People v. Garner, 89SC507

• Decision Date: 04 February 1991
• Docket Number: No. 89SC507,89SC507
• Citation: 806 P.2d 366
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Ronald GARNER, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 366

806 P.2d 366

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Ronald GARNER, Respondent.

No. 89SC507.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

Feb. 4, 1991.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing

Feb. 25, 1991.

As Modified March 5, 1991.

Gale A. Norton, Atty. Gen., Timothy M. Tymkovich, Sol. Gen., Everett Engstrom, Sp. Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for petitioner.

David F. Vela, Colo. State Public Defender, Michael J. Heher, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, for respondent.

Justice QUINN delivered the opinion of the court.

The question in this case is whether, in a murder prosecution, evidence that the defendant killed two other persons was properly admitted as other-crime evidence for the purpose of establishing the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the murder charged against him. Resolution of that question requires a consideration of the appropriate standards for admitting other-crime evidence under the Colorado Rules of Evidence. The court of appeals held that a trial court, before admitting other-crime evidence, must consider the evidence of each crime independently of all other evidence in the case and then must determine whether the proponent of the other-crime evidence establishes by clear and convincing evidence the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator of the other crime. The court of appeals accordingly vacated the defendant's conviction for first degree murder and remanded the case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with the standards for admissibility articulated in its opinion. We reverse the judgment of the court of appeals and reinstate the judgment of conviction entered by the trial court.

I.

The defendant, Ronald Garner, was charged with first degree murder after deliberation and felony murder by causing the death of Tammera Sue Wilson during the commission or attempted commission of sexual assault on or before July 1, 1982. ¹ The defendant entered a not guilty plea, and the case was tried to a jury in January 1985.

The prosecution's case was built on circumstantial evidence. It was the prosecution's theory that the defendant had an intimate relationship with the victim, who was a trainee-employee at a Winchell's Donut shop managed by the defendant, and that when the victim tried to end the relationship the defendant sexually assaulted and strangled her to death in her apartment. Prior to trial, the trial court conducted a hearing on the prosecution's motion to offer other-crime evidence during the trial for the purpose of establishing the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator of the murder charged against him. The prosecution presented evidence at the hearing that the defendant had strangled two other women with whom he had an intimate relationship.

The evidence of one of the other crimes related to the strangulation death of the defendant's wife, Lyric Garner, on February 11, 1970. Shortly prior to her death, Mrs. Garner told her mother that she wanted to leave the defendant. On the day of her death the defendant flagged down a police officer and told the officer that he was not able to awaken his wife. The officer followed the defendant to his apartment and found Lyric Garner's nude body on the bedroom floor. The badly beaten body was covered up to the neck with a blanket. The defendant told the police that he had slapped his wife during an argument over their cat and then had left their apartment. An autopsy was performed, and it was determined that Mrs. Garner died from manual strangulation. The defendant was charged in 1970 with the first-degree murder of his wife and entered a guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter.

The evidence of the other crime related to the 1984 strangulation death of Jennifer Della Costa, who had been participating in a six-week training program at a Winchell's Donut shop managed by the defendant. During the training program she developed a personal relationship with the defendant. Della Costa concluded the program on June 10, 1984, and was scheduled to return to her husband in Texas the following day. On the evening of June 10 the defendant and Della Costa went to a bar and returned to the victim's motel room. The next day Della Costa's nude body, with bedding pulled up to the head, was found in her motel room. The body had abrasions and contusions on the left side of the jaw bone, and an autopsy determined that Della Costa had been strangled to death.

The trial court ruled that Colorado law did not require a separate consideration of the evidence relating to each crime, independently of any other evidence, in determining the admissibility of the other-crime evidence, but rather required the court to determine the admissibility of other-crime evidence by considering all the evidence in the case, including the other-crime evidence as well as the evidence relating to the crime in question. Under that standard, the trial court determined that the crime charged against the defendant and the two other homicides had sufficiently similar features as to establish by clear and convincing evidence the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the two other crimes. The trial court accordingly ruled that the other-crime evidence would be admitted into evidence at trial.

At trial, the prosecution's evidence showed that the victim was an employee at a Winchell's Donut shop managed by the defendant and was involved in an intimate relationship with the defendant. During the evening of June 30, 1982, the victim met with Susan Bedard, one of her friends, and told her that she wanted to break off her relationship with the defendant and had spoken to the defendant that very day but had forgotten to retrieve the key to her apartment from him. Later that evening the defendant was socializing with friends at an apartment next to the victim's apartment and was seen entering the victim's apartment on two occasions.

The prosecution's evidence showed that the defendant was one of the last persons known to have been with the victim during the evening of June 30, 1982, and that on the following day the victim's mother went to the victim's apartment and found her dead daughter's body lying face down in bed, scantily clothed, and with blankets pulled up to her head. The body was badly bruised, and an autopsy examination indicated that the victim had been sexually assaulted and had been strangled to death. Semen stains were discovered on the victim's bedding, and serological testing established that some of the semen could have come from the defendant. In addition, several hairs were found on the victim's bed and on a blanket in the victim's apartment. Expert testimony established that some of these hairs matched the defendant's head and pubic hair.

The prosecution offered into evidence the other-crime evidence previously ruled admissible. The trial court instructed the jury that such evidence was admitted for the limited purpose of establishing the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of the crime charged against him. A similar limited-purpose instruction was included in the court's charge to the jury at the conclusion of the evidence.

The defendant did not testify in his defense. The defense evidence consisted of the testimony of an expert witness who stated that, in addition to hairs consistent with those of the defendant found in the victim's apartment, there were several other hairs recovered from various items in the apartment that originated from persons other than the defendant. The jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder, and the court imposed a sentence of life imprisonment. ²

On appeal, the court of appeals vacated the judgment of conviction and remanded the case to the trial court for additional findings. The court of appeals held that this court's decision in People v. Botham, 629 P.2d 589 (Colo.1981), although decided under the law of evidence predating the Colorado Rules of Evidence, required the proponent of other-crime evidence to establish by clear and convincing evidence the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator of the other crime and also required the trial court, in determining the admissibility of other-crime evidence, to analyze the evidence as to a specific crime independently of any other evidence in the case in determining whether the defendant's identity as the perpetrator of that other crime was adequately established. ³ The court of appeals remanded the case to the trial court with directions to make additional findings under the aforementioned standard and to either grant a new trial or reinstate the judgment of conviction. We thereafter granted the People's petition for certiorari to consider whether the court of appeals employed the proper standards in resolving the admissibility of other-crime evidence.

II.

Although the Colorado Rules of Evidence provide the controlling evidentiary norms for resolving this case, we believe it appropriate to briefly review preexisting Colorado case law on the admissibility of other-crime evidence, since it was that preexisting law upon which the court of appeals primarily relied in deciding this case. Prior to the adoption of the Colorado Rules of Evidence, which became effective on January 1, 1980, Colorado decisional law adhered to the exclusionary principle that, subject to narrow exceptions, evidence of other crimes was not admissible as proof of the accused's guilt with respect to the crime charged. E.g., People v. Lucero, 200 Colo. 335, 615 P.2d 660 (1980); People v. Honey, 198 Colo. 64, 596 P.2d 751 (1979); Huerta v. People, 168 Colo. 276, 450 P.2d 648 (1969); Stull v. People, 140 Colo. 278, 344 P.2d 455 (1959); Dockerty v. People, 74 Colo. 113, 219 P. 220 (1923). The rationale for this exclusionary principle was stated in Stull as follows:

[A] presumption of guilt should not be generated against an accused by showing that he committed a crime indicative that he is a depraved person who likely would commit the crime for which h...