Justia Criminal Law Opinion Summaries

An eyewitness saw an SUV crash and a woman exit the driver’s-side door and immediately flee from the vehicle. Inside the SUV, police officers found several items that belonged to Yolanda Vialpando. The police began investigating Vialpando, and the eyewitness identified her as the suspect with 75% certainty. The prosecution charged Vialpando with various crimes connected to the incident, and ultimately, a jury convicted Vialpando as charged. She appealed, contending, as relevant here, that the prosecutor’s statements in closing argument about flight were an improper comment on her exercising her Sixth Amendment right to a jury trial and that the cumulative impact of numerous errors deprived her of a fair trial. A split division of the court of appeals agreed and reversed her conviction. The Colorado Supreme Court concluded that the prosecutor's comments, made during closing argument, were not error. Further, the Court concluded there was no cumulative error. The court of appeals was reversed and the case remanded for further consideration of the remaining issues. View "Colorado v. Vialpando" on Justia Law

Defendant Christopher Magana started a fire that engulfed two cars and a duplex. A jury found defendant guilty of eighteen counts of arson, including two counts of first degree arson, each of which the prosecution had charged as a crime of violence (“COV”) based on Magana’s use of “fire and accelerant” as a deadly weapon. The jury also found that both counts of first degree arson involved the use of a deadly weapon. But at sentencing, the trial court surmised that the jury had reached its sentence-enhancement finding based on fire alone, and refused to sentence Magana under the COV statute. A division of the court of appeals affirmed the convictions, but it concluded that the trial court should have imposed the COV enhancer. On appeal, Magana argued: (1) his eighteen convictions are multiplicitous, and that the controlling unit of prosecution for all forms of arson was the act of starting a fire or causing an explosion—rather than the number of buildings torched, property burned, or people endangered—and, therefore, he should have been convicted on just three counts (one count for each of the categories of harm); and (2) the Colorado General Assembly didn’t intend fire to serve as both a constituent element of first degree arson and a basis for COV sentence enhancement. The Colorado Supreme Court held: (1) the unit of prosecution under the first-, second-, and fourth- degree-arson statutes was, respectively, each building or occupied structure damaged or destroyed, each person’s property (other than a building or occupied structure) damaged or destroyed, and each person endangered; and (2) fire alone was not a deadly weapon for the purpose of prosecuting first degree arson as a COV. View "Magana v. Colorado" on Justia Law

In September 2016, a Best Buy employee found defendant Palmer Gilbert sitting in another employee’s vehicle in the store’s parking lot. When the employee confronted him, Gilbert got out of the car and began swinging a knife at the employee. Gilbert fled on foot, then attempted to carjack multiple people at knifepoint. On his third attempt, Gilbert stole a vehicle and, shortly thereafter, ran a red light and caused a collision. Gilbert fled the scene of the accident on foot, stole a truck from a nearby restaurant, and drove away. The stolen truck was later discovered in Cheyenne, Wyoming, where police took Gilbert into custody. In connection with these events, the State of Colorado charged Gilbert with ten counts, including aggravated robbery, second degree assault, first degree aggravated motor vehicle theft, second degree criminal trespass, careless driving, and leaving the scene of an accident. Gilbert posted bond and was released in December 2016. He immediately absconded but was apprehended and arraigned approximately one year later, on December 7, 2017. The issues this case presented for the Colorado Supreme Court was : (1) whether defense counsel established good cause under section 16-8-107(3)(b), C.R.S. (2021), for providing untimely notice of intent to introduce evidence of the defendant’s mental condition; and (2) whether the court of appeals erred in remanding this case for further findings under Colorado v. Brown, 322 P.3d 214 (2014). The Supreme Court found the trial court erred in requiring defendant establish good cause before discharging his retained counsel, and the trial court abused its discretion in denying defendant’s motion for a continuance, thereby violating his Sixth Amendment right to counsel of choice. The appeals court was affirmed in part, vacated in part, and the matter remanded for further proceedings. View "Colorado v. Gilbert" on Justia Law

