Doyle v. People
| Decision Date | 17 February 2015 |
| Docket Number | Supreme Court Case No. 13SC447 |
| Citation | 343 P.3d 961,2015 CO 10 |
| Parties | Eric Marcus DOYLE, Petitioner v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Attorneys for Petitioner: Douglas K. Wilson, Public Defender, Adam Mueller, Deputy Public Defender, Denver, Colorado.
Attorneys for Respondent: Cynthia H. Coffman, Attorney General, Jillian J. Price, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado.
En Banc
Opinion
¶ 1 Doyle petitioned for review of the court of appeals' judgment affirming his conviction for violating a condition of his bail bond. See People v. Doyle, 2013 COA 68, ––– P.3d ––––. At the request of the prosecution, the trial court took judicial notice of the fact that defendant Doyle failed to appear in court on a particular day, as mandated by the relevant condition of his bond. The court instructed the jury accordingly, noting that although it need not accept this judicially noticed fact as true, a judicially noticed fact is one which the court has determined to be not the subject of reasonable dispute and one which the court has accepted as true.
¶ 2 Because the resolution of a factual matter at issue in a prior judicial proceeding, unlike the occurrence of the legal proceeding or other court action itself, does not become an indisputable fact within the contemplation of CRE 201 merely as a result of being reflected in a court record, the trial court erred in taking judicial notice that the defendant failed to appear in court on a particular day. Because the jury was instructed that this judicially noticed fact was not subject to reasonable dispute and had already been accepted as true by the court, the error was not harmless, notwithstanding proper admission into evidence of a court record reflecting the court's earlier finding to that effect. The judgment of the court of appeals is therefore reversed and remanded with directions to order a new trial.
¶ 3 Eric Doyle was charged with theft and conspiracy to commit theft in connection with an attempt to sell a water pump to a scrap metal processor. A charge of violating a condition of his bail bond, as proscribed by section 18–8–212(1), C.R.S. (2014), was added for failing to appear in court on March 8, 2011, which had been made a condition of his bond from the original charges. The defendant was acquitted of the theft and conspiracy charges but convicted of violating a condition of his bond, for which he was sentenced to a term of twelve months in the custody of the Department of Corrections.
¶ 4 On the defendant's motion, trial of the charges was bifurcated, allowing the jury to hear of the charge of violating a bail bond condition only after it had reached a verdict on the theft and conspiracy charges. At the second phase of the bifurcated trial, the prosecution offered a single exhibit, which included certified copies of the defendant's appearance bond, indicating as the primary condition of the bond that the defendant appear in court on March 8, 2011; a waiver of extradition, signed by the defendant and notarized by a deputy sheriff; and finally a notice of bail forfeiture directed to the defendant's surety company, notifying the surety that “on 03/08/2011 because of [the defendant's] failure to appear in accordance with the primary condition of the bond, the court ordered that the bond ... in the amount of $3,000.00 be forfeited.” The exhibit was admitted into evidence without objection.
¶ 5 Following admission of this exhibit, the prosecution asked the court to take judicial notice of its file in the case, and specifically the fact that the defendant “was accused by information of the commission of the offense of theft and conspiracy to commit theft and that [he] failed to appear on March 8th of 2011 when called upon to appear by the Court.” Over the defendant's objection, the trial court acceded to the prosecution's request and instructed the jury accordingly. The court gave the following instruction:
A judicially noticed fact is one which the Court determines is not subject to reasonable dispute and which the court has accepted as being true. You may or may [not] accept this fact as true. You may weigh it as you would any other evidence, and in this case I do take judicial notice of the following two facts: The defendant [Doyle] was accused of theft and conspiracy to commit theft in the Information 11CR685; and he was required to appear in court on March 8, 2011, and failed to appear.
