Anthony Gilbert APODACA, Petitioner, v. The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.
No. 83SC105.
Supreme Court of Colorado, En Banc.
Dec. 16, 1985.
As Modified on Denial of Rehearing Jan. 27, 1986.
712 P.2d 467
Duane Woodard, Atty. Gen., Charles B. Howe, Chief Deputy Atty. Gen., Richard H. Forman, Sol. Gen., Dolores S. Atencio, Asst. Atty. Gen., Denver, for respondent.
QUINN, Chief Justice.
We granted certiorari to review the decision of the court of appeals in People v. Apodaca, 668 P.2d 941 (Colo.App.1982), which affirmed the conviction of the defendant, Anthony Gilbert Apodaca, for second degree kidnapping, second degree assault, felony menacing, and a crime of vio-
I.
The defendant was charged with second degree kidnapping,1 second degree assault,2 felony menacing,3 and a crime of violence,4 all of which were alleged to have been committed on June 1, 1980 in Huerfano County, Colorado. Prior to the commencement of jury selection, the defendant filed a motion requesting the trial court to rule on whether the prosecution could properly use two prior convictions for impeachment purposes in the event the defendant elected to testify at trial in his own defense. One of the asserted convictions was a 1974 delinquency adjudication, when the defendant was seventeen years old, and the other was a 1976 military conviction for rape, which resulted in a three-year sentence to the disciplinary barracks in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and a dishonorable discharge. The defendant claimed that a ruling on the admissibility of such evidence in advance of his trial testimony was essential to permit him to make a knowing, intelligent, and voluntary decision on whether to take the witness stand in his own defense. The defendant argued to the court that the military conviction did not qualify as a felony under
The trial evidence established that on June 1, 1980, the defendant attended a wedding dance in Walsenburg, Colorado. Present at the dance was the female victim, with whom the defendant had been acquainted since high school. The defendant and the victim danced together and later played pool at a local tavern. The victim left the tavern alone and on foot shortly before 2:00 a.m. After she had walked approximately halfway to her home, the defendant drove up beside her in his pickup truck. He conversed with her for approximately ten minutes and offered her a ride home. When the victim refused the ride and began to walk away, the defendant stepped out of his truck and approached her on the sidewalk. He grabbed her
The victim unsuccessfully attempted to take the knife from the defendant and received several deep cuts on the fingers of her left hand. When the defendant again ordered her into the truck, she entered the driver‘s side and moved over to the other side of the front seat as the defendant stepped in and closed the door. After the truck moved a short distance down the street, the victim opened the door next to her and jumped from the moving truck. As she left the truck, the defendant accelerated rapidly and drove away. As a result of her escape from the truck, she suffered injuries to her head, shoulder, and knee. The defendant was arrested a short time later in downtown Walsenburg while still in his pickup truck.
After the prosecution concluded its case, the defendant presented two witnesses. His first witness was a doctor who testified that the victim when last examined had no complaints about her left hand and that the hand appeared basically normal. The other witness was the defendant‘s brother, who testified that in his opinion both the defendant and the victim were intoxicated at the wedding dance. The defendant did not testify in his own defense.
At the conclusion of the evidence the defendant tendered an instruction on attempted second degree kidnapping as a lesser included offense of second degree kidnapping. The trial court refused the instruction. The jury returned guilty verdicts to second degree kidnapping, second degree assault, felony menacing, and a crime of violence. After denying the defendant‘s motion for a new trial, the court sentenced the defendant to concurrent terms of four years.
In affirming the convictions, the court of appeals held that, although it was error for the trial court to refuse to rule on the defendant‘s motion challenging the admissibility of prior conviction evidence for the purpose of impeachment, the error was harmless because the military conviction for rape qualified as a “felony conviction” under
II.
We first address whether the trial court improperly burdened the defendant‘s right to testify in his own defense at trial when it refused to rule on the admissibility of the 1976 military conviction until such time as the district attorney sought to use the prior conviction for the purpose of impeaching the defendant. Acknowledging that the trial court erred in refusing to timely rule on the defendant‘s motion, the court of appeals nonetheless concluded that the error was harmless because the military conviction would indeed be admissible as impeachment evidence under
A.
Article 120 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice defines rape as an act of sexual intercourse with a female not the wife of the offender, and committed by force and without the victim‘s consent.
B.
The fact that the defendant‘s military conviction qualified as a felony conviction under Colorado‘s impeachment statute, however, does not resolve the issue of whether the trial court‘s refusal to timely rule on the defendant‘s motion to prohibit the prosecution from impeaching him with such conviction impermissibly burdened his right to testify in his own defense at trial. It is to this question that we now turn.8
Under both the fourteenth amendment to the United States Constitution and
An accused, therefore, may seek the suppression of an unconstitutionally obtained conviction which the prosecution intends to use for the purpose of impeachment. This exclusionary principle finds its source in the fact that “unconstitutional convictions, in addition to being of suspect reliability, abridge the very charter from which the government draws its authority to prosecute anyone.” People v. Germany, 674 P.2d 345, 349 (Colo.1983). We have thus prohibited the prosecution from making impeachment use of prior felony convictions obtained in violation of the accused‘s right to counsel as well as those entered in violation of due process of law stemming from a constitutionally defective plea of guilty. See, e.g., People v. Meyers, 617 P.2d 808 (Colo.1980).
