People v. Mattas

• Decision Date: 22 March 1982
• Docket Number: Nos. 80SA192,80SC143,s. 80SA192
• Citation: 645 P.2d 254
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Edward J. MATTAS, Defendant-Appellant. Edward J. MATTAS, Petitioner, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

Page 254

645 P.2d 254

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Edward J. MATTAS, Defendant-Appellant.

Edward J. MATTAS, Petitioner, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.

Nos. 80SA192, 80SC143.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

March 22, 1982.

As Modified on Denial of Rehearing May 24, 1982.

J. Gregory Walta, Colorado State Public Defender, Margaret L. O'Leary, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, for Edward J. Mattas.

J. D. MacFarlane, Atty. Gen., Richard F. Hennessey, Deputy Atty. Gen., Mary J. Mullarkey, Sol. Gen., Maureen Phelan, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for The People of the State of Colorado.

DUBOFSKY, Justice:

We granted certiorari to review the Court of Appeals' decision in People v. Mattas, Colo.App., 618 P.2d 675 (1980). The defendant, Edward J. Mattas, separately appealed his sentence, imposed by the El Paso County District Court, and the Court of Appeals transferred the sentence appeal to this Court. ¹ We consolidated the cases and now affirm the defendant's conviction and sentence.

A jury found the defendant guilty of first-degree sexual assault, section 18-3-402, C.R.S.1973 (1978 Repl.Vol. 8) and first-degree burglary, section 18-4-202, C.R.S. 1973 (1978 Repl.Vol. 8). The defendant challenges the convictions on the grounds that the district court improperly instructed the jury and failed to exclude inadmissible evidence. The defendant also challenges his sentence as excessive and maintains that he should have been sentenced under the presumptive sentencing provisions of H.B.1589.

About 3:00 a. m. on November 13, 1976, the victim, a school teacher living in Green Mountain Falls, Colorado, awoke to find the defendant in her bedroom. She screamed, and he hit her and put his hand down her throat until she began to gag. The defendant then sexually assaulted the victim twice in the course of the next two hours. The defendant, who lived in a trailer less than 50 feet away from the victim's apartment, left about 5:00 a. m. and the victim called friends who summoned the police. As a result of the assault, the victim suffered injuries to her head and neck including a broken nose, a bruised and swollen jaw and cuts requiring stitches on the inside of her mouth.

I.

The defendant argues that the trial court inadequately instructed the jury as to the mental state required for conviction under the first-degree sexual assault statute at the time the offense was committed. Section 18-3-402, C.R.S.1973 (1977 Supp.; current version in 1978 Repl.Vol. 8) described the acts necessary for conviction of first-degree sexual assault, but did not include an applicable mental state. ² Jury Instruction No. 9 given at trial setting out the elements of first-degree sexual assault also omitted any reference to a culpable mental state. Instruction No. 10 contained definitions of the terms used in the elements instruction. It also did not mention the mental state. Instruction No. 11 instructed the jury that joint operation of an act forbidden by law and a culpable mental state is required to convict and that the culpable mental state "means intentionally as the term is explained in this instruction." The instruction went on to define "intentionally." ³

The due process clause of the United States Constitution protects an accused against conviction "except upon proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which he is charged," In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364, 90 S.Ct. 1068, 1072, 25 L.Ed.2d 368 (1970), including proof of the mental state of the accused. People v. Martinez, Colo., 634 P.2d 26 (1981); People v. Hardin, 199 Colo. 229, 607 P.2d 1291 (1980). It is the duty of the trial court to instruct the jury properly on all matters of law, People v. Woods, 179 Colo. 441, 501 P.2d 117 (1972), and instructions which fail to define all the elements of an offense charged, so that the jury may decide whether they have been established beyond a reasonable doubt, are constitutionally deficient. People v. Martinez, supra; People v. Hardin, supra. Despite the defendant's failure to object to alleged defects in the instructions at trial or in his new trial motion, we may consider the validity of the instructions. Failure to properly instruct the jury with respect to an essential element of the crimes charged constitutes plain error. People v. Hardin, supra; People v. Archuleta, 180 Colo. 156, 503 P.2d 346 (1972).

