People v. Quick, 83SA446
| Decision Date | 31 January 1986 |
| Docket Number | No. 83SA446,83SA446 |
| Parties | The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Jerry QUICK, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | Colorado Supreme Court |
Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., Dolores S. Atencio, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for plaintiff-appellee.
R.D. Jorgensen, Pueblo, for defendant-appellant.
The defendant, Jerry Quick, appeals his convictions of two counts of felony theft 1 and one count of second degree forgery 2 following a trial to the court. We affirm. 3
In 1981, the defendant was a licensed attorney residing in La Junta, Colorado. He was retained by Lowell Seberson and Marvin Williams to represent them at a closing of a sale of a motel they owned. The closing occurred during the first week of January 1981. In connection with the transaction, Seberson and Williams were obligated to provide a title insurance commitment for the property. While seeking to obtain such insurance, the defendant informed his clients that as a condition to issuing a policy the title insurance company required Seberson and Williams to place the sum of $20,000 in an interest-bearing trust account to cover a cloud on the title to the property. 4 On January 3, 1981, Seberson and Williams gave a $20,000 check to the defendant for this purpose. The defendant agreed to hold the amount in trust for his clients in an interest-bearing account. However, the check was deposited into the defendant's own individual trust account (the I.T.A. Fund) at the Colorado Bank and Trust in La Junta and was depleted by March of 1981 as the result of checks written by the defendant.
In the summer of 1981, Seberson asked the defendant about the $20,000 and was told by the defendant that the money had been placed in a treasury bill in Pueblo, Colorado. Seberson again contacted the defendant in December 1981, and was informed that the money had been placed in a treasury bill in Denver. In February of 1982, the defendant informed Seberson and Williams that he had spent the money.
During 1981, the defendant, Robert Travis and Patricia Haberman were co-trustees of the Katherine Warnock Trust (the Trust). A portion of the Trust corpus was held in a bank account at the Heritage Savings and Loan Association (Heritage) in Lamar, Colorado. The signatures of all three co-trustees were required for any withdrawal from the Heritage Trust account.
On December 3, 1981, the entire balance of the Heritage Trust account, $42,656.19, was withdrawn in the form of a check made payable to "Jerry Quick, Trustee." The withdrawal slip contained the signature of the defendant and the purported signatures of Travis and Haberman. However, Travis and Haberman neither signed the slip nor authorized the withdrawal of the funds. On the same day, December 3, 1981, the defendant deposited $42,156.19 into his I.T.A. Fund and retained $500 in cash from the proceeds of the transfer of the Trust funds. The defendant subsequently wrote several checks on his I.T.A. Fund until it was closed out in March of 1982. In January of 1982, the defendant informed Travis and Haberman of his misconduct. The trial resulting in the defendant's convictions ensued.
At trial, the defendant did not challenge the allegations that he had committed the acts necessary for convictions of the offenses of theft and second degree forgery. Rather, he contended that at the time he performed those acts he lacked the capacity to form the culpable mental states required for conviction of such offenses.
Four psychiatrists testified in support of his defense of impaired mental condition. 5 All four diagnosed the defendant as having a bipolar disorder 6--a mental condition also termed manic-depressive defect or disease--during 1981. Each physician also testified that in his opinion the defendant, as a result of this disorder, then had a delusional belief that God had directed him to provide financial assistance to persons in the La Junta area, and that this delusion motivated the conduct in question. 7 Three of the psychiatrists also testified that in their opinions the defendant, due to his mental disorder, was unable to form the culpable mental states of "knowingly" and "intent" as required for commission of the offenses of theft and second degree forgery as they understood the applicable legal definitions.
The trial court concluded that the defendant did have the requisite culpable mental state of intent and knowing conduct at the time the conduct occurred. Although it found that the defendant suffered from the bipolar syndrome described by the medical experts, the trial court concluded that the circumstantial evidence adduced by the People was sufficient to establish the requisite mens rea for the three offenses charged. The trial court also stated that some of the medical experts appeared to have confused the legal definition of "insanity" with the legal definitions of "intent" and "knowing" conduct, and expressed a concern that the issue of insanity not become a standard question for resolution in every case in which a not guilty plea is entered.
