People v. Archer, Court of Appeals No. 19CA1364
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals No. 19CA1364 |
| Decision Date | 07 July 2022 |
| Citation | 518 P.3d 1143,2022 COA 71 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Ashford Nathaniel ARCHER, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Erin K. Grundy, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee
Suzan Trinh Almony, Alternate Defense Counsel, Broomfield, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant
Opinion by JUDGE GROVE
¶ 1 Defendant, Ashford Nathaniel Archer, appeals his convictions for two counts of child abuse resulting in death and one count of accessory to a crime. Although Archer himself did not physically mistreat the victims, we conclude that his active participation in the decision-making process that led to their deaths was sufficient to support his convictions. We therefore affirm.
¶ 2 At trial, the People presented evidence from which the jury could find the following facts. Archer was part of an itinerant religious group that, in the summer of 2017, met Alec Blair by chance at a gas station east of Grand Junction. Blair owned twenty acres of land near Norwood where he was attempting to grow vegetables and marijuana. The land was undeveloped and had no electricity, plumbing, power, or water rights, but, after getting to know some of the members of the group during their chance meeting, Blair invited them to stay there.
¶ 3 When Archer and the others met Blair, their group was made up of of five adults and four children traveling in two vehicles. Codefendant Madani Ceus was the group's spiritual leader; she and Archer were the biological parents of two of the children. The other two children — the victims, who were approximately ten and eight years old — were the daughters of codefendant Nashika Bramble, another member.
¶ 4 Blair's property had no permanent structures, so when the group arrived, they set up camp in tents, shacks, and their cars. Their spiritual beliefs were complex, but, as relevant here, they claimed to be "metaphysical healers" and sought spiritual purity by observing strict dietary rules and limiting personal possessions. Adhering rigorously to the group's rules was the only way that followers could acquire "light bodies" that would be able to enter heaven after the coming "purge."
¶ 5 Although Ceus was the group's spiritual head, she did not make decisions on her own. Rather, according to Blair, a three-person "hierarchy" including Ceus and Archer1 "collectively as a unit ma[de] decisions for things."
¶ 6 The victims died after they were banished to a vehicle in an isolated part of the property to work on their spiritual development. Ceus declared that the victims were no longer allowed to eat the food that she cooked, so on one occasion Blair and others gave them food that they had collected at a local food bank. But then Ceus barred anyone from leaving the property to obtain provisions, and no one gave the victims food, water, or other assistance again. They died some time later and, a month after that, Archer and Blair covered the car with a tarp to hide the bodies from law enforcement officers coming to the farm for periodic marijuana compliance checks.
¶ 7 By the time the authorities learned what had happened and conducted an investigation, the victims’ bodies were so badly decomposed that the medical examiner was unable to determine the cause of death. But the medical examiner testified that they likely died from starvation, dehydration, hyperthermia, or some combination of these factors. In addition, scientific evidence suggested that they had been periodically undernourished in the last fifteen months of their lives.
¶ 8 The police learned of the girls’ deaths from Blair's father, who had come to the farm from Texas to check on his son's well-being. When contacted by police, Archer said that the victims had been placed in the car as punishment.
¶ 9 On appeal, Archer contends that (1) the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain his convictions for child abuse resulting in death; (2) the trial court erroneously admitted unreliable scientific evidence; and (3) the trial court reversibly erred by admitting certain hearsay statements made by Ceus. We address each issue in turn.
¶ 10 We first conclude that because the prosecution presented sufficient evidence to support the jury's verdict on the two charges of child abuse resulting in death, the trial court properly denied Archer's motion for judgment of acquittal.
¶ 11 When a defendant challenges the sufficiency of the evidence, we review the record de novo to determine whether the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the prosecution, is substantial and sufficient to support the conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. Dempsey v. People , 117 P.3d 800, 807 (Colo. 2005). In doing so, we do not act as a thirteenth juror; whether we would have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt based on the evidence presented is irrelevant. Clark v. People , 232 P.3d 1287, 1291 (Colo. 2010). Instead, the pertinent question for us is whether a rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt when viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution. Id.
¶ 13 Archer contends that he did not engage in conduct prohibited by this statute, and thus cannot stand convicted of child abuse resulting in death, because he (1) did not take any actions that injured the victims, and (2) had no special relationship with the victims that required him to take any action to save them from the neglect that he claims was the fault of their mother and others on the property. We disagree with both arguments.
¶ 14 First, although the parties dispute whether Archer was required under section 18-6-401(1)(a) to intervene on the victims’ behalf despite the fact that he was not their biological father, the prosecution presented substantial evidence that Archer did not simply fail to intervene; to the contrary, he engaged in affirmative acts of mistreatment, thereby rendering irrelevant the question of his relationship with the victims. For example, as we have already discussed, there was evidence at trial that, as a member of the group's inner circle, Archer regularly participated in council meetings in which he, along with the other members, "collectively as a unit ma[de] decisions for things." And although the girls’ banishment and deprivation may have been pronounced by Ceus, there was ample evidence that it resulted from a collective decision in which Archer participated. For example, Blair testified that Archer participated in conversations about the two girls during council meetings, and that Archer had not revealed to him that there were four children with the group, rather than three, until they had been on the property for nearly two months. When he overheard a conversation about a fourth child, Blair asked Ceus and Archer about that child because no one had ever mentioned her to him and he had not seen her around the property. After they "stepped aside and conferred," Archer "brought [Blair] over to the gray sedan[,] ... opened up the door of the vehicle[,] and showed [Blair] that there were two children inside of the vehicle, one of [whom Blair] had never seen before." This testimony supports an inference that the younger child had been confined to the vehicle for many weeks, during the summer, with Archer's full knowledge and participation, even before the group began to deprive her and her sister of food and water.
¶ 15 Moreover, Archer's actions led to Ceus's decree that the girls should be abandoned in the car. For example, after Archer siphoned gas from the car, Ceus declared that he had "gray energy," and then "cleansed him by performing a blessing," but then "essentially ordered [the members of the group]" to stay away from the car. Someone drew a "physical perimeter" around the vehicle that no one was allowed to enter, and the group then moved to another part of the property, leaving the victims to die.
¶ 16 Second, even if Archer had not affirmatively contributed to the conditions that led to the girls’ deaths, and even if section 18-6-401(1)(a) does not broadly impose a duty to rescue,2 there was ample evidence at trial showing that he was far more than an innocent bystander. Indeed, he admitted to the investigating police officer that the girls had been placed in the car as punishment, and he was a leader of a nine-member group that had traveled around the country in two vehicles for years, moved to the Blair property together, and referred to itself as a "family" as it proselytized and attempted to recruit new followers like Blair. Under these circumstances, whether Archer had a formal familial relationship with the victims is beside the point. He was responsible, along with all the other adults, for the well-being of those children who were in the group's care.
¶ 17 The prosecution also presented sufficient evidence to establish that Archer's actions were knowing or reckless.
¶ 18 As relevant here, child abuse requires that the defendant knowingly or recklessly causes serious bodily injury to a child. § 18-6-401(1)(a), (7)(a)(III). For most offenses, "knowingly" means that the defendant is aware that his or her conduct is practically certain to cause a particular result. § 18-1-501(6), C.R.S. 2021. And...
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