court reversed the district court's order. View "Ankeney v. Raemisch" on Justia Law

In an interlocutory appeal, the State appealed a trial court order to suppress certain statements made by defendant Luis Carrion during a custodial interrogation. Officers gave Carrion an oral Miranda advisement and provided him an English language written advisement on a waiver form, which he later signed. After finding the oral Miranda advisement deficient and that the prosecution presented insufficient evidence Carrion was able to read English, the trial court suppressed the statements made during the interrogation. The prosecution argued that the trial court erred because the factual findings were not supported by the record. Upon review, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that the trial court's factual findings were indeed supported by the record and were not clearly erroneous. Therefore, the Court affirmed the trial court's order. View "Colorado v. Carrion" on Justia Law

The district court declared a vacancy in the Adams County School District 12 Director District 4 school board director position because defendant-appellee Amy Speers was elected but unqualified to serve. An issue arose when the two candidates signed affidavits affirming that they met all the requisite qualifications to hold the office, but unbeknownst to Speers, the School District had redrawn the director districts in 2012, and had placed Speers' home outside of Director District 4. The School District's designated election officer was also unaware that Speers no longer met the residency requirement, and deemed both petitions sufficient. Neither the sufficiency of Speers' petition nor her certification to the ballot was challenged within the five-day window (under C.R.S. 1-4-909(1) (2014)). The election officer's certification of both candidates to the ballot was therefore valid. In a final attempt to effectively withdraw Speers from the election, the Secretary of State issued an emergency rule at the end of the final day of the election that instructed the clerks not to count the ballots cast for Speers. A district court invalidated this rule as incompatible with Colorado's election code, and we upheld that court's decision in "Hanlen v. Gessler," (333 P.3d 41 2014)) because "questions regarding a certified candidate's eligibility [must] be determined by a court, not an election official." On remand, the district court considered plaintiff-appellant Enrico Figueroa's claims that Speers was not eligible to hold office, that the votes cast for her were invalid, and this he was legally elected to the Director District 4 position. The district court concluded that because neither Figueroa nor any other party sought any judicial intervention whatsoever prior to the election, Figueroa had "slept on his rights" and thus Speers had won the election. Regarding Speers, the court found that there was no dispute that she was ineligible to hold the office for which she was elected and because she had not sought to take the oath of office and did not intend to cure the residency defect, her election was voided. The court then declared a vacancy in the Director District 4 position. Figueroa appealed directly to the Colorado Supreme Court. After review, the Supreme Court held that, though Speers was unqualified to serve, no court declared her to be unqualified until after the voting had been completed. In this situation, the legally elected party is the party who receives the most legal votes. Thus, Speers was legally elected because she received the most legal votes, meaning Figueroa was not legally elected. The district court therefore correctly voided her election and declared a vacancy under the provisions of Colorado' selection code, and its judgment was affirmed. View "Figueroa v. Speers" on Justia Law

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals certified a question of Colorado law to the Colorado Supreme Court. An insurer issued a policy that provided directors and officers of a company liability coverage. The policy required the insured to give prompt notice of a claim, specifically, notice "as soon as practicable" after learning of the claim. The policy also required the insured to give notice of the claim by a date certain (not later than 60 days after the expiration of the policy). Near the end of the one-year policy, a company officer was sued for alleged misrepresentations he made during a merger. Unaware of the insurance policy, the officer defended himself against the suit. When he learned of the policy, approximately sixteen months after the policy had expired, he contacted the insurer. The underlying suit was settled. The officer then sued the insurer for denying coverage under the policy. The insurer removed the case to the federal district court, and then moved to dismiss on grounds that the officer's claim was untimely. The issue of Colorado law before the Tenth Circuit centered on the "notice-prejudice" rule to claims-made insurance policies: (1) whether the notice-prejudice rule applied to claims-made liability policies in general; and (2) if so, whether the rule applied to both types of notice requirements in those policies. The Colorado Court answered the certified questions more narrowly than originally presented because the parties agreed that the prompt notice requirement of the claims-made policy in this case was not at issue. The Colorado Court's analysis was restricted to the date-certain notice requirement. The Court held that the notice-prejudice rule did not apply to date-certain notice requirement in a claims-made insurance policy. In a claims-made policy, the date-certain notice defines the scope of coverage ("to excuse late notice in violation of such a requirement would rewrite a fundamental term of the insurance contract.") The Court reframed the certified questions as a single question: whether the notice-prejudice rule applies to the date-certain notice requirement of claims-made policies, to which the Colorado Court answered in the negative. View "Craft v. Phila. Indem. Ins. Co." on Justia Law

Petitioner Eric Doyle appealed the court of appeals' decision to affirm his conviction for violating a condition of his bail bond. At the request of the prosecution, the trial court took judicial notice of the fact that petitioner failed to appear in court on a particular day, as mandated by the bond. Upon review, the Supreme Court found, however, that the trial court had not instructed the jury that the judicially noticed fact was not subject to reasonable dispute and had already been accepted as true by the court. The Court found this error was not harmless, notwithstanding proper admission into evidence of a court record reflecting the court's earlier finding to that effect. The judgment of the court of appeals was reversed, and the case remanded to the trial court for a new trial. View "Doyle v. Colorado" on Justia Law

In an interlocutory appeal, the State sought the Supreme Court's review of a trial court order suppressing marijuana that police discovered in a car registered to and driven by defendant-appellee Ramiro Munoz-Gutierrez. The trial court found that the State did not establish that defendant voluntarily consented to the search of his car. After review, the Supreme Court found that the trial court applied the wrong legal standard, and held that defendant indeed voluntarily consented to the search. Under the totality of the circumstances, the police's conduct did not overbear defendant's exercise of free will. Accordingly, the Court reversed the trial court's suppression order and remanded the case for further proceedings. View "Colorado v. Munoz-Gutierrez" on Justia Law