Due Process—Statements to Police—Interrogation—Voluntariness—Promises—Specific Performance—Waiver—Suppression Hearing.

Defendant petitioned for a writ of certiorari to the Colorado Supreme Court. The Court granted the petition, vacated the judgment in Cardman I, and remanded to the Court of Appeals for reconsideration of the trial court’s failure to hold a hearing regarding the alleged promises the detective made to defendant during the interview. The specific issue on appeal was whether “the district court violated the defendant’s constitutional right to due process and reversibly erred by admitting statements the defendant made to a detective without first determining whether the statements were voluntary and whether the defendant was entitled to specific performance of direct and/or implied promises made to him by the detective during the interrogation.”

Defendant contended that statements he made in a police interview were not voluntary and that the trial court erred by not holding a hearing sua sponte on the voluntariness of the statements. Although there were serious concerns with the police interrogation tactics used in this case, defendant waived any arguments on the voluntariness issue by not raising it during the suppression hearing. Further, defendant did not request and the court was not required to sua sponte hold a hearing on voluntariness.

Defendant also contended that the Court of Appeals must remand for a hearing on whether he was entitled to specific performance of alleged promises made to him by police during an interview. However, defendant did not seek to enforce the alleged promises before trial and cited no cases in support of his argument.

The judgment was affirmed.

Custody—Child and Family Investigator—Second Degree Forgery—Attempt to Influence a Public Servant—Invited Error—Waiver—Constructive Amendment—Lesser Included Offense—Jury Instructions—Mens Rea.

During a child custody dispute, Hoggard forwarded to the court-appointed child and family investigator a chain of emails between her and her ex-husband. Hoggard allegedly falsified that email chain by adding five sentences that made it appear that her ex-husband had threatened her. As a result of that alleged falsification, Hoggard was convicted of second degree forgery and attempt to influence a public servant.

As an initial matter, the People argued that the doctrines of invited error and waiver preclude appellate review of Hoggard’s instructional error claims. Although Hoggard’s counsel approved the disputed jury instructions, it was an oversight, not a strategy, and therefore not invited error. Further, the failure to object to the jury instructions was not a waiver under the circumstances of this case.

Hoggard contended on appeal that the trial court constructively amended the second degree forgery charge by instructing the jury on the uncharged and more serious offense of felony forgery. Although the trial court’s forgery instruction was erroneous, instructing the jury on felony forgery was not a constructive amendment because Hoggard was both charged with and convicted of second degree forgery, a lesser included offense of felony forgery. Further, there is no reasonable likelihood that the instructional error affected the outcome of the trial.

Hoggard next argued that her conviction for attempt to influence a public servant must be reversed because the trial court did not instruct the jury on the required mens rea for each element of the offense, thereby violating her constitutional due process rights. Although the trial court’s instruction on the charge tracked the statute, it did not expressly require the jury to find that Hoggard acted with intent as to the third and fourth elements of the crime: that she intended to attempt to influence a public servant and that she intended to do so by means of deceit. Nor did the instruction set off the mens rea requirement as a separate element. Accordingly, the trial court’s instruction on attempt to influence a public servant was erroneous and the error was obvious at the time of trial. However, because there was no reasonable probability that the trial court’s instructional error contributed to Hoggard’s conviction, it was therefore not plain error.

The judgment was affirmed.

Sex Offender—Registration—Evidence—Affirmative Defense—Uncontrollable Circumstances.

Wilson was required to register as a sex offender and failed to do so. He was then convicted of failure to register as a sex offender. 

On appeal, Wilson contended that the evidence was insufficient to show that he knowingly failed to register as a sex offender. Wilson argued that because he was evicted from the motel he was staying at on the last day of the five-day period, he had an additional five days to register. A defendant is guilty of failing to register as a sex offender when, as relevant here, he does not register with his local law enforcement agency within five business days after being released from incarceration. The evidence is sufficient to support the fact that Wilson knowingly failed to register as a sex offender within five days of being released. Further, the statute required Wilson to register within five days of his release without regard to where he was living or whether his location changed during that five-day period.

Wilson next contended that the trial court erred in “disallowing the affirmative defense of uncontrollable circumstances.” However, lack of a fixed residence is not an uncontrollable circumstance, and Wilson did not present any credible evidence that uncontrollable circumstances existed that prevented him from registering as a sex offender. Thus, the trial court did not err in rejecting his affirmative defense.

The judgment was affirmed.

Medical Malpractice—Misdiagnosis—Expert Witnesses—Timely Endorsement—Hearsay.

