Opinion ID: 2590536
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Philip Moses

Text: Philip Moses was at his place of work, a car dealership in Aurora, Colorado, when two police officers arrived to arrest him for a municipal violation. Moses was seated in his car and when the officers approached, he put his car in reverse and backed out of his parking space. One of the officers approached the car and Moses accelerated forward, hit the officer with the vehicle, and knocked him to the ground. Moses drove off and was stopped by a police roadblock where he got out of his car and fled on foot. Law enforcement then found Moses hiding in some bushes a short time later and arrested him. Moses was charged with first degree assault on a peace officer, felony menacing, and mandatory sentencing for a crime of violence. Early in the trial, the court overruled defense counsel's general objection to the practice of allowing jurors to ask questions and allowed the jury to ask questions through the court of the various witnesses according to the terms of the pilot project. The record in this case contains seventeen written questions from the jury with some containing multiple sub-questions. Four of the written questions were denied by the trial court. Not all of the bench conferences were held on the record. [3] After the second witness was called, jurors submitted several written questions to the court. Counsel approached the bench to discuss the admissibility of the jurors' questions. Before discussing the questions, Moses's attorney stated to the court that the defendant was able to hear the attorneys and the court at the first bench conference where the parties discussed the admissibility of four questions from the jury. [4] The court acknowledged to the parties that the volume to the headset was set too loud and suggested that the attorneys try and keep their voices down. There is no other indication in the record that the jury had in fact heard the previous bench conference or heard any subsequent bench conference. The jury acquitted Moses of first degree assault on a peace officer but convicted him of felony menacing, resisting arrest, and reckless driving. The court sentenced him to three years in the Department of Corrections and he appealed. The court of appeals affirmed these convictions. Moses, slip op. It held that allowing juror questions does not violate a defendant's constitutional right to due process and equal protection and that there was no evidence to indicate that the jury overheard the bench conversation or that Moses was prejudiced by any of the objections or comments of the attorneys. Id., at 7-8. We granted Moses's petition for certiorari to review the decision of the court of appeals. [5]