People v. Taylor, 85SA22

• Citation: 732 P.2d 1172
• Decision Date: 17 February 1987
• Docket Number: No. 85SA22,85SA22
• Parties: The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Darcy L. TAYLOR, Defendant-Appellee.
• Court: Supreme Court of Colorado

Page 1172

732 P.2d 1172

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Darcy L. TAYLOR, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 85SA22.

Supreme Court of Colorado.

Feb. 17, 1987.

Norman S. Early, Jr., Dist. Atty. Brooke Wunnicke, Chief Appellate Deputy Dist. Atty., Donna Skinner Reed, Roger Fraley, Deputy Dist. Attys., Denver, for plaintiff-appellant.

Dill, Dill & McAllister, Robert T. McAllister, Denver, for defendant-appellee.

QUINN, Chief Justice.

The People appeal a judgment of dismissal entered in favor of the defendant, Darcy L. Taylor, by the Denver District Court. ¹ The court dismissed charges of unlawful possession of a controlled substance and unlawful possession of eight ounces or more of marijuana on the basis that the prosecution of the defendant for these crimes was barred by the compulsory joinder statute, § 18-1-408(2), 8B C.R.S. (1986). We reverse the judgment of dismissal and remand the case to the district court for further proceedings.

I.

The defendant was charged in two judicial districts with drug-related offenses based on an investigation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) in Denver and Steamboat Springs. On June 19, 1984, Rodney Pobar sold one kilogram of cocaine to an undercover agent, Steve Peters, in Steamboat Springs and was immediately arrested by the agent. Pobar cooperated with DEA officers and named the defendant as the source of the cocaine. He told the officers that the defendant kept cocaine in the basement of her home at 1001 South Josephine Street in Denver. After his arrest Pobar, at the request of the officers, made two monitored telephone calls to the defendant's residence. He also provided other information to the officers for use in an application for a search warrant for the defendant's home.

On June 20, 1984, the defendant was arrested in Denver pursuant to a Routt County arrest warrant for the crimes of distribution of cocaine and conspiracy to distribute cocaine. During a search incident to the defendant's arrest, officers found .11 grams of cocaine in her purse. Later that same night, DEA agents and local police officers executed the search warrant for the defendant's residence. During the search the officers seized a small amount of cocaine, nearly eight pounds of marijuana, some hashish, and a psilocybin mushroom.

Based on the results of the search, a complaint/information was filed in the Denver County Court, Second Judicial District, on June 26, 1984. The complaint/information alleged that on June 20, 1984, in Denver, Colorado, the defendant committed the crime of unlawful possession of a schedule II controlled substance (cocaine and psilocin), ² § 18-18-105, 8B C.R.S. (1986), and the crime of possession of more than eight ounces of marijuana, § 18-18-106, 8B C.R.S. (1986). The Denver charges were bound over to the Denver District Court for trial.

On July 5, 1984, the defendant was charged in the district court of Routt County, Fourteenth Judicial District, with distribution of cocaine and with conspiracy to distribute cocaine. § 18-18-105, 8B C.R.S. (1986). These charges were based on the defendant's supplying Pobar with the cocaine sold by him to Agent Peters in Steamboat Springs on June 19, 1984. On September 27, 1984, the defendant entered a guilty plea to the conspiracy charge, and the distribution charge was dismissed. In the course of entering her guilty plea, the defendant filed the following signed statement with the Routt County District Court:

If the District Attorney was required to present evidence at trial I admit he could prove the following facts:

During the month of May 1984, I had a number of meetings with Rodney Pobar in Denver, Colorado. Rodney told me he had a buyer who was interested in purchasing kilo quantities of cocaine. I had never before sold a kilo of cocaine but told Rodney that I might be able to obtain a kilo while in Florida purchasing plants for my landscaping business.

The prospective buyer was in fact Agent Steve Peters who was posing as a wealthy individual interested in purchasing large amounts of cocaine. During the month of June 1984, Rodney Pobar contacted me at my home and told me Steve was ready to make a purchase. I flew from Denver to Florida to obtain the cocaine. I returned to my home in Denver on June 19, 1984 and gave Rodney a little less than a kilo of cocaine and a small amount of marijuana.

