People v. Coleby

• Decision Date: 13 November 2001
• Docket Number: No. 00SC416.,00SC416.
• Citation: 34 P.3d 422
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Mark Edward COLEBY, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

34 P.3d 422

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Mark Edward COLEBY, Respondent.

No. 00SC416.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

November 13, 2001.

Jeanne M. Smith, District Attorney El Paso County, Diana K. May, Deputy District Attorney, Gordon R. Denison, Deputy District Attorney, Colorado Springs, CO, Attorneys for Petitioner.

David Kaplan, Colorado State Public Defender, Joshua N. Tolini, Deputy State Public Defender, Daniel Zetler, Deputy State Public Defender, Colorado Springs, CO, Attorneys for Respondent.

Justice RICE delivered the Opinion of the Court.

We issued a writ of certiorari to review the district court's judgment in People v. Coleby, No. 99CV1893 (Colo. Dist. Ct. April 13, 2000). In Coleby, the district court disapproved a county court order that held that both the mental states of "knowingly" and "intentionally" are applicable to the crime of violation of a restraining order under section 18-6-803.5, 6 C.R.S. (1997). Specifically, the district court held that section 18-6-803.5 requires only a culpable mental state of "knowingly."

We granted certiorari to determine the mental state required under the violation of a restraining order statute. We now approve the district court's ruling and hold that the culpable mental state required under section 18-6-803.5 is "knowingly."

I. FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

Defendant was charged with violating a restraining order that prohibited him from contacting his ex-wife or directing another person to contact her. Defendant was personally served with the restraining order on October 16, 1997 by the court clerk. At trial, Defendant did not contest the service of process or claim a lack of actual knowledge of the contents of the order. Rather, Defendant asserted that he did not knowingly or intentionally violate the restraining order. The jury acquitted Defendant after it was instructed, over the prosecution's objection, that the crime of violating a restraining order requires that the defendant have committed the crime both knowingly and intentionally.

On appeal, the district court ruled that the county court erred in finding that section 18-6-803.5 requires the culpable mental states of both "intentionally" and "knowingly," and held that the statute requires only a mental state of "knowingly." Coleby, No. 99CV1893, at 2. We granted certiorari to determine the mental state required under section 18-6-803.5.¹

II. ANALYSIS

A. Standard of Review

Statutory construction issues are questions of law. Hendricks v. People, 10 P.3d 1231, 1235 (Colo.2000). In reviewing a court's conclusions of law we apply a de novo standard of review and ascertain whether its legal conclusions are supported by sufficient evidence and whether it has applied the correct standard. People v. Owens, 969 P.2d 704, 707 (Colo.1999).

B. Mental State Required Under Section 18-6-803.5

Under the relevant statute, a person commits the crime of violation of a restraining order if: (1) the person engages in conduct prohibited by the restraining order, and (2) the person has been personally served with a copy of the order or "otherwise has acquired from the court actual knowledge of the contents of any such order." § 18-6-803.5(1). The prosecution argues that this statute was enacted as a strict liability crime because the statute sets forth no culpable mental state with respect to the portion of the statute concerning the defendant's conduct. We disagree.

Under section 18-1-503(4), 6 C.R.S. (2001), "[w]hen a statute defining an offense prescribes as an element thereof a culpable mental state [for one element], that mental state is deemed to apply to every element of the offense unless an intent to limit its application clearly appears." See also People v. Trevino, 826 P.2d 399, 402 (Colo.App.1991)

(if a statute expresses or implies a mens rea for one element, that mens rea must be deemed to apply to every element of the offense); People v. Saiz, 660 P.2d 2, 6 (Colo.App.1982) (same).

Applying section 18-1-503(4), we conclude that even though the first part of section 18-6-803.5(1) concerning the defendant's conduct does not contain explicit language prescribing a required mental state, the mental state of "knowingly" should be applied to it. The statute in effect when these events occurred, section 18-6-803.5(1), 6 C.R.S. (1997), provided:

A person commits the crime of violation of a restraining order if such person contacts, harasses, injures, intimidates, molests, threatens, or touches any protected person or enters or remains on premises or comes within a specified distance of a protected person or premises, and such conduct is prohibited by a restraining order, after such person has been personally served with any such order or otherwise has acquired from the court actual knowledge of the contents of any such order.

