People v. Cordova
| Decision Date | 13 October 2011 |
| Docket Number | No. 08CA1174.,08CA1174. |
| Citation | 293 P.3d 114 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff–Appellee, v. Paul Bernard CORDOVA, Defendant–Appellant. |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
John W. Suthers, Attorney General, Katharine A. Hansen, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff–Appellee.
Douglas K. Wilson, Colorado State Public Defender, Joseph Paul Hough, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant–Appellant.
Opinion by Judge CARPARELLI.
Defendant, Paul Bernard Cordova, appeals the judgment of conviction entered upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of two counts of attempted first degree murder, two counts of first degree assault, and harassment. We affirm.
On June 9, 2007, two men suffered lacerations in a fight with defendant and his friend. Defendant fled, and an arrest warrant was issued. On June 20, 2007, police stopped defendant's SUV, arrested him, searched him and his vehicle, and found, among other things, eleven knives.
Before his trial, defendant moved to suppress the knives, arguing they were not relevant for a purpose other than to prove bad character, and, in the alternative, that any probative value was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice because the evidence was inadmissible character evidence. The court denied the motion. A jury found defendant guilty of the above charges.
Defendant contends the trial court erred when it denied his motion to suppress the knives found on his person and in his SUV. We disagree.
We first describe the proceedings in the trial court, then address defendant's relevance and constitutional arguments in turn.
Defendant moved to exclude all evidence found on his person and in his SUV when he was arrested. He asserted that evidence of his possession of the knives was not relevant because there was no forensic testing connecting them to the charges. Defendant argued that the evidence had no probative value other than to show a character trait, and, thus, the evidence was unfairly prejudicial and inadmissible. Although defendant captioned his motion as one to suppress evidence, the motion did not contest the legality of the searches or seizures. Consequently, the court properly treated it as a motion in limine to exclude evidence.
At the motions hearing, the prosecution elicited testimony showing that, upon defendant's arrest, the officers found a folding knife in his pocket and ten other knives in his SUV. Defense counsel told the court, “There's no reason to suppress [the knives, marijuana, and a scale] for the purpose of—of [an improper] search clearly.” His sole argument was that, absent forensic evidence connecting the knives to the crime, the knives and other items were not relevant for a purpose other than to prove bad character, had no probative value, and were highly prejudicial.
The court denied the motion. The court first noted that there was evidence that “the victim was stabbed by means of a knife” and that defendant was found with a knife on his person. The court then concluded that the probative value of the knives found on defendant and in his SUV outweighed their prejudicial effect. Although neither party addressed the constitutionality of the vehicle search, the trial court also found that it was valid either as a search incident to arrest or as an inventory search.
At trial, the prosecution introduced a surveillance video that shows the four men fighting, but does not show who inflicted the cuts on the victims. The prosecution also elicited detailed testimony about the traffic stop, the arrest, and the vehicle search, and introduced the knives into evidence. Defendant testified that he did not have a knife or other weapon on him the night of the stabbing. He also testified that the knives found in his SUV the night of the arrest were part of his long-standing collection.
During closing argument, the prosecutor asserted that the assailant likely used a small knife to inflict the cuts on the victims. The prosecutor's argument did not imply that defendant's possession of the knives evinced a character trait or that defendant had any tendency to assault people with knives.
Defendant argued that he had not stabbed the victims, and implied that his friend must have done so. The prosecution argued the small knives found in defendant's SUV during his arrest showed he must have used a small knife, similar to those found in his vehicle.
During rebuttal argument, the prosecution told the jury that although defendant testified that he could not have committed the crime because he did not have a weapon on him, “We know the Defendant had a folding knife on his person and ten other knives in his car when he was arrested some two weeks later.”
Defendant contends that the knives were irrelevant and highly prejudicial, and that the trial court erred when it did not exclude them. We disagree.
