Stevens v. People

• Decision Date: 25 June 2001
• Docket Number: No. 99SC121.,99SC121.
• Parties: David P. STEVENS, Petitioner, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.
• Court: Colorado Supreme Court

29 P.3d 305

David P. STEVENS, Petitioner, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.

No. 99SC121.

Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.

June 25, 2001.

Rehearing Denied August 27, 2001.

David Kaplan, Colorado State Public Defender, Pamela A. Dayton, Deputy State Public Defender, Denver, CO, Attorneys for Petitioner.

Ken Salazar, Attorney General, Barbara McDonnell, Chief Deputy Attorney General, Alan J. Gilbert, Solicitor General, Robert Mark Russel, First Assistant Attorney General, Jerry N. Jones, Special Assistant Attorney General, Appellate Division, Denver, CO, Attorneys for Respondent.

Chief Justice MULLARKEY delivered the Opinion of the Court.

In this murder-for-hire case, the defendant, David Stevens, was convicted of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and solicitation to commit first-degree murder, in connection with the February 28, 1993, shooting death of David Seiler.¹ The prosecution's theory was that the defendant engaged John Swiger to kill the victim in order to prevent the victim from testifying against the defendant in an upcoming criminal trial scheduled for April 1993. In that trial, the same defendant, Stevens, was charged with kidnapping and severely beating the same victim, Seiler, in the late evening hours of December 31, 1991, and the early morning hours of January 1, 1992, some thirteen months before the victim was murdered. Following the victim's death but before the defendant was charged in connection with his murder, the defendant was tried and convicted of the kidnapping and assault charges. He was sentenced to imprisonment for life plus eighty years. For his convictions in connection with the murder case now before us, the defendant received a life sentence and two concurrent terms of twenty-four years each to be served consecutively with his previous sentences.

We granted certiorari to determine whether the court of appeals applied a proper Confrontation Clause analysis when it upheld the admission into evidence of the shooter Swiger's confession in Stevens's trial.² The court of appeals determined that Swiger's confession was a statement against interest that was inherently trustworthy because it was supported by the following indicia of reliability: (1) the statement was strongly against Swiger's penal interest; (2) the statement was made after Swiger voluntarily waived his Miranda rights; (3) Swiger was not offered any favorable treatment in exchange for making the statement; and (4) the statement contained such detail as to suggest that Swiger had personal knowledge of the crime. People v. Stevens, No. 96CA1685, slip op. at 5-7 (Colo.App. Nov. 19, 1998) (not selected for official publication). We conclude that the appellate court did not err. Swiger's statement was admissible because it contained sufficient guarantees of trustworthiness.

I.

At the time of the crimes, the defendant Stevens was a man in his mid-forties who operated an illegal drug business from his Aurora home and recruited numerous individuals to assist him in his drug operations. Some, like the victim Seiler and his girlfriend, were young people in their teens or early twenties; the victim was twenty years old when he died. Other participants were adults in their thirties who, like the shooter Swiger and his girlfriend, claimed to have ties to motorcycle gangs. The defendant's home was the focus of activities related to the illegal drug trade, such as repackaging drugs for resale, and also was a place for socializing among people involved in the defendant's illicit business.

The chain of events that culminated in the victim's death began in December 1991 when the defendant's home was burglarized and drugs and money were stolen. The defendant, believing that the victim was responsible for the theft, arranged to have the victim kidnapped. On December 31, 1991, the defendant and two companions held the victim at gunpoint for several hours in the defendant's house. The three severely beat the victim while they interrogated him about the burglary.

In response to questioning by the defendant, the victim listed several people who he said were responsible for stealing the defendant's drugs and property. At some point during the assault, the defendant and the victim both spoke by telephone to three teenage girls who the victim claimed were involved in the burglary of the defendant's house. The defendant informed the girls that he would kill the victim if they did not help him find his drugs. One of the girls, however, called the police who rescued the victim and arrested the defendant. The defendant subsequently was charged with several crimes related to this incident.