Since the second portion of the statute requires a knowing violation, which is satisfied either implicitly by personal service of the restraining order or explicitly by actual knowledge of the contents of the order, section 18-1-503(4) requires that the mental state of knowingly apply to every element of the crime, "unless an intent to limit its application clearly appears." An examination of the legislative history underlying section 18-6-803.5 reveals no intent on the part of the General Assembly to limit the application of the culpable mental state of "knowingly" to only one element of the offense. Moreover, the words the General Assembly chose to describe the conduct portion of the offense in section 18-6-803.5 evidence no clear intent to limit the application of the knowledge requirement. Thus, the mental state of "knowingly" applies not only to the second prong of the statute, but also to the first, conduct, prong.

This case is distinguishable from Gorman v. People, 19 P.3d 662 (Colo.2000) and Copeland v. People, 2 P.3d 1283 (Colo.2000) in which we considered the applicability of section 18-1-503(4). In Gorman, we ruled that section 18-1-503(4) was inapplicable to the contributing to the delinquency of a minor statute as the General Assembly did not specify a culpable mental state in the statute. 19 P.3d at 666. We concluded that the culpable mental state of knowingly applies to the act of contributing to the delinquency of a minor, but not to the statute's age element. Id. at 665-66. We noted that elements of a particular offense may have differing mens rea requirements, and that the culpable mental state of a statute may speak to conduct, circumstances, result, or any combination thereof, but not necessarily to all three. Id. at 666. In addition, in Copeland, citing section 18-1-503(4), we held that the General Assembly had evidenced its clear intent not to apply the arson statute's mens rea requirement of "knowingly" or "recklessly" to the statute's endangerment provisions. 2 P.3d at 1287. We relied on the wording of the statute and our prior decision in People v. Garcia, 189 Colo. 347, 541 P.2d 687 (1975) in concluding that the legislature intended to hold the arsonist responsible for the fire's result, whether or not he was aware of or intended the consequences. Copeland, 2 P.3d at 1287. These cases are distinguishable from the present case. Unlike the statute in Gorman, section 18-6-803.5 prescribes as an element within the statute the culpable mental state of "knowingly" and no intent to limit its application clearly appears. Moreover, unlike the statute in Copeland, the legislature evidenced no clear intent to limit the application of the knowledge requirement in section 18-6-803.5.

We hold that the district court properly held that section 18-6-803.5 requires the culpable mental state of "knowingly," and that such mental state applies to all elements of the crime. Because there is no clear intent to limit the application of the culpable mental state of knowingly to the second portion of the statute, we affirm the district court's order requiring only the mental state of "knowingly."

III. CONCLUSION

In summary, we hold that section 18-6-803.5 is not a strict liability crime requiring no culpable mental state. Instead, applying section 18-1-503(4), we conclude that the culpable mental state of "knowingly" applies to the first, conduct, element of the crime, as well as to the second element of the statute, which is satisfied either by personal service or actual knowledge, because no clear intent to limit the application of the mental state of knowingly clearly appears.

Accordingly, we approve the ruling of the district court.

Justice COATS dissenting:

Although I agree with the majority and district court that the crime of violation of a restraining order cannot properly be characterized as a strict liability offense, I disagree that section 18-1-503(4), 6 C.R.S. (2001), requires application of the mental state "knowingly" to every element of the crime. Specifically I do not agree that by permitting proof of a defendant's actual knowledge of the contents of the restraining order to substitute for proof of personal service the legislature must have intended to apply a general criminal mens rea to every element of the offense. Because I also believe that our failure at times in the past to clearly articulate and distinguish the constitutional limitations and principles of statutory construction applicable to culpable mental states has led to some confusion in both drafting and construing criminal statutes, I write separately to explain my views.

Initially, however, I must note the necessarily advisory nature of our resolution of this particular question of law, which is accentuated by the unusual appellate history of this particular case. The People petitioned this court for a writ of certiorari to review a holding of the district court, sitting as the court of direct appeal from a county court prosecution. Following the defendant's acquittal of two counts of violating a restraining order, the People appealed to the district...