Court Opinion

ID: 9550776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 18:42:21.044166+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:22:22.401435
License: Public Domain

Judge METZGER
specially concurring.
Although I concur in the result reached in this case, I write separately because, in my view, the trial court’s response to the jury inquiry did not constitute error.
In Leonardo v. People, 728 P.2d 1252 (Colo.1986), our supreme court adopted ABA, Standards for Criminal Justice, Standard 15-4.3(a) (2d ed. 1980). That standard requires a trial court to answer a jury’s inquiry by giving additional instructions unless, inter alia, “the request concerns matters not in evidence or questions which do not pertain to the law of the case.... ”
Here, the record contains no evidence whatsoever concerning penetration by fingers, an issue that formed the basis of the jury’s inquiry. Consequently, contrary to the majority’s conclusion, I do not believe that the trial court bore any obligation to answer the question. The court’s answer, which referred the jury to the appropriate definitional instruction for sexual penetration, was a sufficient and entirely proper response in that it served to focus the jury’s attention on matters that were at issue under the evidence presented.