Court Opinion

ID: 9795934
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 03:42:54.955186+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T08:42:03.231052
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
dissenting.
Rather than addressing the trial court’s inconsistent-verdicts analysis head on, the majority simply declines to acknowledge what I consider to be the jury’s clear findings of two completed sexual assaults in connection with the pattern-of-abuse charge. Although its assertion that the jury found only inchoate rather than completed offenses would seem to dispose of the matter altogether, the majority goes on to severely limit our holding in People v. Melillo, 25 P.3d 769 (Colo.2001), regarding the permissible methods of charging and finding a pattern of sexual abuse. Finally, as if not entirely convinced by either of these rationales, the majority also reads the record (in my view, without justification) as including the prosecutor’s concession that any finding of a pattern of abuse under these circumstances would have to be set aside. Because I believe the trial court, rather than the majority, properly analyzed the defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal after discharge of the jury, I respectfully dissent. Because I also consider the exercise of this court’s original jurisdiction under these circumstances to be manifestly inappropriate, I would dismiss without opinion.
As an initial matter, there has never been the slightest doubt that a pattern of sexual abuse consists of two or more completed, rather than merely attempted, acts of sexual contact with the same child; and neither the prosecution nor the trial court has ever suggested otherwise. Rather, the defendant’s motion for judgment of acquittal and the trial court’s corresponding .denial of that motion question whether a single count of a charging document can permissibly charge both the crime of sexual assault on a child and the pattern of abuse sentence enhancer; whether count three of the information in this case did so; and whether the instruction and verdict form on that count evidenced jury findings of the requisite completed acts of sexual assault on a child. In light of our existing precedent and the specific charge, instruction, and findings at issue here, the answer to these questions can only be a resounding, “Yes.”
In People v. Melillo, we addressed these precise questions and found a single charge and verdict sufficient to uphold a pattern of sexual abuse conviction. 25 P.3d at 777-80. Just as in Melillo, the prosecution in this *1201ease charged the defendant in the third count of the information with committing sexual assault on a child as part of a pattern of sexual abuse, identifying in the same count the elements of sexual assault on a child, the specific victim, the specific time-frame over which the abuse was committed, and the appropriate statutory reference. See id. at 779-80. In this regard, the only significant difference between Melillo and this case is the fact that, unnecessary as it was, this jury specifically identified as predicate offenses the two sexual assaults with which the defendant was separately charged and of which he was, at most, implicitly acquitted.
Even more clearly than in Melillo, therefore, the charge, instruction, and verdict on count three in this case evidence a finding of sexual assault on a child committed as part of a pattern of sexual abuse. Because the jury not only found the defendant guilty of committing two sexual assaults in its verdict on the pattern of abuse count but also returned verdicts of attempting to commit the same sexual assaults in its verdicts on counts one and two of the information, however, the obvious inconsistency of these verdicts separately raises the question whether effect can be given to them all. As the trial court accurately noted, in People v. Frye this court made clear that jury verdicts (with the possible exception of guilty verdicts for two different crimes, one of which logically excludes a finding of guilt on the other) need not be consistent unless specifically required by statute. 898 P.2d 559, 571 (Colo.1995). Finding the actual commission of crimes, as the jury did in the pattern-of-abuse count in this case, clearly does not logically exclude, and in fact necessarily implies, a determination that the defendant attempted to commit them.
The majority does not appear to dispute this statement of, or overtly attempt to overturn, the law governing inconsistent verdicts in this jurisdiction but instead simply ignores the jury’s specific finding on the pattern-of-abuse count, eonclusorily asserting that the jury must have predicated its pattern of abuse verdict on attempts rather than on completed crimes. The actual language of the jury’s findings and instructions, however, simply does not support such an interpretation. The jury was indisputably instructed that it was to return a verdict of guilt on the pattern-of-abuse count only upon finding all of the elements of two completed sexual assaults on the same child. In addition, the jury made specific findings that the two incidents upon which it based its pattern of abuse verdict were the “allegations” contained in counts one and two of the information. Both counts, of course, alleged completed acts of sexual assault rather than mere attempts.
Although the jury returned verdicts of the lesser included offenses of attempt in counts one and two, it is obvious that they did not do so because they actually believed the defendant failed to complete the criminal acts with which he was charged. In light of the evidence presented in this ease, it would have been patently absurd to believe the defendant took a substantial step toward touching, but failed to actually touch, an intimate part of the child in question. Whether the inconsistency between the jury’s verdicts on the first two counts and its verdict on the third count was the result of compromise, a desire to show leniency, or even a failure to understand that it was obliged to return guilty verdicts of completed sexual assaults rather than mere attempts if it considered both to have been proved, in the absence of improper instructions or inadequate findings, its verdict is sacrosanct and cannot be questioned. See Frye, 898 P.2d at 570-71.1
Perhaps in tacit acknowledgement that its characterization of the jury’s findings is less than convincing, the majority offers (without precisely explaining their significance) two other arguments in support of its judgment. *1202Of greater import for future pattern-of-sexual-abuse cases, the majority narrowly interprets our holding in Melillo, virtually limiting it to the procedural posture of that particular case. Despite protesting throughout that the verdicts in this case do not implicate our jurisprudence governing inconsistent verdicts, the majority couches in terms of charging and instructing limitations a special rule designed for the sole purpose of declining to give effect to inconsistent pattern-of-abuse verdicts. Although the majority appears unwilling to overtly overturn or carve out an exception to our recent inconsistent-verdicts jurisprudence, it does so indirectly by effectively forbidding a prosecuting authority from charging the same act of sexual assault on a child both individually and as part of a pattern of sexual abuse.
Finally, the majority asserts that the parties agreed to disregard a verdict of guilt on count three if the jury also returned a verdict of the lesser included offense of attempt on either count one or count two. Whatever the majority considers the significance of this assertion to be, I believe it cannot be supported by the record. While defense counsel clearly wanted a differently phrased verdict form and the trial judge just as clearly indicated his intent to deal with the matter, should it become necessary, after return of the verdicts, the prosecutor agreed only that, as a matter of law, a pattern of sexual abuse could not be predicated on inchoate offenses. Nothing in the record suggests the prosecutor conceded that a guilty verdict on count three should be disregarded under these circumstances, and nothing even remotely approaching a binding stipulation occurred. Regardless of any intentions the substitute trial judge may have harbored, the effect of the jury’s verdicts, in light of the charges, instructions, and verdict forms, is ultimately a matter of law for this court.
Because I not only consider the majority’s analysis fundamentally flawed but also fear that its attempt to distinguish Melillo has substantially undercut the holding of that case, I respectfully dissent. Because I also fail to perceive anything about this case distinguishing it from the denial of a motion for judgment of acquittal following a jury verdict in virtually any other criminal case (for which an appeal would be an adequate remedy), I consider the exercise of our original jurisdiction inappropriate, and I would therefore simply dismiss as improvidently granted.
I am authorized to state that Justice RICE and Justice EID join in this dissent.

. Under our criminal jurisprudence we have surrounded one who is charged with a criminal offense with constitutional safeguards against the exercise of arbitrary power by courts, one of which is trial by jury. There are a number of others, all necessary to protect the liberties of men. To retain the right of trial by jury it is necessary that the system remain practicable and workable, and that we do not erect barriers which are not predicated upon sound interpretations of constitutional principles and inconsistent with the practical means used by a jury in reaching its conclusions. Frye, 898 P.2d at 570-71.