People v. Jefferson, 393 P.3d 493

Victim (J.B.), then three at alleged incidents and seven at retrial, gave a 45-minute recorded forensic interview (DVD) detailing sexual assault; her in-court testimony was less detailed and sometimes inconsistent with the DVD.
The DVD was admitted under Colorado’s child-victim hearsay exception and played for the jury; defense objected to allowing jurors unsupervised access during deliberations, arguing undue repetition and emphasis.
The trial court admitted the DVD as an exhibit and ultimately allowed jurors "unsupervised access" (leaving open whether review would be supervised), relying on factors drawn from a court of appeals opinion in DeBella.
The jury deliberated (about four hours) and convicted Jefferson; he appealed, arguing the trial court abused its discretion by allowing unfettered access to the DVD during deliberations.
The court of appeals reversed, holding the trial court abused its discretion and the error was not harmless because the DVD was central to the prosecution’s case; the Colorado Supreme Court affirmed and remanded for a new trial.

Issue	People’s Argument	Jefferson’s Argument	Held
Whether the trial court abused its discretion by allowing the jury unfettered, unsupervised access during deliberations to the videotaped forensic interview (DVD)	Trial court properly exercised discretion after balancing factors (video admitted and played in court; other inculpatory evidence existed; jurors allowed to take notes); no per se rule requiring restrictions	Unfettered access risked undue emphasis on the DVD (the prosecution’s linchpin), so the court should have supervised access or limited/restricted use	Court held the trial court abused its discretion by relying on inapt DeBella-division factors and failing to take measures (limiting instruction, supervised viewing, or other safeguards); error was not harmless and required reversal and new trial

DeBella v. People, 233 P.3d 664 (Colo. 2010) (trial court must exercise discretion to prevent jurors according videotaped testimony undue weight; failure to do so is abuse of discretion requiring reversal when not harmless)
Frasco v. People, 165 P.3d 701 (Colo. 2007) (trial courts retain discretionary control over exhibits in jury deliberations; caution required to avoid undue emphasis)
Settle v. People, 504 P.2d 680 (Colo. 1972) (early reaffirmation that trial courts control juror access to exhibits)
Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750 (U.S. 1946) (harmless-error framework; reversal required when reviewing court is left with grave doubt about the effect of an error)
United States v. Binder, 769 F.2d 595 (9th Cir. 1985) (videotaped testimony is functionally equivalent to live testimony and can assume substantial significance in jury deliberations)