Blehm v. People, 90SC37
| Citation | 817 P.2d 988 |
| Decision Date | 23 September 1991 |
| Docket Number | No. 90SC37,90SC37 |
| Parties | Larry Eugene BLEHM, Petitioner/Cross-Respondent, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent/Cross-Petitioner. |
| Court | Supreme Court of Colorado |
David F. Vela, Colorado State Public Defender, Thomas R. Williamson, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, for petitioner/cross-respondent.
Gale A. Norton, Atty. Gen., Raymond T. Slaughter, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Timothy M. Tymkovich, Sol. Gen., John Daniel Dailey, Deputy Atty. Gen., Robert Mark Russel, First Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for respondent/cross-petitioner.
The defendant, Larry Eugene Blehm, unsuccessfully appealed his conviction of second degree burglary of a dwelling and his adjudication of habitual criminality to the court of appeals. In affirming the judgment, the court of appeals in People v. Blehm, 791 P.2d 1177 (Colo.App.1989), held that Blehm's prior Colorado felony convictions based on pleas of guilty and nolo contendere could constitute valid predicates for an habitual criminal adjudication even though Blehm previously had been adjudicated insane in other criminal proceedings and had not been formally restored to sanity when the pleas were entered. The court of appeals also held that Florida law prohibited a defendant from pleading guilty or nolo contendere subsequent to an adjudication of insanity but prior to any formal restoration to sanity and that, solely on the basis of that Florida rule of substantive law, two of Blehm's Florida convictions resulting from pleas of guilty and nolo contendere were constitutionally involuntary and hence inadmissible in the Colorado habitual criminal proceeding. The court of appeals went on to affirm Blehm's conviction for second degree burglary of a dwelling and his adjudication as an habitual criminal because the trial record established the constitutional validity of at least three of his prior felony convictions. We agree with that part of the court of appeals' decision which holds that a defendant's prior insanity adjudication does not render the defendant incompetent as a matter of law to enter a plea of guilty or nolo contendere to a Colorado felony charge subsequent to the insanity adjudication but prior to any formal restoration to sanity. We disagree, however, with that part of the court of appeals' decision which relies on Florida substantive law as the sole standard for determining the constitutional admissibility of a prior conviction in a Colorado habitual criminal proceeding. Because we are satisfied that the record clearly establishes the constitutional validity of at least three of Blehm's prior felony convictions, we affirm the judgment of the court of appeals.
The facts are basically undisputed. Following the disappearance of items of personal property from a residence in Red Feather, Colorado, in March 1985, Blehm was charged with second degree burglary of a dwelling. 1 Blehm also was charged with habitual criminality pursuant to Colorado's habitual criminal statute, which provides that a person who has been previously convicted of three prior felonies, separately brought in Colorado or elsewhere and arising out of separate and distinct criminal episodes, shall be sentenced to life imprisonment upon conviction of the substantive felony and upon the jury's verdict that the defendant has been previously convicted of the three prior felonies. §§ 16-13-101 to -103, 8A C.R.S. (1986 & 1990 Supp.). The criminal information alleged seven separate counts of prior felony convictions that Blehm incurred between 1970 and 1979. Two counts alleged a 1970 Florida conviction for robbery and a 1979 Florida conviction for escape. Five other counts alleged the following Colorado convictions: a 1975 conviction in Mesa County for felony theft; another 1975 conviction in Mesa County for escape; a 1976 conviction in Fremont County for conspiracy to commit escape; a 1978 conviction in Boulder County for aggravated robbery; and another 1978 conviction in Boulder County for conspiracy to commit escape.
Blehm filed a motion to dismiss the habitual criminal counts on the ground that the prior felony convictions were constitutionally infirm because they resulted from involuntary pleas of guilty or nolo contendere to various criminal charges. The district court conducted a hearing on Blehm's motion, and the evidence admitted at the hearing established the following sequence of events underlying habitual criminal charges.
In 1968 Blehm was charged with burglary in Weld County, Colorado, and was found not guilty by reason of insanity and was committed to the Colorado State Hospital. 2 In 1970 Blehm escaped from the hospital and went to Florida. Later that year he was arrested in Taylor County, Florida, and charged with robbery, to which he pled guilty and was sentenced to a term of thirty years.
