Court Opinion

ID: 9546770
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:35:11.085776+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:16:50.498904
License: Public Domain

METZGER, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I respectfully dissent from Part IV of the majority opinion which holds that the admission of defendant’s post-advisement assertions of his Miranda rights at the sanity trial was reversible error. I believe that any error relating to the use of these assertions was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt and, thus, does not constitute a basis to reverse the defendant’s conviction.
If there is overwhelming support in the record for a jury’s verdict, error in the admission of other cumulative evidence is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. People v. Steele, 193 Colo. 87, 563 P.2d 6 (1977). Further, errors of constitutional magnitude may properly be considered harmless if the evidence derived from the violation is cumulative of other evidence from which similar inferences may be drawn. See People v. Madonna, 651 P.2d 378 (Colo.1982); People v. Roark, 643 P.2d 756 (Colo.1982).
In this case, defendant did not deny having killed and decapitated the victim, and accordingly, the central issue for the jury’s determination was defendant’s state of mind at the time he did so. Defendant’s sole assertion was that he killed the victim during a psychotic episode. He contended that he had suffered from these episodes intermittently for several years. Psychiatric testimony established that these episodes were transient and temporary.
The trial court determined that the defendant’s behavior at the time of his arrest, twenty-nine hours after the victim’s death, was relevant to a determination of his mental state at the time of the victim’s death. While I do not necessarily agree with that ruling, since defendant’s psychotic episodes were described as temporary and relatively brief, the evidence concerning defendant’s sanity and rationality at his arrest is overwhelming.
Seven police officers testified that defendant behaved normally after his apprehension, and they described in detail his dress, his recognition of media personnel and his attempts to avoid them, his recognition of police officers he knew, his understanding of police instructions, and his concern about what would happen to the victim’s car. These were not the words or actions of a man in the throes of a psychotic episode.
Moreover, the evidence describing defendant’s actions during and after the victim’s death belies the notion that defendant was experiencing a psychotic episode. The medical experts testified that defendant had engaged in a lengthy struggle with the victim and that he had severely beaten her about the face and head. He then inflicted several stab wounds, to the jaw, chest, and back, including several “hesitation-type” punctures to her back. Finally, while the victim was still alive, defendant began a meticulous and painstaking decapitation, which took “a significant amount of time” —less than “hours” but more than a few minutes. Thereafter, he washed his hands, changed his shirt, rummaged through the trunk of his inoperable car, and fled in the victim’s car. He conceded that he had the requisite state of mind — specific intent — to be guilty of aggravated motor vehicle theft by taking the victim’s car.
Therefore, the passing references to defendant’s invocation of his right to counsel were cumulative of other, more probative evidence establishing his sanity, and did *650not constitute a sufficiently significant portion of the evidence in the sanity trial to constitute reversible error.
Moreover, I find the majority’s reliance on Wainwright v. Greenfield, 474 U.S. 284, 106 S.Ct. 634, 88 L.Ed.2d 623 (1986) to be overly mechanistic. In Wainwright, the evidence concerning the defendant's sanity and that concerning his guilt were inextricably interwoven in a single sanity/guilt trial. Thus, admission of his post-advisement statement may well have been prejudicial. Colorado’s bifurcated sanity/guilt proceedings minimize the problem of this prejudice. More importantly, in Wainwright v. Greenfield, supra, the prosecution’s failure to argue that admission of the defendant’s statements was harmless error constituted an essential basis for both the majority’s holding and the special concurrence. Here, however, the People did so argue, and I agree that the error was harmless.
Consequently, I would not reverse defendant’s sanity adjudication and conviction. As to Part V, I consider the error to be harmless and, thus, not a basis for reversal. I agree with the majority’s disposition of the remaining issues in this case.