People v. Jacobson
| Decision Date | 13 July 2017 |
| Docket Number | Court of Appeals No. 10CA1476 |
| Citation | 474 P.3d 1222 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sandra L. JACOBSON, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Cynthia H. Coffman, Attorney General, Rebecca A. Jones, Senior Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Douglas K. Wilson, Colorado State Public Defender, Andrew C. Heher, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant.
Opinion by JUDGE WEBB
¶ 1 The general background appears in People v. Jacobson , 2014 COA 149, 425 P.3d 1132 ( Jacobson I ), which reversed defendant's conviction for failure to poll the jury about exposure to extraneous, prejudicial information. In People v. Jacobson , 2017 CO 28, 393 P.3d 548 ( Jacobson II ), the supreme court reversed Jacobson I and remanded the case to us, albeit without direction.
¶ 2 Before our mandate was issued, defendant, Sandra L. Jacobson, asked us to decide two issues that had not been resolved in Jacobson I . She correctly pointed out that either of these issues could lead to reversal of the judgment of conviction entered on jury verdicts finding her guilty of vehicular homicide, driving under the influence (DUI), and other related charges, arising from a collision between her truck and a taxi cab on Pena Boulevard.
¶ 3 We granted her request but now affirm the judgment of conviction.
I. The Trial Court Did Not Err in Failing Sua Sponte to Instruct the Jury on the Statutory DUI Affirmative Defense of Having Consumed Alcohol Between the Time Defendant Stopped Driving and the Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) Testing Occurred
¶ 4 Defendant testified at trial. She described herself as having been "stone cold sober" when the accident occurred at about 10:30 a.m. But she said that on arrival at the Denver International Airport's cargo terminal some fifteen minutes later, she drank a Vitamin Water bottle that contained one-half 99 proof schnapps.
¶ 5 Two police officers contacted defendant at 10:58 a.m. Neither noticed any indicia of alcohol intoxication. Although defendant remained in police custody and interacted with other officers, not until about 3:00 p.m. did an officer notice bloodshot, watery eyes, and slurred speech. This officer administered a roadside sobriety test, which defendant failed. Then he took her to a hospital for a blood draw.
¶ 6 Samples were taken at 3:55 p.m., 5:00 p.m., and 6:01 p.m. The test results showed that her BAC was .164, .143, and .121, respectively. Based on these results, the prosecution presented expert testimony that defendant's BAC had been .274 at the time of the accident.
¶ 7 Defense counsel did not request the trial court to instruct the jury on the DUI affirmative defense of having consumed alcohol between the time that she stopped driving and when the testing occurred.
¶ 8 Where a defendant did not request an affirmative defense instruction, review is limited to plain error. See , e.g. , People v. Griffin , 224 P.3d 292, 298 (Colo. App. 2009). Plain error permits an appellate court "to correct particularly egregious errors." Wilson v. People , 743 P.2d 415, 420 (Colo. 1987). The error must be " ‘so clear-cut, so obvious,’ a trial judge should be able to avoid it without benefit of objection." People v. Ujaama , 2012 COA 36, ¶ 42, 302 P.3d 296 (quoting People v. Taylor , 159 P.3d 730, 738 (Colo. App. 2006) ).
¶ 9 Even then, an appellate court will reverse only if a defendant shows "that the court committed an obvious and substantial error that undermined the fundamental fairness of the trial so as to cast serious doubt on the reliability of the judgment of conviction." Griffin , 224 P.3d at 298. To be sure, reversals under plain error "must be rare to maintain adequate motivation among trial participants to seek a fair and accurate trial the first time." Hagos v. People , 2012 CO 63, ¶ 23, 288 P.3d 116.
¶ 10 "We review de novo the question of whether a jury instruction accurately informed the jury of the governing law." People v. Carbajal , 2014 CO 60, ¶ 10, 328 P.3d 104. "It is the duty of the trial court to ‘correctly instruct the jury on all matters of law for which there is sufficient evidence to support giving instructions.’ " Id. (quoting Cassels v. People , 92 P.3d 951, 955 (Colo. 2004) ).
(Emphasis added.) The parties have not cited a case, nor have we found one, interpreting this language.
¶ 12 Despite this dearth of precedent, the following uncontroverted authorities are informative.
¶ 13 On this much, the parties largely agree. As to the intersection between plain error and omission of a statutory affirmative defense, however, they differ. But we decline to resolve that difference because we conclude that the trial court did not err in failing sua sponte to instruct on the statutory affirmative defense.
¶ 14 To begin, the Attorney General asserts that defendant invited any error. The sole bases for this assertion are defense counsel's request for "an affirmative defense instruction based on intervening cause," which was not given, and his later statement to the trial court that he did not request any further instructions. But the possibility of instructing on the statutory affirmative defense had never been discussed. Without more, we cannot apply invited error. See People v. Stewart , 55 P.3d 107, 119 (Colo. 2002) ().
¶ 15 The Attorney General does not dispute that defendant presented sufficient evidence to warrant an instruction on the affirmative defense. And with good reason. The burden to produce sufficient evidence is "exceedingly low," making preclusion of an affirmative defense appropriate only when there is "simply no evidence ... in th[e] record." People v. Platt , 170 P.3d 802, 806 (Colo. App. 2007), aff'd , 201 P.3d 545 (Colo. 2009). The "scintilla of evidence" standard is so low that "the evidence necessary to justify an affirmative defense instruction may come solely from the defendant's testimony, even if the evidence is improbable." People v. Johnson , 2013 COA 122, ¶ 35, 327 P.3d 305.
Thus, the Attorney General continues, by proving that defendant "was intoxicated at the time of the accident," the prosecution "necessarily disproved the affirmative defense that the defendant did not become intoxicated until a later time."
This statement informs our analysis in two ways.
¶ 18 First, it undercuts defendant's reliance on Pickering in her reply brief.1 Second, the reference to Huckleberry shows why the statutory characterization of "an affirmative defense" is not dispositive.
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People v. Snider
...defense appropriate only when there is ‘simply no evidence ... in th[e] record’ [to support it]." People v. Jacobson , 2017 COA 92, ¶ 15, 474 P.3d 1222 (quoting People v. Platt , 170 P.3d 802, 806 (Colo. App. 2007) ). Indeed, the standard is so low that "the evidence necessary to justify an......