Sovde, a child, sued doctors Scott and Sarka by and through his mother. The lawsuit claimed that defendants had negligently misdiagnosed lesions on the child’s head as something benign instead of manifestations of the herpes simplex virus, and if defendants had timely and properly diagnosed the lesions as products of less harmful skin, eyes, and mucous membrane disease, they could have treated the child with antibiotics, which could have prevented the onset of the more harmful central nervous system disease. The jury found in defendants’ favor.

On appeal, plaintiff argued that the trial court erred when it denied his requests to use the testimony of defendants’ previously endorsed expert witnesses whom defendants had withdrawn. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it permitted defendants to withdraw Dr. Reiley and Dr. Molteni as expert witnesses and not make them available at trial because they had previously been listed as “may call,” not “will call,” witnesses. Further, because plaintiff did not timely endorse these witnesses or timely inform the court and defendants that he would use their depositions at trial, and the record supports the trial court’s implicit decision that the testimony and depositions would have been cumulative or would have had little probative value, the trial court did not err in denying his requests. For the same reasons, the trial court properly rejected plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.

Plaintiff also argued that the trial court erred in excluding father’s telephone conversation with a licensed medical assistant in a pediatrician’s office, contending that the testimony was admissible under CRE 803(4) as statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment. Although some of father’s statements fell within the ambit of CRE 803(4) because he provided them to the medical assistant to obtain a diagnosis of and treatment for the child’s condition, plaintiff failed to show that excluding this testimony substantially influenced the basic fairness of the trial. Further, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied plaintiff’s motion for a new trial on these grounds.

The judgment was affirmed.

Sovde, a child, sued doctors Scott and Sarka by and through his mother. The lawsuit claimed that defendants had negligently misdiagnosed lesions on the child’s head as something benign instead of manifestations of the herpes simplex virus, and if defendants had timely and properly diagnosed the lesions as products of less harmful skin, eyes, and mucous membrane disease, they could have treated the child with antibiotics, which could have prevented the onset of the more harmful central nervous system disease. The jury found in defendants’ favor.

On appeal, plaintiff argued that the trial court erred when it denied his requests to use the testimony of defendants’ previously endorsed expert witnesses whom defendants had withdrawn. The trial court did not abuse its discretion when it permitted defendants to withdraw Dr. Reiley and Dr. Molteni as expert witnesses and not make them available at trial because they had previously been listed as “may call,” not “will call,” witnesses. Further, because plaintiff did not timely endorse these witnesses or timely inform the court and defendants that he would use their depositions at trial, and the record supports the trial court’s implicit decision that the testimony and depositions would have been cumulative or would have had little probative value, the trial court did not err in denying his requests. For the same reasons, the trial court properly rejected plaintiff’s motion for a new trial.

Plaintiff also argued that the trial court erred in excluding father’s telephone conversation with a licensed medical assistant in a pediatrician’s office, contending that the testimony was admissible under CRE 803(4) as statements made for purposes of medical diagnosis or treatment. Although some of father’s statements fell within the ambit of CRE 803(4) because he provided them to the medical assistant to obtain a diagnosis of and treatment for the child’s condition, plaintiff failed to show that excluding this testimony substantially influenced the basic fairness of the trial. Further, the trial court did not abuse its discretion when it denied plaintiff’s motion for a new trial on these grounds.

The judgment was affirmed.

First Degree Assault—Abbreviated Proportionality Review—Habitual Criminal—Prior Convictions—Extended Proportionality Review.

A jury convicted Oldright of first degree assault based on evidence that he hit the victim in the head with a metal rod. Following trial, the court conducted an abbreviated proportionality review, adjudicated Oldright a habitual criminal, and sentenced him to 64 years in prison. Oldright’s prior offenses included aggravated driving after revocation prohibited, forgery, fraud by check, theft by receiving, and theft.

On appeal, Oldright contended that the court erred in finding that the triggering offense was grave or serious. Oldright’s triggering offense, first degree assault, is a grave and serious offense because the legislature deems it a crime of violence and an extraordinary risk crime, Oldright used a deadly weapon to commit the crime, and the victim suffered serious bodily injury.

Oldright also argued that the court erred in concluding that all of his prior convictions were serious simply because they were felonies. Although first degree assault is a grave and serious offense, not all of Oldright’s prior offenses were serious because the General Assembly had reclassified three his prior felony convictions as misdemeanors (making them an ineligible basis for habitual sentencing), and one of the prior felonies from a class 4 felony to a class 5 felony. Because the court failed to consider these legislative changes in determining whether Oldright’s sentence was disproportionate, the sentence was vacated and the case was remanded for an extended proportionality review of Oldright’s habitual criminal sentence.