Editor’s Note: Law Week Colorado edits court opinion summaries for style and, when necessary, length.
In re: People v. Richard Lewis
Richard Lewis was convicted of misdemeanor offenses in county court. At sentencing, the court found that Lewis posed a danger to the community and therefore denied his request for an appeal bond.
The Colorado Supreme Court granted Lewis’s request for an order to show cause. Lewis argued that the county court erred by relying on Section 16-4-201.5(2) of state law to deny his appeal bond request. Instead, he argued, his county court appeal and his bond request are governed by Section 16-2-114(6).
Specifically, he contended that under the state Supreme Court Court’s 2014 decision in People v. Steen, the county court was required under Section 16-2-114(6) to stay the execution of his sentence and grant him an appeal bond.
The high court disagreed.
It noted Steen addressed stays of execution in county court appeals. But clarified it didn’t address bail, which is a separate consideration.
The state Supreme Court concluded that the county court didn’t err by relying on 16-4-201.5, nor did it abuse its discretion by denying Lewis’s request for an appeal bond. It reasoned the county court can’t grant a defendant an appeal bond after it has found a convicted defendant poses a danger to an individual or community.
The court discharged the order to show cause.
Police questioned Rachel Niemeyer in an interrogation room at the police station after her husband suffered a gunshot wound to the head. Niemeyer made incriminating statements during the interrogation, according to the opinion. After the People charged her with murdering her husband, Niemeyer moved to suppress these statements, arguing that they were obtained in violation of Miranda v. Arizona.
The trial court denied her motion to suppress, determining that she wasn’t in custody when she made the statements. A jury convicted Niemeyer of second-degree murder and other offenses.
After the court of appeals affirmed, the Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to determine if Niemeyer was in custody when she was questioned by police.
Due to a number of factors like the placement of bags on Niemeyer’s hands and prevention of her removal of the bags, the high court held that Niemeyer was in custody for Miranda purposes when she was interrogated at the police station. It reversed the judgment of the Court of Appeals and remanded the case.
Police officers questioned Terrence Eugene about his suspected involvement in a road-rage incident. The officers didn’t inform Eugene of his rights under Miranda v. Arizona.
At trial, the prosecution introduced Eugene’s statements into evidence and a jury convicted him of second- and third-degree assault. A division of the Colorado Court of Appeals reversed Eugene’s convictions, concluding that his statements to the officers were the product of an unconstitutional custodial interrogation.
The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that Eugene wasn’t in custody for Miranda purposes and reversed the judgment. The high court found the encounter was short, Eugene never tried to terminate the encounter and he didn’t seem to be distressed or intimidated.
Dan Hamilton v. Amazon.com Services
This case required the Colorado Supreme Court to answer this certified question of law from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals: Whether Colorado law includes or excludes holiday incentive pay from the calculation of “[r]egular rate of pay.”
The high court concluded that Colorado law includes holiday incentive pay in the calculation of the “regular rate of pay.”
Jamie Bock was charged with nine counts of theft for conduct that occurred between November 2014 and November 2016, under a provision of the theft statute that punishes single acts of theft. Although proof of aggregation is only required under a different portion of the theft statute, the trial court instructed the jury that Bock could not be convicted of four of those counts unless the prosecution proved that multiple acts of theft had been committed within six months of each other.
Bock argued that this jury instruction resulted in an impermissible, constructive amendment of his charge. He also argued that the constructive amendment constituted a structural error requiring reversal.
The Colorado Supreme Court agreed on the first point; the erroneous jury instruction was a constructive amendment of the charge.
But it disagreed that the constructive amendment was a structural error requiring automatic reversal. Instead, the court reviewed the constructive amendment for plain error.
The high court concluded that Bock didn’t satisfy his burden for reversal because he received sufficient notice of the amendment to mount a defense, and the People’s burden of proof was not materially lessened so as to categorically prejudice Bock.
It affirmed the Colorado Court of Appeals’ decision and upheld Bock’s convictions.
The Colorado Supreme Court considered whether a division of the Colorado Court of Appeals misapplied the clear error standard of review by failing to afford any deference to the trial court’s ultimate ruling at step three of the analysis prescribed by Batson v. Kentucky in 1986. Because the division second-guessed the trial court’s step-three decision to credit the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason, the Supreme Court concluded the division erred.
Relying on the Colorado Supreme Court’s 2017 decision in People v. Beauvais, the division determined that the trial court’s decision to credit the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason — that prospective juror F appeared disinterested — was clear error because that reason was neither accompanied by a specific factual justification (like identification of the actual observed behavior on which it was based) not supported by objective evidence confirming that it was true or accurate, but Beauvais doesn’t support that proposition.
Instead, the high court noted Beauvais says that, to withstand clear error review at step three, the record both must reflect that the trial court considered all the relevant circumstances and must support (including possibly through implicit demeanor and credibility findings) the trial court’s ultimate ruling regarding whether the objecting party has met the burden of showing purposeful racial discrimination.
The state Supreme Court noted the division compounded its misapprehension of Beauvais by misconstruing the record. Contrary to the division’s conclusion, the high court asserted the record is not devoid of support for the trial court’s decision to credit the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason. Rather, the record reflects that the trial court implicitly found the prosecutor credible and her race-neutral reason sincere.
Going a step further still, the division concluded that a comment by the trial court actually undermined the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason. But the high court found the comment in question cannot be fairly characterized as an “explicit finding” (or any type of finding) undermining the prosecutor’s race-neutral reason.
Inasmuch as the record both reflects that the trial court considered all the relevant circumstances and supports the ultimate Batson ruling at step three, the state Supreme Court found the division incorrectly held that the trial court committed clear error.
The division’s judgment was reversed and the case was remanded.