In the weeks immediately following the abduction and beating, the victim withdrew from contact with the defendant. Over time, however, the victim and his girlfriend were drawn into the defendant's activities. In fact, in the month preceding his death, the victim and his girlfriend visited the defendant's house on a daily basis. The victim frequently said that he intended to lie at defendant's pending trial on the kidnapping and assault charges and that he would deny that the defendant had harmed him. The defendant appeared to have reconciled with the victim and was described as treating him like a son.

Throughout this time period, however, the defendant contacted different people in an effort to find someone who would kill the victim prior to the kidnapping and assault trial. Two of these individuals testified at the trial in this case. One testified that he refused the defendant's request to kill the victim.

The second man, Jeff Cayouette, testified under a grant of immunity that he had agreed to murder the victim in exchange for a vintage motorcycle. According to Cayouette, the defendant supplied him with a loaded handgun to commit the crime. In October 1992, after receiving the gun, Cayouette asked the victim to come along with him to buy some drugs. He then drove the victim to a suburban residential area. Cayouette parked in the residential area and talked with the victim for over an hour as they waited to meet their drug contact. While they were waiting, Cayouette asked the victim to help him check his car's fan belt. When the victim got out of the car to look under the hood, Cayouette pulled out a gun and shot at him three times. All three shots missed, however, and the victim was able to run away. The victim escaped to a nearby house and telephoned the police, who later found shell casings and other evidence supporting his report of the shooting attempt. No charges were filed in the incident.

The gunman in this case, John Swiger, knew the victim through the defendant's drug operation for about one month before the murder occurred. Swiger told the defendant and his associates that he was an enforcer for a motorcycle gang. At trial, Swiger's girlfriend testified to overhearing conversations between the defendant and Swiger in which the two men agreed that Swiger would commit the murder. The defendant allegedly promised to pay Swiger $5000 before and $5000 after the murder took place but it is not clear from the record how much money, if any, changed hands. In his statement admitted into evidence at the trial, Swiger claimed that he was compelled to follow through with the murder because he feared that otherwise the defendant would harm his girlfriend and her children. At other times, however, Swiger claimed to have committed the murder as an act of friendship to help the defendant.

According to Swiger, the defendant provided him with a handgun to use as the murder weapon. After the crime, the defendant dipped the gun in acid and helped Swiger dispose of it by throwing it into a stream. Following the explicit directions given by Swiger, the police recovered the gun. Ballistic tests confirmed that it was the murder weapon and it was placed into evidence at trial.

On the day of the murder, one of the defendant's close associates, Corey Ivey, took the victim, his girlfriend, and a sixteen-year old girl, Tina Parks, out to dinner. Ivey drove the victim, his girlfriend and Parks to dinner in the defendant's truck. Later the same evening, the two couples returned to the defendant's house. The defendant was at home sleeping on the living room couch when they arrived. The defendant purportedly had injured his back and was taking muscle-relaxing drugs that made him drowsy. It was the prosecution's theory that the defendant feigned the injury to provide himself with an alibi for the time when the planned murder occurred. Shortly after the two couples entered the house, the defendant went to sleep in a bedroom and was asleep when the murder was committed.

The murder plan, as arranged by the defendant, required Ivey to send the victim on an errand in the defendant's truck and to notify Swiger when the victim was about to leave so that Swiger could drive to the defendant's house and shoot the victim. Swiger lived just over a mile from the defendant's home. The murder occurred as planned except that Parks accompanied the victim on the errand. Shortly after the two walked out of the front door, Swiger fired two shots, killing the victim instantly. Parks was very close to the path of the gunshots but apparently did not see the shooter. She immediately returned to the house and informed the others about the shooting. Subsequently the police were called and they commenced their investigation.

Shortly after the murder, the police interviewed Swiger and his girlfriend, both of whom denied any involvement in the crime. The couple informed the police that they intended to return to Tennessee with their children and Parks, the only witness to the murder. Soon after the police interview, they moved to Tennessee as planned.

The police investigation of the murder stalled and no charges were filed. In January 1994, the defendant was convicted of kidnapping and assaulting the victim in the 1992 New Year's Eve...