People v. Sims

• Decision Date: 09 May 2019
• Docket Number: Court of Appeals No. 15CA0634
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Samuel SIMS, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals

457 P.3d 719

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.Samuel SIMS, Defendant-Appellant.

Court of Appeals No. 15CA0634

Colorado Court of Appeals, Division VII.

Announced May 9, 2019

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Kevin E. McReynolds, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Mark G. Walta, Alternate Defense Counsel, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant

Opinion by JUDGE HARRIS

¶ 1 Eighteen years after defendant Samuel Sims and three accomplices committed a brutal home invasion, the People charged Sims with murder, attempted murder, and sexual assault in connection with the incident. A jury convicted him of all charges.

¶ 2 On appeal, Sims challenges his convictions on three grounds: (1) the "superseding" indictment, which contained only a single, amended sexual assault charge, divested the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over the charges contained in the original indictment; (2) the sexual assault charge was barred by the statute of limitations; and (3) the district court erred in excluding testimony, under the rape shield statute, that one of the victims was a prostitute who had traded sex for drugs.

¶ 3 We reject Sims's challenges and therefore affirm his convictions.

I. Background

¶ 4 On July 12, 1994, Sims, Jackie McConnell, and two other men broke into the home of Mack Martinez, a drug dealer known to McConnell, in search of drugs and money. Once inside, the four intruders bound Martinez and his two house guests, tortured them, and slit their throats. Only Martinez survived. Before they murdered Martinez's female friend, J.G., Sims and one of his accomplices raped her.

¶ 5 The police recovered DNA evidence from J.G.'s body, but testing did not lead to any suspects. In 2009, police obtained a DNA sample from Sims. They later conducted further forensic analysis of the DNA evidence and determined that Sims was the major source of the DNA recovered from J.G.'s vagina, and that he was a likely source of the DNA recovered from J.G.'s anus. (According to the prosecution's DNA expert, the chances that someone other than Sims was the source of the DNA from the anal swab were 1 in 7.9 billion.)

¶ 6 In 2012, a grand jury returned an indictment charging Sims with two counts of first degree murder after deliberation, two counts of first degree felony murder, one count of attempted murder, and one count of sexual assault. The sexual assault count tracked the then-current statutory language, so, before trial, the prosecution obtained a second indictment charging Sims with one count of sexual assault under the 1994 version of the statute.

¶ 7 At trial, the prosecution presented testimony from Martinez, McConnell (who had entered into a plea agreement and was cooperating with the prosecution), and four other witnesses (friends or acquaintances of Sims) who testified that, shortly after the home invasion, Sims had confessed his involvement in the crimes.

¶ 8 Though Sims had initially denied knowing J.G., at trial he suggested that his DNA was present in J.G.'s vagina because he had traded drugs for sex with J.G. at around the time of the murders. To support that theory of defense, he sought to present testimony from a former roommate of J.G.'s that, a year before her murder, J.G. worked as a prostitute and occasionally traded sex for drugs with her suppliers, one of whom had the same nickname as Sims. The court excluded the roommate's testimony under the rape shield statute.

¶ 9 As noted, a jury convicted Sims as charged.

II. The Superseding Indictment Did Not Divest the District Court of Jurisdiction Over the Original Indictment

¶ 10 The original indictment was filed in December 2012. In addition to the murder and attempted murder counts, the indictment charged Sims with one count of sexual assault under the 2012 version of the sexual assault statute. See § 18-3-402(1)(a), (5), C.R.S. 2012. But the language of the 1994 version of the statute, in effect when Sims was alleged to have committed the crime, was slightly different. See § 18-3-402(1)(a), (3), C.R.S. 1994.

¶ 11 After initially moving to amend the indictment, the prosecution elected to return to the grand jury for a second indictment charging sexual assault under the earlier version of the statute. A "superseding indictment," which contained only the new version of the sexual assault count, was filed in July 2014, seven months before trial.

¶ 12 Sims contends, as he did in the district court, that the "superseding" indictment supplanted and nullified the original indictment, thereby divesting the district court of subject matter jurisdiction over the murder and attempted murder charges. We disagree.

¶ 13 We review questions of law, including challenges to the court's subject matter jurisdiction, de novo. People v. Sandoval , 2016 COA 57, ¶ 14, 383 P.3d 92.

