Opinion ID: 2549254
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Strict Elements Test

Text: In determining whether one offense is within the lesser-included category, this court has construed section 18-1-408(5)(a) to require a comparison of the statutory elements of each offense. Patton, 35 P.3d at 130. Under the strict elements test, also known as the statutory elements test or  Blockburger test, if proof of facts establishing the statutory elements of the greater offense necessarily establishes all of the elements of the lesser offense, the lesser offense is included for purposes of section 18-1-408(5)(a). Leske, 957 P.2d at 1036. However, if each offense necessarily requires proof of at least one additional fact which the other does not, the strict elements test is not satisfied and a presumption arises that a defendant can be convicted of both offenses. Id. Here, establishing the elements of theft, the greater offense in this case, does not necessarily establish all of the elements of aggravated motor vehicle theft, the lesser offense. Therefore, our case law would presume that convictions could enter on both offenses. The strict elements test is only one of a number of tests used by courts in the United States to define a lesser-included offense. See generally State v. Jeffries, 430 N.W.2d 728, 730-732 (Iowa 1988) (survey of various approaches used in the United States to define lesser-included offenses); see also State v. Meadors, 121 N.M. 38, 908 P.2d 731, 735 (1995) (same); Patrick D. Pflaum, Comment, Justice is Not All or Nothing: Preserving the Integrity of Criminal Trials Through the Statutory Abolition of the All-Or-Nothing Doctrine, 73 U.Colo.L.Rev. 289, 295-298 (2002) (other tests include the Pleadings approach which examines the actual charges brought by the prosecution; the Evidence approach in which courts consider the evidence presented at trial to see if evidence supports any lesser-included offense charges; and the Cognate approach which identifies lesser-related, as opposed to lesser-included, offenses that have several elements in common with the greater-related offense but may have one or two elements not essential to the greater crime.). Regardless of the positive or negative attributes of each approach, [6] this court has adopted the strict elements test as the means of determining whether one crime is the lesser-included offense of another crime. Thus, until a decision to abandon this test for a new approach is made, we must apply the strict elements test as it stands. This court formally adopted the strict elements test in Rivera, 525 P.2d at 433-434. In Rivera, this court recognized that the problem of determining what is a lesser-included offense under Colorado law had received varied treatment. Id. at 433. In choosing the strict elements test among other competing tests, this court pointed to several attributes that favored the adoption of the statutory approach. Specifically, this court highlighted the ease with which the test is applied, the uniform nature of its application and a defendant's right to notice of the possible charges against him or her. Id. at 433-434. As a result, for almost thirty years we have applied the statutory test set out in Rivera, which mandates that the greater offense must establish every essential element of the lesser offense. Id. at 433 (citing Daniels v. People, 159 Colo. 190, 411 P.2d 316 (1966)). Applying the strict elements test involves nothing more than placing the relevant statutes next to each other, comparing the language, and determining how closely they match. If the greater offense includes all of the elements of the lesser offense plus one or more additional elements, it is fair to say that the lesser offense is included within the greater offense. Conversely, if a comparison of the two statutes reveals that the lesser offense has substantively different elements than the greater offense, the lesser offense is not included in the greater offense and a defendant may be convicted of both. This analysis parallels the analysis used in Rivera. In Rivera, this court concluded, after applying the strict elements test, that assault with a deadly weapon was not a lesser-included offense of assault with the intent to commit murder. Id. at 434. This court reasoned, after comparing the two relevant statutes, that assault with the intent to commit murder did not have the use of a deadly weapon as an essential element. Id. Thus, this court concluded that assault with intent to commit murder did not establish all the essential elements of the lesser crime, assault with a deadly weapon, and could not be considered a lesser-included offense. Id. Similarly, applying the strict elements test to the relevant statutes in this case, the offense of felony theft does not necessarily include all of the essential elements of aggravated motor vehicle theft. [7] The latter is committed only by obtaining or exercising control over a motor vehicle, while the former can be committed by obtaining or exercising control over any number of things that are not motor vehicles. Stated differently, proof that a defendant obtained or exercised control over anything of value does not necessarily establish that a defendant obtained or exercised control over a motor vehicle. That conclusion could only be supported by viewing either the pleadings or the evidence adduced at trial; an inquiry outside the purview of the strict elements test. Thus, although the offense of aggravated motor vehicle theft may be established by the facts establishing felony theft in a particular case, it is not necessarily established by proof of the same or less than all of the statutory elements of felony theft. A portion of our precedent on this issue has arisen in the felony murder context. Those cases are not apposite because of the necessarily parasitic relationship between the felony murder offense and the underlying offense on which it is predicated. In other words, a defendant cannot be convicted of felony murder unless he is guilty of an underlying qualifying offense. Felony murder is a homicide that occurs during the commission of one of a number of different felonies, including arson, rape, and robbery. We have held that a particular predicate felony is a lesser-included offense of felony-murder premised upon commission of that felony. In doing so, we have made clear that by defining the offense in terms of a series of potential predicate felonies, the legislature intended to prescribe the unit of prosecution to which the strict elements test must be applied. See Boulies, 770 P.2d 1274; see also People v. Bartowsheski, 661 P.2d 235 (Colo.1983). For purposes of the strict elements test then, the statutory elements of felony-murder are therefore limited to a homicide predicated upon the commission of a particular underlying felony, just as if each were proscribed in a different statutory provision. Cf. Whalen, 445 U.S. at 694, 100 S.Ct. 1432 (There would be no question in this regard if Congress, instead of listing the six lesser included offenses in the alternative, had separately proscribed the six different species of felony murder under six statutory provisions.). In Bartowsheski, 661 P.2d at 245, this court analyzed whether a defendant could be simultaneously convicted of both felony murder and the predicate felony of robbery without violating the statutory provisions of section 18-1-408. We concluded that because proof of the greater offense based upon the causation of the robbery victim's death, either in the course of or in furtherance of the crime of robbery or in the course of immediate flight therefrom, necessarily included proof of the very same elements essential to the lesser offense, robbery, a conviction on both offenses could not stand. Id. at 245-246. Thus, in Bartowsheski the court compared the proof of elements required in each statute, and thereby determined that robbery was a lesser-included offense of felony murder predicated upon robbery. We note that this analysis effectuated the goals articulated in Rivera efficiency, uniformity, and notice to defendants. In Boulies, 770 P.2d at 1278-1279, the court relied more expressly on the unit of prosecution theory, reasoning that the robbery offense was the predicate for the felony murder conviction and, thus, was the same offense for purposes of double jeopardy. The court in that case looked to unit of prosecution actually charged to compare the two offenses, rather than to the elements of the entire felony murder statute. This approach cannot guide our analysis in this case, because in contrast to the felony murder statuteshere the legislature chose not to define felony theft in terms of separate units of prosecution. The legislature has, however, not left the defendant without protection against multiple punishments for the same conduct. Even where two offenses are not related as greater and lesser included offenses within the meaning of the strict elements test, convictions for committing two offenses cannot result in consecutive sentences if the convictions are based on the same act or series of acts arising from the same criminal episode and they are supported by identical evidence. § 18-1-408(3). Although the defendant incurred judgments of conviction both for theft and for aggravated motor vehicle theft of the same truck in this case, his sentences resulting from those convictions were properly concurrent sentences.