In January 2021, the Northern Colorado Drug Task Force (“NCDTF”) received an anonymous tip that claimed two residents of a home in Berthoud were dealing a variety of drugs, including methamphetamine. Marcelo Moreno left the house, driving to a truck stop. A patrol car followed Moreno into the truck stop parking lot and parked in a far corner where the officer could observe Moreno from a distance. Moreno and a woman went into the truck stop, returned to sit in the vehicle for a short time, and then drove to another part of the parking area. At no point did they pump gas. A short while later, another surveilling officer, still back at the residence, witnessed a husband and wife leave the house in their SUV. The officer followed the couple to the truck stop where Moreno was waiting. The couple pulled in next to Moreno, who exited his own truck carrying a black backpack and got into the backseat of the couple’s SUV, and the three drove off together. The second officer in the patrol car then stopped the SUV on suspicion of drug trafficking activity. In this interlocutory appeal of a suppression order, the issue presented for the Colorado Supreme Court's review centered on whether the trial court erred when it found that the police lacked reasonable articulable suspicion to support an investigatory stop. The Court held that under the totality of the circumstances, the officers had reasonable suspicion to conduct the stop. The Court therefore reversed the trial court’s order suppressing evidence obtained from the search and remanded for further proceedings. View "Colorado v. Moreno" on Justia Law

In November 2017, Saul Cisneros was charged with two misdemeanor offenses and jailed. The court set Cisneros’s bond at $2,000, and Cisneros’s daughter posted that bond four days later, but the County Sheriff’s Office did not release him. Instead, pursuant to Sheriff Bill Elder’s policies and practices, the Sheriff’s Office notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) that the jail had been asked to release Cisneros on bond. ICE then sent the jail a detainer and administrative warrant, requesting that the jail continue to detain Cisneros because ICE suspected that he was removable from the United States. Cisneros was placed on an indefinite “ICE hold,” and remained in detention. During his detention, Cisneros, along with another pretrial detainee, initiated a class action in state court against Sheriff Elder, in his official capacity, for declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief. The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the appellate court erred in concluding that section 24-10-106(1.5)(b), C.R.S. (2021), of the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (“CGIA”) did not waive sovereign immunity for intentional torts that result from the operation of a jail for claimants who were incarcerated but not convicted. The Supreme Court concluded section 24-10-106(1.5)(b) waived immunity for such intentional torts. "In reaching this determination, we conclude that the statutory language waiving immunity for 'claimants who are incarcerated but not yet convicted' and who 'can show injury due to negligence' sets a floor, not a ceiling. To hold otherwise would mean that a pre-conviction claimant could recover for injuries resulting from the negligent operation of a jail but not for injuries resulting from the intentionally tortious operation of the same jail, an absurd result that we cannot countenance." Accordingly, the judgment of the division below was reversed and the case remanded for further proceedings. View "Cisneros v. Elder" on Justia Law

The State asked the Colorado Supreme Court to reverse the trial court’s suppression order and remand the case to allow them to make additional arguments supporting the warrantless seizure of defendant-appellee Joe Ramos’s cell phone on the theory that they did not have specific notice that the seizure of the phone was at issue. After review of the trial court record, the Supreme Court found no reversible error in the trial court's suppression order and affirmed. View "Colorado v. Ramos" on Justia Law

In December 2018, Alfred Moreno repeatedly emailed his ex-wife, E.M. He asked to see his children, but he also made a series of disparaging and vulgar comments about her. E.M. told Moreno to stop contacting her. Undeterred, Moreno posted the following on Facebook: “To whom ever is fkng [E.M.] in my friends list. Will you please tell her to have my kids call me asap. You can have her and the STD[.] I just want my kids to contact me. And remember that you are not there [sic] father okay. Thanks homies[.]” Moreno was charged with: (1) harassment under section 18-9-111(1)(e), a class three misdemeanor; and (2) habitual domestic violence under section 18-6-801(7), C.R.S. (2021), a class five felony. Moreno moved to dismiss the harassment charge, arguing that subsection (1)(e) is unconstitutionally overbroad and vague, both facially and as applied to him, in violation of the freedom-of-speech provisions in the United States and Colorado constitutions. The district court concluded that the phrase “intended to harass” in section 18-9-111(1)(e), C.R.S. (2021), unconstitutionally restricted protected speech. The Colorado Supreme Court agreed that this provision was substantially overbroad on its face and thus affirmed the order. View "Colorado v. Moreno" on Justia Law

