People v. Jones
| Decision Date | 15 October 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 11SC801,11SC801 |
| Citation | 311 P.3d 274 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner v. Michael Lee JONES, Respondent |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERE
Certiorari to the Colorado Court of Appeals, Court of Appeals Case No. 09CA2362
John W. Suthers, Attorney General William G. Kozeliski, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Petitioner.
Nora V. Kelly, P.C. Nora V. Kelly, Denver, Colorado, Attorneys for Respondent.
¶ 1 In this sexual assault case, we hold that trial courts have no obligation to determine that evidence of other acts offered under CRE 404(b) and section 16–10–301, C.R.S. (2013), satisfies the doctrine of chances to also satisfy the second and third prongs of the four-part admissibility test articulated in People v. Spoto, 795 P.2d 1314, 1318 (Colo.1990). Although the doctrine of chances provides one theory pursuant to which other acts evidence may satisfy these two components of the Spoto analysis, trial courts have discretion to assess the relevance of other acts evidence under Spoto apart from the doctrine of chances. The court of appeals therefore erred when it effectively held that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting other acts evidence without conducting a doctrine of chances analysis.
¶ 2 J.R., a white female with blond hair, was walking home from a convenience store at about 2:00 a.m. on December 1, 2005, when a man offered her a ride. After driving J.R. to her apartment complex, the man asked J.R. if he could come inside for a glass of water. J.R. alleged that once inside her apartment, the man held her mouth tightly closed and sexually assaulted her. J.R. reported the alleged assault to the police.
¶ 3 J.R. was visibly upset when police arrived at her apartment. The responding officers testified that they smelled alcohol on J.R.'s breath. The officers took J.R. to the hospital for a sexual assault examination. J.R. told a nurse she had been raped and complained of neck and jaw pain stemming from when her assailant held her mouth closed. The subsequent exam revealed the presence of semen and a tear in J.R.'s vagina. DNA evidence later implicated Respondent Michael Lee Jones as J.R.'s assailant.
¶ 4 The People charged Jones with numerous offenses including sexual assault and unlawful sexual conduct. Prior to trial, Jones moved the trial court to bar the People from introducing evidence that Jones allegedly sexually assaulted two other women, one in Florida and one in Louisiana. The trial court denied Jones's motion. It analyzed the evidence of the two other alleged assaults under the four-part Spoto admissibility test and concluded that the other acts evidence was admissible to show Jones's “common plan, scheme, or design, and to rebut [Jones's] defense of consent.”
¶ 5 The case proceeded to a five-day jury trial. The prosecution presented the other acts evidence over Jones's objection. After deliberations, the jury convicted Jones of both sexual assault and unlawful sexual contact. The trial court sentenced Jones to concurrent terms of twenty-four years to life and twelve years to life in the Department of Corrections.
¶ 6 Jones appealed his conviction to the court of appeals. Relevant to this opinion, Jones argued that the trial court erred by admitting evidence of the Florida and Louisiana sexual assaults under CRE 404(b) because the acts were not sufficiently similar to the charged conduct involving J.R.
¶ 7 The court of appeals agreed with Jones and reversed the trial court's oral order admitting the other acts evidence. People v. Jones, 313 P.3d 626, 629–30, No. 09CA2362, 2011 WL 3616006, at *1 (Colo.App. Aug. 18, 2011). It held that the trial court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of the alleged Florida and Louisiana sexual assaults because that evidence did not satisfy the doctrine of chances and therefore was inadmissible under Spoto.Id. at 632–33, 2011 WL 3616006 at *4. The People petitioned this Court for certiorari review of the court of appeals' opinion.
¶ 8 We granted certiorari to determine whether a trial court can admit other acts evidence without conducting a doctrine of chances analysis.1 We now reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.
¶ 9 The court of appeals erred when it unnecessarily limited trial court discretion by tying the four-part Spoto test to the doctrine of chances. While evidence that satisfies the doctrine of chances may also satisfy the second and third prongs of the Spoto analysis, trial courts may admit CRE 404(b) evidence under Spoto without also determining that the evidence is admissible under the doctrine of chances.
