People v. Naranjo, 85CA1184
| Decision Date | 12 February 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 85CA1184,85CA1184 |
| Citation | 738 P.2d 407 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Sammy NARANJO, Defendant-Appellant. . I |
| Court | Colorado Court of Appeals |
Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., Curt P. Kriksciun, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for plaintiff-appellee.
Sammy Naranjo, pro se.
Defendant, Sammy Naranjo, proceeding pro se, appeals an order of the trial court denying his motion for postconviction relief under Crim.P. 35(c). Because the trial court failed to appoint counsel for defendant or to hold a hearing on his motion, we vacate its order and remand for further proceedings.
In his original trial and appeal, defendant was represented by the public defender. The record reflects that, since that time, defendant has been continuously incarcerated. No suggestion has been made that he is no longer indigent and we assume, therefore, at the time he filed each of his Crim.P. 35 motions, his financial status was such as to allow the public defender to be appointed to represent him.
In his motion for postconviction relief, defendant alleged that: (1) his confession should have been suppressed because it was obtained in violation of his Sixth Amendment rights; (2) because of his difficulty in comprehending English, his due process rights to confrontation and effective assistance of counsel were denied; (3) in light of his expressed desire to testify, the trial court erred in failing to obtain his knowing and intelligent waiver of his right to do so; (4) he did not receive the effective assistance of counsel on appeal; and (5) the jury instructions contained various errors.
In addition to supporting his claims with citations to the record, defendant proposed in his motion to present evidence de novo on two of these issues--his inability to understand or use English and his desire and efforts to testify at the suppression hearing and at trial. Defendant requested an evidentiary hearing on his motion in order to present such evidence. He also requested that counsel be appointed to represent him in the Crim.P. 35(c) proceedings.
The trial court refused to appoint counsel for defendant or to schedule a hearing on his motion. In denying defendant's motion, the trial court observed that most of the issues he raised had previously been passed upon either by the trial court or on appeal. The trial court then adopted ultimate findings of fact which determined that none of defendant's claims were factually supported. These findings were, presumably, based solely upon the record of defendant's trial with no consideration being given to any evidence outside the record.
Despite the trial court's observations, the only issues raised by the present Crim.P. 35(c) motion which the record before us shows were previously raised, either at trial or on appeal, concern the admissibility of defendant's confession and some of the jury instructions. While defendant had filed a previous pro se Crim.P. 35(c) motion in 1982, that motion had been limited to attacking the validity of his sentence, an issue not raised in the present motion.
On appeal, defendant first claims that, since several of the issues he raised were to be supported by evidence outside the record, the trial court improperly denied him an evidentiary hearing on his motion. We agree, although our conclusion in this respect is based primarily on the fact that defendant was not provided with appointed counsel in pressing his first Crim.P. 35(c) motion.
The People argue that the trial court's summary dismissal of defendant's motion without a hearing was proper. While the trial court's order made no mention of the subject, the People contend that, because defendant failed to present any of the issues raised in the instant motion in his 1982 Crim.P. 35(c) motion, he is precluded under the rule established in People v. Hubbard, 184 Colo. 243, 519 P.2d 945 (1974), from now raising them.
On the facts of this case, the People's reliance on Hubbard is misplaced. Indeed, the Hubbard opinion underscores the necessity for the appointment of counsel for defendant here.
Hubbard stands for the proposition that the summary dismissal of subsequent motions for postconviction review which assert new grounds for relief is proper, unless failure to include such grounds in the earlier motion is legally excusable. This holding, however, was premised on the extension of the Sixth Amendment's right to counsel to postconviction proceedings, a right afforded by statute in Colorado. See §§ 21-1-103 and 21-1-104,...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
People v. Silva, 04CA0661.
...proceedings is "tenuously premised" on §§ 21-1-103 and 21-1-104, C.R.S.2004. Accord People v. Duran, supra; People v. Naranjo, 738 P.2d 407 (Colo.App.1987). Observing that "the failure to provide effective assistance of counsel is tantamount to not providing counsel at all," People v. Hicke......
-
People v. Naranjo, 91SC473
...district court to appoint counsel and to conduct such further proceedings as may be appropriate under the circumstances. People v. Naranjo, 738 P.2d 407 (Colo.App.1987). In December 1988 the public defender's office, acting on behalf of the defendant, filed a Crim.P. 35(c) motion alleging s......
-
Demarest v. Price, 95-1535
...have allowed defendants to file successive petitions after the denial of earlier petitions filed pro se. See, e.g., People v. Naranjo, 738 P.2d 407, 409 (Colo.Ct.App.1987) ("[S]ince [the] defendant did not have legal representation during the course of his first Crim. P. 35(c) proceeding, h......
-
Murphy v. People
...See Brinklow v. Riveland, 773 P.2d 517, 521 (Colo.1989); People v. Duran, 757 P.2d 1096, 1097 (Colo.App.1988); People v. Naranjo, 738 P.2d 407, 409 (Colo.App.1987).10 We recognize, of course, that a litigant may be allowed to waive the right to conflict-free representation upon full disclos......