While in a Florida jail awaiting a federal habeas corpus hearing, Blehm again escaped and went to Miami. Blehm was arrested in 1972 for a Miami robbery. He was evaluated by doctors at the South Florida State Hospital and was adjudicated insane and returned to Dade County, Florida, where he subsequently escaped and fled to Colorado.
In 1974 Blehm was arrested in Larimer County, Colorado, and charged with kidnapping and robbery, was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and was again committed to the Colorado State Hospital in 1975. He once again escaped from the hospital and went to California and then to western Colorado.
In 1975 Blehm was arrested in Mesa County, Colorado, and charged with burglary. While in jail he escaped, but was apprehended a few days later and was charged in a separate prosecution with escape. He pled guilty to felony theft and escape and received consecutive indeterminate sentences of eight and five years respectively to the Colorado State Penitentiary.
Blehm again escaped from the Colorado State Penitentiary in 1975, was later arrested, and in 1976 was charged with and pled guilty to conspiracy to commit escape in Fremont County, Colorado. He was sentenced to a ten-year term, consecutive to the sentences he then was serving, and later was transferred to the Colorado State Hospital because of his 1968 insanity commitment. In 1977 Blehm was discharged from the hospital upon a determination that he no longer suffered from a mental disease or defect and had been restored to sanity. Upon his release from the hospital, he was transferred to a county jail but was later released on bail and went to Boulder County.
In 1978 Blehm was arrested in Boulder County for aggravated robbery and escaped while in custody. He pled guilty to aggravated robbery and, in a separate prosecution, entered a nolo contendere plea to the crime of conspiracy to escape. Blehm received concurrent 7-15 year sentences to the state penitentiary on these convictions.
Blehm was later extradited to Florida, and in 1979 he entered a nolo contendere plea to a 1972 escape charge in Dade County, Florida. Finally, in 1980, a federal district court in Florida discharged him from custody due to Florida's failure to conduct an evidentiary hearing on Blehm's competency to plead guilty in the 1970 Florida robbery prosecution within the time frame previously ordered by the federal court.
After considering the evidence underlying the habitual criminal charges, the district court denied Blehm's motion to dismiss. The case then proceeded to jury trial on the charge of second degree burglary of a dwelling. After the jury returned a guilty verdict, the prosecution presented evidence concerning Blehm's prior convictions. Blehm offered no evidence to controvert his prior felony convictions, and the jury found that Blehm had been convicted of the seven prior felonies charged against him in the information. The district court sentenced Blehm to life imprisonment as an habitual criminal.
Blehm appealed his conviction to the court of appeals, which affirmed the judgment. Addressing Blehm's claim that the Colorado convictions were unconstitutionally obtained, the court of appeals initially noted that a Colorado conviction predicated upon a plea of guilty by a defendant previously adjudged insane "may be valid notwithstanding that he had not been judicially declared to have been restored to sanity" as long as the defendant was competent when the guilty plea was entered and the conviction was otherwise constitutionally valid. 791 P.2d at 1180. From this premise, the court of appeals concluded that Blehm's 1975 Mesa County conviction for escape was constitutionally infirm because the court, in accepting Blehm's guilty plea, did not apprise him of the culpability element for escape and because the record of the providency hearing did not affirmatively demonstrate that Blehm understood that element. The court of appeals, however, was satisfied that Blehm's other Colorado convictions--namely, the 1975 Mesa County conviction for felony theft, the 1976 Fremont County conviction for conspiracy to commit escape, the 1978 Boulder County conviction for aggravated robbery, and the 1978 Boulder County conviction for conspiracy to commit escape--were constitutionally valid because Blehm's pleas to the underlying felonies were "untainted by any defect" and because Blehm "failed to make a prima facie showing that these guilty pleas were unconstitutionally obtained." 791 P.2d at 1181.
The court of appeals then addressed the constitutional validity of Blehm's 1970 and 1979 Florida convictions for robbery and escape. Relying solely on a Florida rule which provided that a defendant who is adjudicated insane cannot be convicted of a subsequent criminal offense unless and until he has been formally restored to sanity, the court of appeals concluded that Blehm's earlier 1968 Colorado insanity adjudication precluded him from entering a valid guilty plea to the 1970 Florida robbery charge and his 1972 Florida insanity...
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