¶ 6 On direct appeal of his conviction for violating a condition of his bail bond, the defendant renewed, among other assignments of error, his objection to the trial court's taking judicial notice of his nonappearance. Rejecting arguments that facts contained within a court record are not themselves adjudicative facts beyond reasonable dispute within the contemplation of CRE 201, and that taking notice of facts comprising elements of a charged crime amounted to directing a verdict against the defendant, the court of appeals found the trial court's actions to have been within its discretion, rather than usurping the jury's fact-finding function.
¶ 7 The defendant then petitioned this court for a writ of certiorari.
¶ 8 Judicial notice of adjudicative facts in this jurisdiction is now governed by Rule 201 of the Colorado Rules of Evidence. See CRE 201(a). Although a court is obligated to take judicial notice if requested to do so and supplied with the necessary information by a party, CRE 201(d) (“When mandatory”), the only kinds of adjudicative facts that may be judicially noticed are ones “not subject to reasonable dispute,” either because they are “generally known within the territorial jurisdiction of the trial court” or because they are “capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned,” CRE 201(b) (“Kinds of facts”). In addition, with regard to the effect of taking judicial notice, unlike in civil actions or proceedings, in which the court is to instruct the jury to accept as conclusive any fact judicially noticed, the rule expressly requires that “[i]n a criminal case, the court shall instruct the jury that it may, but is not required to, accept as conclusive any fact judicially noticed.” CRE 201(g) (“Instructing jury”).
¶ 9 While we have referred to this rule as generally codifying the common law of judicial notice, see CRE 201 committee cmt.; see also Prestige Homes Inc. v. Legouffe, 658 P.2d 850, 853 (Colo. 1983), both the scope and content of the rule differ from much of the earlier case law of this jurisdiction concerning judicial notice. Notably, by its own terms the rule only addresses judicial notice of a particular class of facts; it imposes on courts specific procedural prerequisites regarding the right to be heard and jury instructions; it requires, rather than merely permits, courts to take notice under specified circumstances; and in criminal cases, it limits the effect of taking judicial notice in a way never previously suggested in our case law. With regard to facts other than adjudicative facts—and by adjudicative facts, meaning generally the facts of the particular case, as distinguished from, among others, facts with relevance to legal reasoning and the lawmaking process, see Fed. R. Evid. 201 advisory committee's note1 —the rule offers no guidance whatsoever. With regard to the effect of taking judicial notice of adjudicative facts, the rule continues to permit courts, under the enumerated circumstances, to dispense with foundational requirements otherwise required for the consideration of evidence by the fact-finder. However, unlike civil cases, in which the rule continues to mandate that judicially noticed facts be conclusive, the rule expressly, and very purposefully,2 forbids this effect in criminal cases, mandating instead that the jury be instructed it need not accept a noticed fact as conclusive.
¶ 10 Notwithstanding a lack of conclusive effect, the rule permits judicial notice of adjudicative facts in criminal cases, every bit as much as in civil cases, only with regard to those facts not subject to reasonable dispute, either because they are already generally known in the jurisdiction or, as relevant to this case, because they are capable of accurate and ready determination by resort to sources whose accuracy cannot reasonably be questioned. CRE 201(b). Because virtually any particular source may contain a mistake on virtually any particular point, the notion of an indisputable fact rests less on the infallibility of a specific source and more on the notion that the fact is commonly verifiable, such that an error in any particular source can be easily demonstrated. See generally 1 Christopher P. Mueller & Laird C. Kirkpatrick, Federal Evidence § 2.5 (4th ed. 2014). An opportunity to demonstrate such a mistake prior to judicial notice being taken is now mandated by the rule. The committee comment to Colorado's rule gives as examples of facts readily determined by resort to accurate sources such things as a calendar date, the term of a public office, and matters found in statistical charts.
¶ 11 Case law from the federal courts, and other jurisdictions with rules substantially similar to Rule 201 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, is replete with examples of court records having been recognized as adequate sources for judicially noticeable facts. See generally id. (). While there appears to be little question concerning judicial notice of the occurrence or operable effect of...
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