¶ 14 Subject matter jurisdiction concerns a court's authority to deal with the class of cases in which it renders judgment. Wood v. People , 255 P.3d 1136, 1140 (Colo. 2011). A court has subject matter jurisdiction "where it has been empowered to entertain the type of case before it by the sovereign from which the court derives its authority." Id. In Colorado, article VI, section 9(1) of our constitution vests the district court with original jurisdiction in all criminal cases. See Garcia v. Dist. Court , 157 Colo. 432, 437-38, 403 P.2d 215, 218 (1965).

¶ 15 Still, it is not enough that the court generally has the authority to decide a particular class of case. Adams Cty. Dep't of Soc. Servs. Child Support Enf't Unit v. Huynh , 883 P.2d 573, 574 (Colo. App. 1994). Subject matter jurisdiction must be properly invoked before the district court can act. Id. ; see also Sandoval , ¶ 53. In a criminal case, the court's jurisdiction is invoked by the filing of a legally sufficient complaint, information, or indictment. People v. Huynh , 98 P.3d 907, 910 (Colo. App. 2004).

¶ 16 An indictment is sufficient if it alleges sufficient facts to permit the accused to prepare an adequate defense and to assure that the defendant cannot be prosecuted again for the same crime. People v. Edebohls , 944 P.2d 552, 554 (Colo. App. 1996). Thus, if the indictment identifies the essential elements of the crime charged in the language of the statute, it is legally sufficient. See People v. Harris , 2016 COA 159, ¶ 70, 405 P.3d 361.

¶ 17 Sims does not challenge the sufficiency of the original indictment or dispute that it properly invoked the district court's jurisdiction. Instead, he contends that the superseding indictment replaced the original indictment, leaving the court with jurisdiction only over the updated sexual assault charge.

¶ 18 But Sims never explains why a prosecutor may not obtain a partially superseding indictment, as the prosecutor did here. He acknowledges that no statute, rule, or other authority prohibits the practice. And, because "each count in an indictment, though contained in a single instrument, is to be regarded as a separate indictment," Gainey v. United States , 318 F.2d 795, 797 (10th Cir. 1963), it follows as a logical matter that any one count can be superseded. See People v. Edwards , 240 A.D.2d 427, 658 N.Y.S.2d 415, 416 (1997) ("A prosecutor has the freedom to obtain a new Grand Jury indictment to replace one that is pending, or any count within it , provided the new, ‘superseding’, indictment is filed prior to" trial or guilty plea.) (emphasis added).

¶ 19 Contrary to Sims's argument, the mere fact that the second indictment was labeled a "superseding" indictment rather than a "partially-superseding" indictment is not dispositive. The district court's subject matter jurisdiction does not hinge on the particular appellation used by the prosecutor to describe a legal document. See, e.g. , Hawkins v. State Comp. Ins. Auth. , 790 P.2d 893, 894 (Colo. App. 1990) ("A pleading or court document should not stand or fall on the appellation it is given by a litigant. It is the substance of a document that should control, rather than the title by which it is denominated."); see also United States v. Blair , 214 F.3d 690, 700-01 (6th Cir. 2000) ("[E]ven if the term ‘superseding’ was inappropriate to describe the second indictment, such a description is mere surplusage that can be ignored.").

¶ 20 Moreover, the district court found, based on its review of the grand jury transcripts, that the grand jury did not intend to withdraw the original murder and attempted murder charges and to replace them with a single charge of sexual assault. Rather, consistent with the rule that a superseding indictment can replace a single count of an original indictment, the district court determined that the grand jury had considered only the sexual assault charge. We see no reason to question that finding.

¶ 21 And finally, even if we assume that a superseding indictment ordinarily supplants an original indictment, the subsequent indictment does not divest the court of subject matter jurisdiction over the original charges. See United States v. Bowen , 946 F.2d 734, 736 (10th Cir. 1991) ("We have found no authority which supports the proposition that a superseding indictment zaps an earlier indictment to the end that the earlier indictment somehow vanishes into thin air."); see also Morrow v. Ignacio , 183 F. App'x 653, 654 (9th Cir. 2006) ("There is no authority holding that a state court loses jurisdiction over the charges in the indictment when the prosecutor returns to the same grand jury to obtain a superseding indictment."). A superseding indictment does not "automatically render the original indictment ineffectual or a nullity." Jones v. United States , 99 A.3d 679, 689-90 (D.C. 2014). Rather, multiple indictments may coexist. Bowen , 946 F.2d at 736.

¶ 22 True, as Sims points out, the prosecution ordinarily elects one indictment on which it will proceed to trial. But election seems unnecessary where, as here, the second indictment amends or supersedes only part of the...