People v. Coyle

• Decision Date: 22 November 1982
• Docket Number: No. 81SA563,81SA563
• Citation: 654 P.2d 815
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul E. COYLE, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 815

654 P.2d 815

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Paul E. COYLE, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 81SA563.

Supreme Court of Colorado En Banc.

Nov. 22, 1982.

Rehearing Denied Dec. 6, 1982.

J.D. MacFarlane, Atty. Gen., Richard F. Hennessey, Deputy Atty. Gen., Mary J. Mullarkey, Sol. Gen., J. Stephen Phillips, Laura E. Udis, Susan P. Mele, Asst. Attys. Gen., Denver, for plaintiff-appellee.

J. Gregory Walta, Colorado State Public Defender, Charles F. Kaiser, Diana L. DeGette, Deputy State Public Defenders, Denver, for defendant-appellant.

DUBOFSKY, Justice.

The defendant, Paul E. Coyle, appeals from his conviction in Denver District Court for violation of a child custody order, section 18-3-304, C.R.S.1973 (1978 Repl.Vol. 8). ¹ Coyle urges reversal of his conviction on three grounds. First, he argues that Colorado should have been collaterally estopped from trying him on the violation of custody charges because New Mexico granted his petition for a writ of habeas corpus when Colorado sought to have him extradited on those charges. Second, Coyle seeks to collaterally attack the constitutionality of the Juvenile Court order placing custody of his children in the Denver Department of Social Services (DDSS). ² Finally, Coyle claims that there was not sufficient evidence to support his conviction for violation of custody. Because none of Coyle's arguments are persuasive, we affirm the conviction.

On July 21, 1976, the DDSS filed a petition alleging that the twelve minor children of the defendant and his wife were dependent or neglected. At a court hearing the same day, defendant was served with the petition, advised of his rights, and had counsel appointed to represent him. The DDSS, which already had protective custody of one of the children, moved for protective custody of ten of the others. The court denied the motion without prejudice and ordered that all of the children be examined by a pediatrician. Two days later, at the request of the examining doctor, the court issued an emergency ex parte order under C.R.J.P. 13 placing eight of the children in the protective custody of the DDSS. The court held a hearing within 48 hours of the emergency order and ruled that the children should remain in protective custody. All twelve children were adjudicated dependent or neglected at the combined adjudicatory and dispositional hearing on January 3, 1977, with the defendant stipulating to the allegation of dependency or neglect.

In making its disposition, the juvenile court considered and adopted the recommendations of the DDSS and ordered its proposed treatment plan implemented. Over the six-month course of the dependency or neglect proceedings, the DDSS had presented evidence of malnutrition and psychological abuse of the children by both parents and of incest and sexual molestation of the girls by the defendant. The ten youngest children, eight of them girls, were placed in the continuing custody of the DDSS, which had already placed them in foster homes. The two other children remained in the custody of their parents pending placement in a residential treatment facility. The defendant did not appeal any portion of the adjudication or disposition.

After the children were adjudicated dependent or neglected, the defendant and his wife moved to California. They returned to Colorado on two occasions. In May, 1977, they arranged a clandestine meeting with their eldest daughter, who left her foster home and returned to California with them. In May, 1978, the defendant and his wife accosted two younger daughters walking from their foster home to school, enticed them into the car, and took them to California.

Colorado instituted criminal proceedings against the Coyles for three counts of violation of custody, one count for each daughter taken to California. In September, 1979, Colorado authorities tried unsuccessfully to extradite them from New Mexico. A New Mexico district court granted the defendant a writ of habeas corpus because the extradition documents did not state that the defendant was present in Colorado at the times he allegedly violated the custody order. Colorado then resubmitted an extradition warrant which was legally sufficient, but by then the Coyles had left New Mexico.

The defendant was later arrested in California and returned to Colorado to face the custody violation charges. The district court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss on the basis of collateral estoppel and the alleged unconstitutionality of the juvenile court order awarding custody to the DDSS. The court found the defendant not guilty of the count of violation of custody in 1977 and guilty of the two other counts. The defendant was given a suspended sentence and placed under the supervision of the probation department for 17 years.

I.

The defendant first contends that his prior discharge on a writ of habeas corpus in the New Mexico extradition proceeding barred his subsequent prosecution in Colorado. He argues that the finding of the New Mexico court that he was not in Colorado at the times of the alleged crimes must be given collateral estoppel effect.