A timely judicial ruling on a defendant‘s motion to suppress prior conviction evidence for the purpose of impeachment serves the vital function of providing the defendant with the meaningful opportunity to make the type of informed decision contemplated by the fundamental nature of the right to testify in one‘s own defense. The trial court deprived the defendant of that opportunity when it refused to rule on the defendant‘s motion to prohibit prosecutorial use of prior conviction evidence until such time as the prosecution actually sought to impeach the defendant with such evidence. In effect, the defendant could have testified in this case only by foregoing any opportunity to obtain in advance of actually taking the witness stand a judicial ruling on the most critical factor bearing on his decision whether to testify—that is, the constitutional admissibility of his prior conviction for the purpose of impeachment. We conclude that the trial court‘s refusal to timely rule on the defendant‘s motion impermissibly burdened the defendant‘s exercise of his constitutional right to testify in his own behalf, and that, given the present state of the record, we cannot treat this error as harmless.9
C.
Because we are satisfied that the defendant‘s decision not to testify stemmed from his lack of knowledge, in advance of such decision, as to whether his prior military conviction met the constitutional standards of admissibility applicable to prior conviction evidence, we believe that the appropriate disposition of the case is to return it to the trial court for a determination as to whether those standards were met. Since the defendant chose not to testify when he was uncertain whether the prior conviction was admissible, it is clear that he would not have testified if the trial court had determined in timely fashion that the rape conviction was obtained in accordance with constitutional standards. If the trial court makes this determination on remand, any possibility of prejudice resulting from the trial court‘s error in not timely ruling on the defendant‘s motion will have been adequately dispelled, since the constitutional admissibility of the prior conviction evidence would obviously have impelled the defendant to refrain from testifying at the earlier trial. Under these circumstances, the error at the earlier trial would be harmless beyond a reasonable doubt, see, e.g., Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18 (1967); Ramirez v. People, 682 P.2d 1181 (Colo.1984); LeMasters v. People, 678 P.2d 538 (Colo. 1984), thereby requiring the trial court to reinstate the judgment of conviction and sentence. If, however, the trial court determines that the prior rape conviction is constitutionally infirm and thus inadmissible for impeachment purposes, a new trial will be required, since in that instance there can be no question that the defendant suffered prejudice at the first trial by reason of being deprived of his opportunity to take the witness stand without undergoing prosecutorial impeachment by means of a prior unconstitutionally obtained conviction.
At the hearing on remand the defendant will bear the burden of making out a prima facie showing that the prior conviction was constitutionally infirm. E.g., People v. Shaver, 630 P.2d 600 (Colo.1981); Meyers, 617 P.2d 808; People v. Roybal, 617 P.2d 800 (Colo.1980); Morrison, 196 Colo. 319. If the defendant is able to make such a showing, the prosecution must then establish by a preponderance of the evidence that the conviction was constitutionally obtained. E.g., Shaver, 630 P.2d 600; People v. DeLeon, 625 P.2d 1010 (Colo.1981); Roybal, 617 P.2d 800. The trial court should enter sufficient findings so as to permit a meaningful appellate review of its ruling.
III.
We next consider the trial court‘s refusal to give the defendant‘s tendered instruction on the lesser included offense of attempted second degree kidnapping. A defendant is entitled to an instruction on a lesser included offense only if “there is a rational basis for a verdict acquitting the defendant of the offense charged and convicting him of the included offense.”
The judgment of the court of appeals is affirmed in part and reversed in part, and the cause is remanded to that court with directions to return the case to the district court for further proceedings in accordance with the views herein expressed.
ERICKSON, J., concurs in part and dissents in part.
ERICKSON, Justice, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
The majority resolves as a matter of law the question of whether the defendant‘s 1976 conviction for rape by a military court qualifies as a felony conviction under the impeachment statute,
The defendant‘s motion in limine, in which he requested that the trial court determine the admissibility of any impeachment evidence to be used by the prosecution, did not allege any grounds to support a finding that the military conviction was constitutionally infirm. In seeking a ruling on the motion, defense counsel only alluded to the possibility that a military conviction does not satisfy constitutional standards:
I don‘t think that a military conviction, which is all they have got, is admissible in this case as a felony because it is not taken under the usual provisions of the Constitution with a jury of his peers and burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt. . . . . Your Honor, what I‘m alleging he has the burden of proof of showing this because he‘s the one that wants to use this kind of evidence. This is not a constitutional, appropriate conviction to use it against him as a felony. What I‘m saying, even though there is good faith that he was convicted of a felony, it would be in violation of due process and equal protection to use that against him.
In his motion for a new trial, the defendant was no more specific. He merely alleged as error the trial court‘s refusal to rule on the motion in limine. Furthermore, nowhere in the defendant‘s briefs before the court of appeals or this court is there any further specification of facts or law to support the defendant‘s allegation that his military conviction was unconstitutionally obtained.
Constitutional safeguards enjoyed by the criminally accused in civilian trials are generally applicable in military courts. United States v. Tempia, 16 C.M.A. 629, 37 C.M.R. 249 (1967); E. Byrne, Military Law 10, 19-20 (3d ed. 1981); H. Moyer, Justice and the Military 238 (1972). With regard to the defendant‘s contentions, the Uniform Code of Military Justice (U.C.M.J.), adopted in 1951, provides that the accused is presumed innocent until his guilt is established beyond a reasonable doubt.
JOSEPH R. QUINN
CHIEF JUSTICE
