Court Opinion

ID: 9600568
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 01:28:22.939076+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:08:18.436949
License: Public Domain

ROVIRA, Justice,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent.
Despite the fact that other explanations for the defendant’s silence could be imagined, I cannot agree with the majority that the defendant’s silence was “so ambiguous and lacking in probative value as to be inadmissible.” The test of relevance is not whether the evidence by itself proves beyond a reasonable doubt the existence or nonexistence of a fact. Instead, as the majority acknowledges, it is whether the existence of the fact is made “more probable or less probable than it would be without the evidence.” C.R.E. 401.
The question of relevance is one of common sense, which here involves a determination of whether a reasonable person could draw a reasonable inference from the defendant’s silence at the time of his arrest. I believe that it is fair to say that the vast majority of people, upon being rescued by the police from being forced at gunpoint to commit a felony (and facing arrest for commission of the felony), would have made a statement to that effect. I believe, as perhaps did the jury, that a fair inference to be drawn from the defendant’s silence is that the duress story was a later fabrication.1
The court holds that “many possible explanations” for a piece of evidence render it “ambiguous and therefore lacking in probative value.” A relevance question is not an invitation to indulge in theoretical possibilities. For virtually any piece of circumstantial evidence, a multitude of explanations could be imagined. For example, the defendant’s presence in the store could have been the result of his accidentally being locked in the store at closing time. Similarly, the note concerning the six-o’clock closing time could have been written at any time and could refer to any number of things. We do not, however, bar admission of these pieces of evidence, but the defendant is, of course, free to put forth his explanation of the evidence.
The majority states that it is not by its holding excluding evidence of the defendant’s conduct and general demeanor upon arrest. Presumably, demeanor would include such things as whether he appeared frightened, nervous, confident, cocky, belligerent, relieved, or angry. I would have thought such testimony more, rather than less, ambiguous than the defendant’s silence at the time of his arrest.
*613I also find confusing the majority’s conclusion that admission of testimony about the defendant’s silence, which it believes totally lacking in probative value, likely affected the jury’s resolution of the case. If there were a showing that the testimony was unfairly prejudicial, it could be excluded under C.R.E. 403, even if relevant. Yet, in this case, the only prejudice flowing to the defendant is that a jury may have unanimously (and unreasonably, in the view of the majority) concluded that the defendant’s post-arrest silence indicated that the duress defense was spurious.
In concluding that the admission of the defendant’s post-arrest silence cannot be considered harmless error, the court states that a fair reading of the record “prevents one from saying with any degree of assurance that the outcome of the trial was not substantially influenced by the evidence of the defendant’s postarrest silence.” Assuming that the court is correct in holding that the admission of testimony concerning the defendant’s silence was error, I nevertheless can, with a degree of assurance, conclude that the error was harmless.
Without restating the evidence, which is set out in the majority opinion, it is clear that the defense effort to establish duress was recognized for what it was by the jury and did not sway it from finding the defendant guilty based upon overwhelming evidence of guilt. I am satisfied from a reading of the whole record that the error relied on by the majority, if error, was harmless in that it did not substantially influence the verdict or affect the fairness of the trial.
I would affirm the conviction.

. As the majority points out, Salazar, who was the defendant’s chief witness to support his duress defense and who allegedly forced him to commit the burglary, had entered a plea of guilty to the burglary charge before he testified in the defendant’s behalf. Salazar was therefore immune from further prosecution on that charge.