Had the decision of the New Mexico court been a final judgment in the defendant's favor on the merits of the issue, the defendant's argument would be compelling. Collateral estoppel requires that "when an issue of ultimate fact has once been determined by a valid and final judgment, that issue cannot again be litigated between the same parties in any future lawsuit." Ashe v. Swenson, 397 U.S. 436, 443, 90 S.Ct. 1189, 1194, 25 L.Ed.2d 469 (1970). ³ But the inquiry at the New Mexico habeas corpus proceeding, as with all such proceedings under the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act, did not go to the merits of any element of the crime charged. The scope of the hearing was limited to the issues of (1) the technical sufficiency of the extradition papers; (2) identification of the accused; (3) whether the accused is charged with a crime; and (4) whether the accused is a fugitive from justice. Bazaldua v. Hanrahan, 92 N.M. 596, 592 P.2d 512 (1979); see also Michigan v. Doran, 439 U.S. 282, 289, 99 S.Ct. 530, 535, 58 L.Ed.2d 521 (1978). The basis of New Mexico's discharge of the defendant on a writ of habeas corpus was a technical insufficiency in the extradition documents. The Colorado authorities failed to allege that the defendant was in Colorado on the dates of the crimes charged. Therefore, as the Colorado district court correctly found in ruling on the defendant's motion to dismiss, New Mexico properly granted a writ of habeas corpus.

The discharge in habeas corpus did not collaterally estop Colorado from subsequently submitting a second, legally sufficient set of extradition papers, which it did, resulting in the issuance of a second warrant for the defendant's arrest. Collins v. Loisel, 262 U.S. 426, 43 S.Ct. 618, 67 L.Ed. 1062 (1923); Boyd v. VanCleave, 180 Colo. 403, 505 P.2d 1305 (1973); Harris v. Massey, 241 Ga. 580, 247 S.E.2d 55 (1978); In Re Russell, 12 Cal.3d 229, 115 Cal.Rptr. 511, 524 P.2d 1295 (1974); State ex rel. Yarbrough v. Snider, 2 Or.App. 97, 465 P.2d 739 (1970). It follows that the grant of the writ for technical insufficiency of the documents did not estop Colorado from prosecuting the defendant on the merits of the violation of custody charges.

II.

A.

In his motion to dismiss the violation of custody charges, the defendant attempted to collaterally attack the constitutionality of the juvenile court order placing his children in the custody of the DDSS after they were adjudicated dependent and neglected. The district court held that our decision in People v. Able, Colo., 618 P.2d 1110 (1980) permitted the defendant to attempt to collaterally attack the custody order, but that the defendant lacked standing to do so because he had stipulated to the allegation of dependency or neglect. We conclude that the district court reached the correct result but that its reading of Able was too broad.

In Able, the defendant was charged with operating a motor vehicle while his driver's license was revoked because he was an habitual traffic offender. The defendant collaterally attacked the revocation order as based on an invalid conviction, and the district court dismissed the charge. We held that collateral attack is appropriate in two instances: when the order is void because the tribunal issuing it lacked personal or subject matter jurisdiction, and when the order is based on "a conviction obtained in violation of [his] ... constitutional rights." Id., 618 P.2d at 1112 (quoting People v. Heinz, 197 Colo. 102, 105, 589 P.2d 931, 933 (1979)). Because neither condition applied, we reinstated the information against Able.

The test set out in Able applies when a criminal defendant challenges the constitutional validity of a criminal conviction which serves as the basis for a subsequent criminal prosecution such as habitual traffic offender, e.g., People v. DeLeon, 625 P.2d 1010 (Colo.1981), or habitual criminal, e.g., People v. Quintana, 634 P.2d 413 (Colo.1981). Similarly, a conviction obtained in violation of a criminal defendant's constitutional right to counsel may not be used to enhance punishment under a state recidivist statute. Burgett v. Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S.Ct. 258, 19 L.Ed.2d 319 (1967).

The rationale for permitting collateral attack on a criminal conviction obtained without full procedural safeguards is that "a conviction so obtained is not sufficiently reliable to support the severe sanction of deprivation of liberty." People v. Roybal, Colo. 618 P.2d 1121, 1126 (1980). Further, the mere fact of having incurred a criminal conviction can have strong and lasting ramifications on a person's reputation, employment opportunities, family life, and right to participate in the political process. Principles such as the presumption of innocence, the rule that criminal statutes are to be strictly construed in favor of the accused, and...