Opinion ID: 1157036
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Habitual Criminal Charges

Text: We first address the defendant's contention with respect to the trial court's denial of his pretrial motion to prohibit the prosecution from using his testimonial admissions to prior felony convictions as substantive evidence of his habitual criminality. The defendant contends that the trial court's ruling violates due process of law, U.S. Const. Amend. XIV; Colo. Const. Art. II, Sec. 25, by unduly burdening his constitutional right to testify in his own defense. We agree. The trial of this case occurred before our recent decision in Chavez v. People, supra, which involved this same defendant. In that case, as here, the trial court ruled that the prosecution was entitled to impeach the defendant by eliciting or introducing evidence of his prior felony convictions and that the jury could consider this prior conviction evidence for substantive purposes in its deliberations on the habitual criminal charges. Recognizing the dilemma confronting a defendant charged with habitual criminality and desirous of testifying in his own defense on the substantive charges, we held in Chavez that the bifurcation of the trial, although not inappropriate, still was insufficient to relieve the impermissibly unconstitutional burden that the substantive use of the defendant's testimonial admissions to prior convictions imposed on his constitutional right to testify in his own defense: The defendant facing habitual criminal charges is forced to choose between his constitutional right to testify in his own defense and his constitutional right to have the State prove the elements of habitual criminality. If he chooses to testify about his past record, the prosecution is relieved of its burden of proving the elements of habitual criminality. The statutory procedure here suffers from the same flaw the United States Supreme Court condemned in Simmons v. United States, 390 U.S. 377, 88 S.Ct. 967, 19 L.Ed.2d 1247 (1968): it creates an intolerable tension between two constitutional rights.