Recently, in People v. Martinez, supra, we stated:

(W)hen a mens rea element is prescribed in the statute defining an offense, the court should always include the mens rea element in the definition of the crime instruction. If it does not do so, unless from all the instructions taken as a whole the jury is clearly instructed as to the prescribed mens rea element, the instructions are constitutionally deficient.

634 P.2d at 30. In People v. Bridges, Colo., 620 P.2d 1 (1980) (Bridges II ), we indicated that, whether or not a mens rea element is prescribed in the statute defining an offense, clearly it is sounder judicial practice to include the appropriate culpable mental state in the instruction setting out the elements of the offense. However, failure, as in this case, to include the mental state in the elements instruction does not render the instructions fatally defective, as long as the instructions, read and considered in their entirety, clearly instruct the jury as to the required mens rea element. People v. Martinez, supra; Bridges II, supra. Therefore, we must examine the instructions here as a whole to ascertain whether the district court clearly instructed the jury as to the mens rea applicable to first-degree sexual assault.

In addition to Instruction No. 9, which set out the elements of first-degree sexual assault, Instruction No. 10, which defined the terms in No. 9, and Instruction No. 11, the joint operation instruction which defined "intentionally," the court gave the jury three instructions pertaining to the burglary charge. Instruction No. 12 set out the elements of first-degree burglary, including the culpable mental state of "specific intent"; Instruction No. 13 set out the affirmative defense of intoxication; and Instruction No. 14, another joint operation instruction, defined "specific intent." Because there were two joint operation instructions, one for each of the two substantive offenses, and each was closely linked to the applicable elements instruction, we conclude that the district court adequately apprised the jury that it must find that the defendant possessed the requisite mental state for each charge. See People v. Bridges, 199 Colo. 520, 612 P.2d 1110 (1980) (Bridges I ).

The defendant contends that our decision in Bridges II, supra, in which we held invalid jury instructions similar to those at issue here, should control the result in this case. We disagree. The defendant in Bridges II was convicted of engaging in a riot, third-degree assault and felony menacing. The trial court gave the jury a single joint operation instruction which defined two mental states, "intentionally" and "specific intent." The instructions setting out the elements of two of the offenses, third-degree assault and felony menacing, included the culpable mental states applicable to each of those charges. However, the instructions setting out the elements of engaging in a riot did not prescribe a culpable mental state. ⁴ We concluded from an examination of the instructions as a whole that they did not clearly inform the jury that a culpable mental state was applicable to the riot charge. The elements instructions for the other two charges each included one of the two culpable mental states defined in the joint operation instruction. The joint operation instruction also limited the "specific intent" definition to the felony menacing charge. As a whole, the instructions implied that, while the other two charges each had a requisite mental state, the riot charge did not. Thus, the jury may have convicted the defendant of engaging in a riot without finding that he possessed the requisite mental state.

Our conclusion here is consistent with our recent decision in People v. Martinez, supra. In that case, the defendant was convicted of second-degree sexual assault and false imprisonment. The prescribed mental state for both charges is "knowingly." The court gave a single joint operation instruction defining "knowingly" and separate instructions defining the elements of each crime. The instruction defining the elements of false imprisonment included the mental state, but the second-degree sexual assault instruction did not. We concluded that By including the statutory mens rea in the definitional instruction of false imprisonment but omitting it from the definitional instruction of second-degree sexual assault, the jury was in effect instructed that the mens rea element must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt as to false imprisonment but not as to second degree sexual assault.

634 P.2d at 29.

The instructions in the case before us are distinguishable from those given in Martinez because here the jury was given two joint operation instructions, one for each criminal charge. No reasonable jury would conclude, as they might from the Martinez instructions, that no mental state was required for conviction of first-degree sexual assault even though, consistent with the statute in effect at that time, the elements instruction did not include an applicable mental state. The rule applied in both the Martinez case and this case is that the jury must be clearly instructed as to the mental state applicable to a crime. Instructions which, taken as a whole, are confusing or which imply to the jury that no mental state is required to convict are not adequate. ⁵

The defendant also contends that Instruction No. 13 on voluntary intoxication, ⁶ given sua sponte by the court, was reversible error because it conflicted with his principal defense-that he...