¶ 10 To reach this conclusion, we first describe the deferential standard of review appellate courts employ when reviewing a trial court's evidentiary ruling. We then describe the law surrounding CRE 404(b) and address why the court of appeals erred by effectively requiring the trial court to assess other acts evidence under the doctrine of chances as part of its Spoto analysis. Finally, we analyze the record to conclude that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by admitting the other acts evidence in this case.
¶ 11 Trial courts have “substantial discretion when deciding whether to admit evidence of other acts.” Yusem v. People, 210 P.3d 458, 463 (Colo.2009). Appellate courts review a trial court's decision to admit or exclude other acts evidence for an abuse of this discretion. Id. An appellate court will only disturb the trial court's ruling if “it was manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair.” Id.
¶ 12 This case requires us to clarify the role the doctrine of chances plays in the trial court's admissibility analysis under Spoto.CRE 404(b) permits a trial court to admit evidence of a defendant's other crimes, wrongs, or acts for the purpose of proving “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, ... or absence of mistake or accident.” The trial court may not, however, admit evidence of the defendant's other acts “to prove the character of a person in order to show that he acted in conformity therewith.” Id.
¶ 13 Recognizing that sexual offenses “are a matter of grave statewide concern,” section 16–10–301(1), the General Assembly has specifically delineated the CRE 404(b) admissibility requirements for other acts evidence in the sexual offense context. The prosecution in a sexual offense case “may introduce evidence of other acts of the defendant to prove the commission of the offense as charged for any purpose other than propensity.” § 16–10–301(3). Such purposes include:
Refuting defenses, such as consent ...; showing a common plan, scheme, design, or modus operandi, regardless of whether identity is at issue and regardless of whether the charged offense has a close nexus as part of a unified transaction to the other act; showing motive, opportunity, intent, ... or absence of mistake or accident; or for any other matter for which it is relevant.
¶ 14 Before a trial court may admit other acts evidence under CRE 404(b) and section 16–10–301, it must analyze the admissibility of the evidence under the four-part Spoto test, 795 P.2d at 1318. SeeYusem, 210 P.3d at 463 (); People v. Snyder, 874 P.2d 1076, 1078 (Colo.1994) ().
¶ 15 This four-part analysis requires the trial court to determine that: (1) the evidence relates to a material fact; (2) the evidence is logically relevant; (3) the logical relevance is independent of the intermediate inference that the defendant was acting in conformity with his bad character; and (4) the evidence has probative value that is not substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. Spoto, 795 P.2d at 1318.
¶ 16 Only the second and third prongs of the Spoto analysis are at issue in this case. Under the second prong, evidence is logically relevant if it 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; seeYusem, 210 P.3d at 463. The related third prong of the Spoto test requires that logically relevant evidence achieve its relevance in some way other than through the impermissible inference that a person who engages in a bad act does so because he acts in conformity with his bad character. See CRE 404(b); Yusem, 210 P.3d at 466 (quoting Spoto, 795 P.2d at 1318). While this third prong does not demand the absence of the impermissible character inference, it “requires that the proffered evidence be logically relevant independent of that inference.” Snyder, 874 P.2d at 1080 (emphasis added); see also Spoto, 795 P.2d at 1318.
¶ 17 The “doctrine of chances” provides one theory of relevance under which a trial court may determine that other acts evidence satisfies the second and third prongs of the Spoto analysis.2 The court of appeals below, however, effectively held that other acts evidence must satisfy the doctrine of chances to also satisfy the second and third prongs of the Spoto test by confining its analysis of the second and third Spoto prongs to a doctrine of chances “box.” SeeJones, 313 P.3d at 631–33, 2011 WL 3616006, at *3–4. We disagree with this holding because this state's precedent makes clear that trial courts have discretion to conduct Spoto analyses without also assessing the relevance of other acts evidence under the doctrine of chances.
¶ 18 For example, in People v. Rath, 44 P.3d 1033, 1040 (Colo.2002), this Court held that other acts evidence in a sexual offense case was logically relevant independent of the impermissible character inference without conducting a doctrine of chances analysis. To show the defendant's common plan, scheme, or design;...
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