Jared Cortes-Gonzalez entered into a global disposition that required him to plead guilty in four felony cases, including two in which he faced complaints to revoke his probation. The plea agreement indicated that, while the sentences would be within the court’s discretion, the cumulative prison term would not exceed twenty years. Two weeks later, Cortes-Gonzalez filed a “Motion to Consider 35-C,” alleging that his attorney (the “public defender”) had provided ineffective assistance by failing to accurately advise him of the plea agreement’s potential punishment. In April 2021, alternate defense counsel submitted a supplemental Crim. P. 35(c) motion. The prosecution asked the district court to issue an order finding a “waiver of all confidential attorney-client privileges or relationships affected by the pursuit” of the Crim. P. 35(c) ineffective assistance claim. The court granted the motion, and the prosecution served an subpoena duces tecum (“SDT”) on the public defender to compel the production records in her possession related to Cortes-Gonzalez’s four cases. The public defender objected to the SDT. The issue presented to the Colorado Supreme Court in this case related to the attorney-client privilege in the context of ineffective assistance of counsel. The Supreme Court held: (1) whenever a defendant alleges ineffective assistance of counsel, the defendant automatically waives the attorney-client privilege, as well as any other confidentiality, between counsel and the defendant, but only with respect to the information that is related to the ineffective assistance claim; (2) the procedures set forth in Crim. P. 35(c)(3)(V) in no way modify section 18-1-417, C.R.S. (2021); (3) it is improper for prosecutors to request an order or use a Crim. P. 17 subpoena duces tecum (“SDT”) to attempt to access the confidential information covered by section 18-1-417(1); and (4) the prosecution doesn’t have an inherent right to an in camera review of the allegedly ineffective counsel’s case file - even if the purpose of the review is to ensure that all the information subject to the waiver will be produced. After any in camera review, the court must disclose to the prosecution claim-related information not previously produced. View "In re Colorado v. Cortes- Gonzalez" on Justia Law

In November 2017, Saul Cisneros was charged with two misdemeanor offenses and jailed. The court set Cisneros’s bond at $2,000, and Cisneros’s daughter posted that bond four days later, but the El Paso County Sheriff’s Office did not release Cisneros. Instead, the Sheriff’s Office notified U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) that the jail had been asked to release Cisneros on bond. ICE then sent the jail a detainer and administrative warrant, requesting that the jail continue to detain Cisneros because ICE suspected that he was removable from the United States. Cisneros was then placed on an indefinite “ICE hold,” and remained detained. The jail subsequently advised Cisneros’s daughter that the Sheriff’s Office would not release her father due to the ICE hold, and she ultimately recovered the bond money that she had posted. During his detention, Cisneros, along with another pretrial detainee, initiated a class action in state court against Sheriff Elder, in his official capacity, for declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief. Their complaint alleged that Sheriff Elder did not have the authority under state law to continue to hold pretrial detainees in custody when Colorado law required their release, nor did he have the authority to deprive persons of their liberty based on suspicion of civil violations of federal immigration law. Cisneros also asserted a tort claim against Sheriff Elder, seeking damages for false imprisonment, but he subsequently filed an amended complaint in which he did not reassert that claim, stating that he intended to file the requisite notice of such a claim under the Colorado Governmental Immunity Act (“CGIA”) and to reassert that claim at the proper time. The Colorado Supreme Court granted certiorari to consider whether the district court erred in concluding that section 24-10-106(1.5)(b), C.R.S. (2021), of the CGIA did not waive sovereign immunity for intentional torts that result from the operation of a jail for claimants who were incarcerated but not convicted. The Supreme Court concluded section 24-10-106(1.5)(b) waived immunity for such intentional torts. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the division below and remanded for further proceedings. View "Cisneros v. Elder" on Justia Law

The State of Colorado filed an interlocutory appeal to challenge a Denver District Court order suppressing defendant Alexander Brown's statements following his detention by police. The trial court determined that the officers who detained Brown did not have a reasonable and articulable suspicion that a crime had been committed, was being committed, or was about to be committed. After its review, the Colorado Supreme Court concluded that while the trial court erred in considering the officers’ subjective intent in effectuating the seizure, it was nonetheless correct that the officers lacked reasonable and articulable suspicion to detain Brown. Accordingly, the Supreme Court affirmed the trial court’s order suppressing Brown’s statements, albeit on other grounds. View "Colorado v. Brown" on Justia Law