We reject defendant's attempt to frame the admission of the knives as a violationof due process, and, thereby, to have the court's evidentiary ruling reviewed for constitutional harmless error. “[V]irtually any trial error capable of prejudicing a criminal defendant could in some sense be characterized as affecting [the defendant's] right to a fair trial....” Crider v. People, 186 P.3d 39, 42 (Colo.2008). However, neither the Colorado Supreme Court nor the United States Supreme Court has ever designated broad categories of error as error of constitutional magnitude. Id.
C.A.R. 28(f) requires the party raising an issue on appeal to provide, under a separate heading, a concise statement of the applicable standard of appellate review with citation to authority, and a citation to the precise location in the record where the issue was raised and ruled on. Here, defendant contends that we should review de novo the admission of the knives as a denial of his due process right to a fair trial by an impartial jury, and, upon concluding that his due process rights were violated, review the error to determine whether the error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. He does not, however, provide a citation to the record where he raised a due process violation regarding admission of the evidence or where the court ruled based on due process. Nor does he cite to his motion to exclude the knives on grounds of relevance, inadmissible evidence of character, and prejudice. The motion did not assert a violation of due process.
Nor does defendant cite any Colorado case holding that a relevance objection preserves a due process claim, that the rejection of such an objection must be reviewed for constitutional error, or that the admission of irrelevant evidence necessarily violates due process.
Because defendant does not present an argument supporting a due process review, we could only address the contention based on a hypothetical construction of what defendant's due process argument might be. We decline to do so.
We review a trial court's evidentiary ruling for an abuse of discretion. A trial court abuses its discretion if its ruling is manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. People v. Stewart, 55 P.3d 107, 122 (Colo.2002) (citing People v. Ibarra, 849 P.2d 33, 38 (Colo.1993)). The trial court has considerable discretion to determine the relevancy, admissibility, probative value, and prejudicial impact of evidence. Ibarra, 849 P.2d at 38.
All relevant evidence is admissible unless otherwise excluded by constitution, statute, or rule. CRE 402; People v. Rath, 44 P.3d 1033, 1038 (Colo.2002). Relevant evidence is evidence that has “any tendency to make the existence of any fact that is of consequence to the determination of the action more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” CRE 401; see People v. Carlson, 712 P.2d 1018, 1021–22 (Colo.1986).
In criminal cases, relevant evidence ultimately tends to make it more probable or less probable that a criminal act occurred (actus reus), that the defendant was the perpetrator (identity), and that the defendant acted with the necessary criminal intent (mens rea).
Evidence of a defendant's character or a trait of his character is not admissible to prove he acted in conformity with that trait on a particular occasion. CRE 404(a). However, evidence of other acts is admissible if it is logically relevant for some reason other than to prove that the defendant acted in conformity with a trait of character, so long as its probative value regarding the permissible purpose is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice and the other policy considerations of CRE 403. Rath, 44 P.3d at 1038.
To be admissible under CRE 404(b) for a purpose other than to prove a character trait, evidence of other crimes, wrongs, or acts must satisfy a four-part test: (1) the proffered evidence must relate to a material fact; (2) it must be logically relevant to the material fact; (3) the logical relevance must be independent of the prohibited inference that the defendant committed the crime charged because he acted in conformity with his bad character trait; and (4) the evidence's probative value must not be substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. People v. Spoto, 795 P.2d 1314, 1318 (Colo.1990); see Edward J. Imwinkelried, Uncharged Misconduct Evidence §§ 3.02–3.31, at 3–6 (2006) (); id. §§ 4.1–4.24, at 4.7 (); id. §§ 5.01–5.42, at 5–6 ().
In Kaufman v. People, 202 P.3d 542, 545 (Colo.2009), the supreme court ruled that the trial court erred when it admitted evidence of a criminal defendant's...
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...direction"). Courts have uniformly viewed references to the traits of an "outlaw" as evidence of character. See, e.g., People v. Cordova, 293 P.3d 114, 122 (Colo. App. 2011) ("although the prosecutor's characterization of defendant as an 'outlaw' during opening argument may have been permis......
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