Rodney told me that the delivery of cocaine was to take place outside of Denver. Later that night he called me and said the delivery was actually made in Steamboat Springs. Rodney further said he would return with the money the next day. I met Rodney and Steve the following evening in Denver to pick up the payment for the cocaine and was placed under arrest. Rodney informed the agents that I still had some cocaine and marijuana in my home. On the night of my arrest the agents searched my purse and home in Denver and seized the remaining amounts of cocaine and marijuana that I possessed.

The next day, September 28, 1984, the defendant pled not guilty to both counts in the Denver case. On October 18, 1984, the defendant moved to dismiss the Denver charges, claiming that the prosecution of these charges was barred by the provisions of § 18-1-408(2), 8B C.R.S. (1986), which prohibits a subsequent prosecution for offenses that are known to the district attorney at the time of the commencement of a prosecution, were committed within the district attorney's judicial district, and are based on the same act or series of acts arising from the same criminal episode. Noting that the statute requires the existence of five factors before the compulsory joinder bar can apply, e.g., Corr v. District Court, 661 P.2d 668 (Colo.1983), the district court found that the prosecution of the defendant for the Denver charges was barred because: (1) although the Denver possessory offenses were obviously committed in the Second Judicial District, the Routt County conspiracy was also committed in the Second Judicial District since the overt act in pursuance of the conspiracy was the defendant's transfer of cocaine to Pobar in Denver on June 19, 1984; (2) the defendant was subjected to a prosecution in the Routt County District Court by reason of the filing of the distribution and conspiracy charges in that court; (3) the Denver District Attorney had knowledge of both the Routt County charges and the Denver possessory offenses when the defendant entered her guilty plea to the Routt County conspiracy charge; (4) while the Denver and Routt County charges constituted separate offenses, they arose out of the same criminal episode; and (5) the defendant was previously subjected to a single prosecution by pleading guilty to the conspiracy charge in the Routt County District Court.

The People claim that the court erred in dismissing the case because, notwithstanding the fact that the conspiracy to distribute cocaine may have been committed in the Second Judicial District, the possessory offenses filed in the Denver District Court were not committed in Routt County, which is part of the Fourteenth Judicial District, but were committed in Denver. For reasons hereinafter discussed, we conclude that the Denver possessory offenses were not subject to the compulsory joinder bar of section 18-1-408(2) and that the district court erred in dismissing the Denver charges.

II.

Section 18-1-408(2), 8B, C.R.S. (1986), states as follows:

If the several offenses are known to the district attorney at the time of commencing the prosecution and were committed within his judicial district, all such offenses upon which the district attorney elects to proceed must be prosecuted by separate counts in a single prosecution if they are based on the same act or series of acts arising from the same criminal episode. Any such offense not thus joined by separate counts cannot thereafter be the basis of a subsequent prosecution. ³

The compulsory joinder bar of this statute extends further than the constitutional guarantee against double jeopardy, which generally is limited to the "same offense." ⁴ Section 18-1-408(2) prohibits a subsequent prosecution for a different offense when the following factors are present: (1) that the several offenses were committed within the same judicial district; (2) that a prosecution has been initiated against the offender; (3) that the prosecutor knew of the several offenses at the commencement of the jeopardy stage of the prosecution; (4) that the several offenses arose from the same criminal episode; and (5) that the offender was subjected to a single completed prosecution--that is, a proceeding from the commencement of a criminal prosecution until further prosecution is barred. Jeffrey v. District Court, 626 P.2d 631, 637 (Colo.1981); accord Corr v. District Court, 661 P.2d 668 (Colo.1983). This case centers on the first element of the compulsory joinder bar, that is, whether the offenses underlying the Routt County prosecution and the Denver District Court prosecution were committed within the same judicial district. We interpret the statutory requirement that the offenses be committed "within his [District Attorney's] judicial district" to mean that the offenses must have been committed within that same judicial district in which the accused had previously been subjected to a completed prosecution before the compulsory joinder bar attaches.

A.

Our analysis of the compulsory joinder statute proceeds from a consideration of territorial principles relating to the prosecution of criminal cases. These principles find their source in the Colorado Constitution and the statutory law of this state.

Article II, section 16 of the Colorado Constitution states that "[i]n criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to ... a speedy public trial by an impartial jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed." The term "district" refers to "a governmental area distinct from a county,"...