The defendant urges the following grounds for reversal of his convictions: (1) the provisions of section 18-4-401(1), 8 C.R.S. (1978), defining theft are unconstitutional as applied to the defendant; (2) the trial court erred in failing to apply the proper mens rea requirement to the two theft counts; (3) the trial court erroneously rejected evidence that the defendant could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct; and (4) the trial court's verdict was not supported by the evidence.
The defendant contends that, as applied, section 18-4-401, 8 C.R.S. (1978), violates his constitutional rights to equal protection and due process of law. 8 Insofar as the offenses charged in Counts 1 and 2 of the information are concerned, the pertinent provisions of the statute contain the following language:
(1) A person commits theft when he knowingly obtains or exercises control over anything of value of another without authorization, or by threat or deception, and:
(a) Intends to deprive the other person permanently of the use or benefit of the thing of value; or
(b) Knowingly uses, conceals, or abandons the thing of value in such manner as to deprive the other person permanently of its use or benefit; or
(c) Uses, conceals, or abandons the thing of value intending that such use, concealment, or abandonment will deprive the other person permanently of its use and benefit....
§ 18-4-401(1), 8 C.R.S. (1978).
At trial, the prosecution elected to proceed under subsection (1)(b) of the statute. The defendant asserts that subsection (1)(b) proscribes the identical conduct prohibited by subsection (1)(c), and that, therefore, no rational or articulable distinction can be drawn between the two subsections to warrant proof of the lesser culpable mental state of "knowingly" under subsection (1)(b) while requiring proof of "intending" under (1)(c). The defendant also asserts the prosecution's election to proceed under subsection (1)(b) impermissibly precluded him from utilizing the affirmative defense of impaired mental condition with regard to general intent offenses of theft, 9 in effect impermissibly reducing the prosecution's burden of proof. The defendant's arguments are without merit.
A statute may be found to violate the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the laws when it is found to proscribe the same conduct prohibited by another statute and imposes a different sanction than the other statute provides. See, e.g., People v. Aragon, 653 P.2d 715 (Colo.1982); People v. Marcy, 628 P.2d 69 (Colo.1981); People v. Taggart, 621 P.2d 1375 (Colo.1981); People v. Bramlett, 194 Colo. 205, 573 P.2d 94 (1977), cert. denied, 435 U.S. 956, 98 S.Ct. 1590, 55 L.Ed.2d 808 (1978). Under the theft statute, the gradation of criminal penalties for the offense is according to the value of the thing taken in the theft. See § 18-4-401(2), 8 C.R.S. (1978). Because each theft herein involved an amount of ten thousand dollars or more, each act is classified as a class 3 felony and carries a presumptive sentence of four to eight years plus one year of parole. See § 18-4-401(2)(d), 8 C.R.S. (1978); § 18-1-105(1)(a)(I), 8 C.R.S. (1985 Supp.). The defendant was thus subject to the same criminal sanctions whether the prosecution proceeded under subsection (1)(b) or (1)(c). No disparate penalties are involved here. This court has previously held that a penal statute containing alternative culpable mental state elements represents a legitimate legislative decision that whether the crime is committed "with intent" or "knowingly," the act is equally heinous in the eyes of the law and deserving of similar punishment. Aragon, 653 P.2d 715. Thus, no legitimate equal protection issue is implicated by the provisions of the theft statute considered here.
We also reject the defendant's contention that the prosecution's election to proceed under section 18-4-401(1)(b) denied the defendant due process of law by precluding the defendant from utilizing the affirmative defense of impaired mental condition with regard to the two counts of theft. In People v. Ledman, 622 P.2d 534 (Colo.1981), we rejected a similar due process attack on the impaired mental condition defense statute, section 18-1-803, 8 C.R.S. (1978). In Ledman, we noted that
Whereas the legislature ... may limit the range of criminal responsibility by establishing affirmative defenses, it also may limit those affirmative defenses to a particular category of crimes without offending due process. Due process requires only that the limitation not impair basic rights of the criminally accused. The limitation of the affirmative defense of impaired mental condition to specific intent crimes is a reasonable exercise of legislative power.
Id. at 539 (citation omitted).
We view the defendant's due process challenge to ...
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