People v. Saiz

• Decision Date: 10 September 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99SC513.,99SC513.
• Citation: 32 P.3d 441
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Paul Anthony SAIZ, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

32 P.3d 441

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Petitioner, v. Paul Anthony SAIZ, Respondent.

No. 99SC513.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

September 10, 2001.

Ken Salazar, Attorney General, Deborah Isenberg Pratt, Assistant Attorney General, Appellate Division, Criminal Justice Section, Denver, CO, Attorneys for Petitioner.

David S. Kaplan, Colorado State Public Defender, Joan E. Mounteer, Deputy State Public Defender Denver, CO, Attorneys for Respondent.

Justice COATS delivered the opinion of the court.

The People sought review by certiorari of the court of appeals' judgment in People v. Saiz, No. 97CA1665 (Colo.App. Apr. 1, 1999) (not selected for publication), reversing the defendant's conviction for second degree murder. The court of appeals held that the trial court abused its discretion by excluding as cumulative and unnecessary certain videotaped statements of the defendant's son that were inconsistent with his testimony at trial responding to questions about being coached. Because the trial court acted within the range of its discretion in concluding that the purpose for which the videotaped statements were offered had already been accomplished through cross-examination of the detective to whom the statements were originally made, and because the defendant was not deprived of a constitutional right to confront adverse witnesses and present a defense, the holding of the court of appeals is reversed.

I.

The charges against the defendant arose from the homicide of his common-law wife, Sherry Padilla, during the night of September 13-14, 1993. She was killed by a single shot to the face from a .45 caliber, semiautomatic pistol that was found, along with the body, in the house where the two lived. The defendant reported finding the body when he returned home from socializing with friends. He notified a neighbor, who called the police. The couple's four-year-old son, Anthony, who was the only self-professed witness to the murder, told the police that Mexicans shot his mother, and he specifically identified a man named Rueben Gutierrez-Ruiz. Gutierrez-Ruiz admitted having been intimately involved with the victim and having been with her and Anthony earlier that day, but he provided an alibi for the time of the murder.

After the murder, Anthony spent time in foster homes and lived for twenty-two months with the defendant's sister and brother-in-law. In April 1996, the victim's mother acquired custody of Anthony. Several months later, almost three years after the murder, Anthony's sixteen-year-old maternal aunt, Leslie Padilla, recounted to Anthony's therapist, with Anthony's confirmation, his recent revelation to her that his father was actually the person who shot his mother. In a videotaped interview with Detective Weyler on July 26, 1996, Anthony repeated his changed account of the murder in greater detail.

The defendant was charged with first degree murder in October 1996 and went to trial in May 1997. It was the prosecution's theory that the defendant shot his wife while Anthony lay in bed beside her, and that after the murder, he walked Anthony around a field for some time and instructed him to tell the police that Rueben had shot his mother. Apart from Anthony's testimony, the prosecution presented a largely circumstantial case designed to demonstrate that the police were unable to find evidence of forced entry or another person's presence in the house; that the defendant actually arrived home almost two hours before giving notice of the murder; that the defendant owned a .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol; that the defendant was aware of his wife's relationship with Gutierrez Ruiz; and that Gutierrez-Ruiz could not have committed the murder because he was elsewhere on that night. The prosecution also presented the testimony of eight-year-old Anthony, who described how his father shot his mother one time, despite Anthony's protestations, and explained that he initially accused Rueben because his father had told him to do so and because he did not want his father to go to jail. In addition, the prosecution presented the testimony of several witnesses to whom Anthony had spoken about the murder, including Anthony's therapist, his maternal aunt, and Detective Weyler.

The defense theory was that the defendant was not present when the murder occurred and that his wife's relatives had coached Anthony to accuse his father of the murder. The defense produced evidence designed to implicate Rueben, to indicate that the victim was involved in drug dealing, and to support the claim that the defendant did not arrive home until 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, shortly before reporting the murder. It also presented Anthony's earlier statements about the murder, accusing Rueben and exonerating the defendant, including Anthony's reaffirmations of that account during the time he lived with the defendant's brother-in-law. In addition it presented expert opinion to the effect that Anthony's changed account of the murder was consistent with his having been coached by the victim's family.

