People v. Campbell, 92CA2065
| Decision Date | 06 October 1994 |
| Docket Number | No. 92CA2065,92CA2065 |
| Citation | 885 P.2d 327 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Earl William CAMPBELL, Defendant-Appellant. . III |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Gale A. Norton, Atty. Gen., Stephen K. ErkenBrack, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Timothy M. Tymkovich, Sol. Gen., Jacque Lyn Russell, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for plaintiff-appellee.
Anest & Rolfe, P.C., David S. Rolfe, Parker, for defendant-appellant.
Opinion by Judge KAPELKE.
Defendant, Earl William Campbell, appeals from the judgments of conviction entered upon jury verdicts finding him guilty of aggravated robbery, felony theft, and three habitual offender counts. We affirm.
Defendant's convictions stem from the robbery of a grocery store on October 10, 1986. In July 1987, defendant was tried and convicted of aggravated robbery and theft. He was thereafter convicted of being an habitual offender and sentenced to life imprisonment.
On direct appeal, a division of this court reversed defendant's conviction and remanded the case for a new trial because the trial court had conducted the trial in defendant's absence without having first obtained a valid waiver of his right to be present at trial. People v. Campbell, 785 P.2d 153 (Colo.App.1989).
At a hearing before his second trial, defendant indicated that he wanted to proceed pro se with advisory counsel and requested that his case proceed under the Uniform Mandatory Disposition of Detainers Act (UMDDA), § 16-14-101, et seq., C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8A).
At a hearing on September 3, 1991, the court denied defendant's motion to proceed pursuant to the UMDDA and held that the general speedy trial statute, § 18-1-405, C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8B), applied to defendant's case. The court then set the case for trial.
On December 10, 1991, the day trial was scheduled to begin, defendant announced that he was unprepared for trial and moved for a continuance to investigate a possible alibi defense and to prepare a number of witnesses whose identities he had not disclosed to the prosecution. The trial court denied the motion.
Defendant then stated that, in light of the court's denial of his motion for a continuance and its rulings on a number of evidentiary issues, he did not believe he could effectively represent himself. He requested that his advisory counsel be appointed to represent him. Advisory counsel indicated that, if he were appointed as lead trial counsel, he would need additional time to prepare for trial. He therefore requested a continuance. The court granted defendant's request for appointment of his advisory counsel, and, after defendant agreed to waive his right to a speedy trial, the court granted the motion for a continuance and rescheduled the trial for May 12, 1992. On May 8, 1992, the court granted defendant's third request for a continuance and set the trial for November 3, 1992.
At trial, over defendant's objection, the court permitted the prosecution to introduce transcript testimony given at defendant's first trial by three police officers who were unavailable to testify at the second trial.
Defendant first contends that the trial court erred in ruling that the general speedy trial statute, and not the UMDDA, applied to his case. We disagree.
Our primary goal in determining the meaning of a statute is to ascertain and give effect to the intent of the General Assembly. In ascertaining the legislative purpose, we look first to the statutory language. When that language is clear and unambiguous, there is no need to resort to interpretative rules of statutory construction. See Moody v. Corsentino, 843 P.2d 1355 (Colo.1993); Woodsmall v. Regional Transportation District, 800 P.2d 63 (Colo.1990).
When two statutes address the same subject matter, we must attempt to read them together and reconcile them so as to give effect to each statute. City of Lakewood v. Mavromatis, 817 P.2d 90 (Colo.1991); Peoples Natural Gas v. Public Utilities Commission, 698 P.2d 255 (Colo.1985).
Finally, when a statute specifies the particular situations in which it is to apply, it should generally be construed as excluding from its operation all other situations not specified. Truck Insurance Exchange v. Home Insurance Co., 841 P.2d 354 (Colo.App.1992).
The general speedy trial statute and the UMDDA are two of several Colorado statutes implementing the speedy trial rights guaranteed to a criminal defendant under Colo. Const. art. II, § 16, and the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments. People v. Swazo, 199 Colo. 486, 610 P.2d 1072 (1980); see also People v. Higinbotham, 712 P.2d 993 (Colo.1986).
The general speedy trial statute provides that:
If [a defendant's] trial results in a conviction which is reversed on appeal, any new trial must be commenced within six months after the date of the receipt by the trial court of the mandate from the appellate court.
Section 18-1-405(2), C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8B).
The UMDDA provides that:
Any person who is in the custody of the department of corrections ... may request final disposition of any untried indictment, information or criminal complaint pending against him in this state.
Section 16-14-102(1), C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8A) (emphasis added).
Under the UMDDA, the defendant must be brought to trial on the untried charges of the indictment, information, or criminal complaint within ninety days or "such additional time as the court for good cause shown ... may grant" after the receipt by the court or the prosecuting official of such a request. Section 16-14-104, C.R.S. (1986 Repl.Vol. 8A).
The UMDDA applies when a prisoner in the custody of the Department of Corrections has pending against him in Colorado other untried charges, unrelated to those that led to his incarceration. Moody v. Corsentino, supra.
Although defendant was incarcerated on unrelated charges prior to his second trial, we conclude that the UMDDA did not apply.
First, by its terms, the UMDDA applies only to untried charges. Defendant had been tried for his crimes in 1987, although the resulting convictions were reversed on appeal. Thus, while the charges against defendant were still pending, they were not untried. Accordingly, the trial court properly concluded that the UMDDA did not apply.
We recognize that, in proceedings under the UMDDA, if a specific provision of the general speedy trial statute and a specific provision of the UMDDA conflict, the UMDDA provision controls. People v. Swazo, supra; see also People v. Newton, 764 P.2d 1182 (Colo.1988).
However, this is not a situation in which two specific statutory provisions conflict. While the UMDDA is silent regarding the time within which a case must be retried following a reversal, the general speedy trial statute specifically addresses that situation. When the two statutes are read together, it becomes clear that the General Assembly intended the general speedy trial statute, and not the UMDDA, to apply to the retrial of cases reversed on appeal. Cf. People v. Mascarenas, 706 P.2d 404 (Colo.1985).
The General Assembly could, of course, have included in the UMDDA a provision bringing retrials of cases reversed on appeal within the reach of the statute. It did not do so. The UMDDA delineates the particular situations in which it is to be applied, and, because retrials of cases reversed on appeal are not specified in the statute, we conclude that the UMDDA does not apply to such cases. See Truck Insurance Exchange v. Home Insurance Co., supra; Meyer v. Charnes, 705 P.2d 979 (Colo.App.1985).
We also reject defendant's contention that, if the charges pending against him after the reversal of his conviction were not "untried" within the meaning of the UMDDA, his retrial on those charges violated his constitutional right not to be placed in double jeopardy.
When, as here, reversal is predicated upon errors of law rather than insufficiency of the evidence, remand for a new trial does not violate the double jeopardy clause. Stafford v. People, 165 Colo. 328, 438 P.2d 696 (1968); Gomez v. Ensor, 694 P.2d 869 (Colo.App.1984); see also Colo. Const. art. II, § 18.
Defendant next contends that the trial court erred in denying his first motion for a continuance because the court thereby precluded defendant from exercising his right to...
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