Opinion ID: 2823827
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Application of the Plain Error Standard

Text: Â¶16Â Â Â Â Â Â Although neither party brought the relevant caselaw to the trial courtâs attention, this court made clear in 1986 that the Van Houten language should not be used in jury instructions. See Key, 715 P.2d at 322â23. Accordingly, the crux of the plain error inquiry in this case is whether the instructional error was substantial, in other words, whether it cast serious doubt on the juryâs verdict. If the record contains overwhelming evidence of deliberation, then an instruction that, although erroneous, did notÂ materially distort the meaning of âafter deliberationâ does not rise to the level of plain error. Cf. Miller, 113 P.3d at 750. As a result, this analysis has two aspects. First, we weigh the evidence against the defendant. Second, we consider whether the jury instructions as a whole adequately informed the jury of the law. This courtâs decision in Key, which assessed the same instructional error that occurred in this case, instructs both aspects of our analysis. 5 Â¶17Â Â Â Â Â Â In Key, overwhelming evidence that the defendant deliberated led this court to conclude that the instructional error was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. 715 P.2d at 323. In that case, the defendant shot the victim twice, reloaded his pistol, shot the victim twice more, struck him, and ran him over. Id. at 324. The defendant then drove away in the victimâs truck. Id. This court explained that because sufficient time had elapsed between each act of violence, the defendant must have killed the victim after deliberation and not âin a hasty or impulsive manner.â Id. We therefore affirmed the defendantâs conviction for first-degree murder. Id. Â¶18Â Â Â Â Â Â There is similarly convincing evidence of deliberation in the instant case, where the victim was shot five times, dragged into the street, and shot once more. During the affray, a witness heard the defendant shout, âSee what happens when you mess with my house,â at the victim, and several witnesses heard both men taunt the wounded victim. These exclamations evince that both the defendant and co-defendant formed the intent to kill the victim an appreciable length of time before they committed the fatalÂ act. As in Key, where the defendant paused mid-attack to reload his pistol, id. at 324, here, the prosecution presented evidence from which the jury could infer that the defendant assisted in reloading the revolver between the first series of shots and the final, fatal shot. There was also evidence that the defendant helped the co-defendant drag the victim from the porch where the original confrontation occurred into the street where the victim died. This sequence of events resembles the attack in Key, which similarly comprised a series of distinct acts of violence, id. And like the defendant in Key, the defendant in this case had sufficient time to deliberate between the shooting on the porch and the killing in the street. Â¶19Â Â Â Â Â Â In Key, the trial court also gave the jury the correct, statutory definition of âafter deliberationâ before it gave the erroneous Van Houten instruction. Id. at 321. We concluded that â[t]he erroneous language . . . did not so distort the definition of âafter deliberationâ . . . that the prosecution was relieved of its burden of proving the mental culpability requirement of first-degree murder beyond a reasonable doubt.â Id. at 323. Similarly, the trial court in this case provided the statutory definition of âafter deliberationâ immediately before it gave the erroneous instruction. See Â§ 18-3-101(3), C.R.S. (2014). Instruction 11 told the jury that ââafter deliberationâ means not only intentionally but also that the decision to commit the act has been made after the exercise of reflection and judgment concerning the act. An act committed after deliberation is never one which has been committed in a hasty or impulsive manner.â In so doing, this instruction tempered the risk that Instruction 12 might lessen the prosecutionâs burden of proof with respect to the element of deliberation. Instruction 12Â informed the jury that â[t]he only time period requirement for deliberation and premeditation is an interval sufficient for one thought to follow another. The length of time required for deliberation need not be long.â While Instruction 12 may have misled the jury had it been given in isolation, its proximity to Instruction 11 clarified for the jury that an appreciable length of time must have elapsed between the formation of the intent to kill and the fatal shot. The erroneous Instruction 12 thus did not directly contradict the statutory definition of âafter deliberationâ given in Instruction 11, and the instructions, when read together, did not materially distort the definition of deliberation. Â¶20Â Â Â Â Â Â Hence, because the record in this case reveals overwhelming evidence of deliberation, and the instructions as a whole adequately informed the jury of the law, the instructional error did not seriously impair the reliability of the juryâs guilty verdict. We therefore affirm the court of appealsâ holding that there was no plain error in the trial courtâs jury instructions.