The defendant was acquitted of first degree murder but convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to forty-eight years in prison. He appealed his conviction to the court of appeals, challenging the trial court's determination that Anthony was competent to testify as well as the exclusion of certain videotaped statements by Anthony. Although the court of appeals found no error in declaring Anthony competent to testify, it held that Anthony's videotaped statements should have been admitted. The court found that the statutory foundational requirements for prior inconsistent statements had been met and that the tapes would have been "the best and most efficient way to convey accurately to the jury the effect of the maternal aunt's statements on the child and the confusion of the child between what happened and what had been suggested to have happened."

This court granted the People's petition for writ of certiorari, challenging the appellate court's reversal for exclusion of Anthony's videotaped statements, but denied the defendant's petition that again sought to reverse the trial court's determination that Anthony was competent to testify.

II.

At trial, the defendant's counsel sought to impeach Anthony's earlier testimony with videotaped statements made during Anthony's July 26, 1996 interview with Detective Weyler. When Anthony testified at trial, defense counsel asked him what he had been told about the murder by his grandmother and his Aunt Leslie. Although Anthony denied he had been told about certain things, defense counsel did not confront him with his prior statements or ask him to clarify apparent discrepancies. During the subsequent testimony of Detective Weyler, defense counsel inquired about Anthony's responses to similar questions asked by the detective during their July interview. Following the detective's acknowledgment of several statements made by Anthony in that interview that appeared to be inconsistent with his trial testimony, defense counsel offered into evidence a videotape of Anthony actually making some of those statements.

In response to objections about this approach to impeachment by prior inconsistent statement, in which the out-of-court statements were introduced through a witness other than the person making them, defense counsel made clear that he was nevertheless offering the videotaped statements to impeach Anthony rather than the detective, pursuant to both CRE 613 and section 16-10-201. Defense counsel also made clear his understanding that he had satisfied the foundational requirements for impeachment by prior inconsistent statement, even though he had not confronted Anthony with his prior statements, and that despite Detective Weyler's testimony conceding that Anthony made the statements to him, the jury was entitled to hear Anthony's own words. The trial court denied admission, concluding that to the extent the videotaped statements were offered to impeach Anthony by showing he made the same conflicting statements that had already been conceded by Detective Weyler, that purpose had been adequately accomplished by the detective's testimony.

The use of prior inconsistent statements in criminal trials in this jurisdiction is expressly governed by both statute and rule. See Montoya v. People, 740 P.2d 992 (Colo. 1987)

(harmonizing CRE 613 and section 16-10-201, 6 C.R.S.2000). CRE 613 comports generally with prior case law by prohibiting examination of a witness for impeachment by prior inconsistent statement until his attention has been called to the time, place, and circumstances of the prior statement and by barring the admission of extrinsic evidence to prove any prior statement that is conceded by the witness. Id. at 995-96. Unlike CRE 613, section 16-10-201, creates "a new rule of substantive evidence" for criminal cases, see People v. Smith, 182 Colo. 228, 234, 512 P.2d 269, 272 (1973), by eliminating the hearsay impediment to using prior inconsistent statements for the purpose of establishing a fact to which witness' testimony and prior statement relate, as long as the witness is still available and his prior statement relates to a matter within his own knowledge.¹

Montoya, 740 P.2d at 997-98.

While section 16-10-201 also relaxes the foundational requirements for impeachment by prior inconsistent statement in some respects, CRE 613 does not conflict with the statute in every instance and continues to have application in civil cases and in criminal cases in which the foundational requirements of the statute are not met. Id. However, "[w]hen evidence of a witness' prior statements is properly admitted for substantive purposes under section 16-10-201, it thereby qualifies for admission for impeachment purposes pursuant to the express provision of the statute, independently of the foundation requirements of CRE 613." Id. at 997 & n. 4.

Although the statute eliminates the...