People v. Martin

• Decision Date: 21 December 2000
• Docket Number: No. 98CA0429.,98CA0429.
• Citation: 30 P.3d 758
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dwayne Edward MARTIN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals

30 P.3d 758

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Dwayne Edward MARTIN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 98CA0429.

Colorado Court of Appeals, Div. III.

December 21, 2000.

Certiorari Denied September 4, 2001.

Ken Salazar, Attorney General, Hugo Teufel, Special Assistant Attorney General, Denver, CO, for Plaintiff-Appellee.

David S. Kaplan, Colorado State Public Defender, Keyonyu X. O'Connell, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, CO, for Defendant-Appellant.

Opinion by Judge ROY.

Defendant, Dwayne Edward Martin, appeals the judgment of conviction entered upon a jury verdict finding him guilty of second degree assault. On appeal, defendant's sole claim is that, because evidence was introduced at trial indicating that he was intoxicated on the night in question, the trial court erred by not sua sponte reconsidering its pre-trial ruling denying his motion to suppress inculpatory statements made during custodial interrogation. We disagree and therefore affirm.

Defendant was arrested for assaulting a cab driver. At the police station, the arresting officer advised defendant of his rights pursuant to Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, 86 S.Ct. 1602, 16 L.Ed.2d 694 (1966). Defendant initialed and signed an advisement form indicating that he understood his rights and wished to waive them. Defendant then told the officer that he had acted in self-defense. He boasted about his experience as a wrestler and referred to the cab driver using a racial epithet. Defendant also told the officer that he had kicked the cab driver in the head several times.

Prior to trial, defendant filed a written motion to suppress these statements. As grounds, defendant alleged that the interrogation violated his right against self-incrimination and that his statements were involuntarily made as a result of "undue influence and duress."

At the hearing on that motion, defense counsel cross-examined the arresting officer regarding defendant's waiver of his Miranda rights, without ever asking the officer whether defendant was intoxicated. The defense did not call any witnesses at the suppression hearing and did not present any evidence indicating that defendant was intoxicated during the interrogation. At the conclusion of the hearing, defense counsel argued, on unspecified grounds, that defendant's statements were involuntary. The trial court disagreed and ruled defendant's statements were voluntarily made after a valid waiver of his Miranda rights.

At trial, the defense introduced evidence indicating that, on the night in question, defendant had taken a taxicab because he was "very drunk." Defense counsel did not ask the trial court to reconsider its pre-trial ruling concerning the admissibility of defendant's statements, and the conviction here at issue followed.

It is the defendant's obligation to ask the trial court to reconsider a pre-trial suppression ruling based on evidence subsequently adduced at trial. Only when the trial evidence is of such a nature that the trial court should have immediately realized that its earlier ruling was erroneous will the court's failure to act sua sponte constitute plain error. United States v. Parra, 2 F.3d 1058 (10th Cir.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1026, 114 S.Ct. 639, 126 L.Ed.2d 597 (1993); see People v. McClure, 779 P.2d 864 (Colo. 1989)

; see also 5 W.R. LaFave, Search & Seizure: A Treatise on the Fourth Amendment § 11.7(d) (3d ed.1996).

In Colorado, the plain error...