Court Opinion

ID: 9790509
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:54:09.640291+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:29.996256
License: Public Domain

QUINN, Chief Justice,
dissenting:
I dissent from part III of the majority opinion, since I believe the trial court’s denial of the defendants’ motions for severance was reversible error.
I.
A severance should have been granted to defendant Peltz when prior to trial it became obvious that counsel for Pappadiakis intended to introduce evidence of Peltz’s arson conviction in order to impeach the credibility of Vest and show that Peltz and Vest were at one time “partners in crime.” Evidence of a criminal defendant’s prior criminal acts is inherently prejudicial, whether it is introduced by the prosecution or by a co-defendant. In making such evidence generally inadmissible, our rules of evidence recognize the fundamental principle that a criminal defendant should be tried only for the offense of which he stands charged. E.g., People v. Getter, 189 Colo. 338, 340, 540 P.2d 334, 336 (1975); Stull v. People, 140 Colo. 278, 283, 344 P.2d 455, 458 (1959). The reasons for excluding evidence of prior unrelated criminality, we have said, are to avoid placing the accused in the position of defending against crimes for which he has not been charged and to guard against the likelihood that such evidence, which has little bearing on the issue of guilt, will assume undue proportions in the minds of jurors, with *1280resulting prejudice to the defendant. Callis v. People, 692 P.2d 1045, 1050-51 (Colo. 1984).
Courts must be particularly sensitive to the potential prejudice that is always inherent in evidence of an accused’s prior crimes, and must scrutinize such evidence closely before allowing it to be admitted. The majority’s confidence in the ability of a trial court to neutralize the prejudicial effect of such evidence by the use of a limiting instruction is unrealistic. While it is true that we have required courts to give limiting instructions when otherwise inadmissible evidence of prior crimes is to be admitted for a limited purpose, e.g., Stull, 140 Colo, at 284, 344 P.2d at 458, it is equally true that such instructions cannot be relied on to offset the effect of evidence so inherently prejudicial to a defendant as that offered in this case.
In Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 135, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1627, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), the United States Supreme Court recognized that “there are some contexts in which the risk that the jury will not, or cannot, follow instructions is so great, and the consequences of failure so vital to the defendant, that the practical and human limitations of the jury system cannot be ignored.” To expect that the jury in this case would think about Peltz’s arson conviction only as it determined the guilt or innocence of Pappadiakis and then forget that same evidence when it turned to Peltz’s case is, in my view, to ignore the practical and human limitations of the jury and to expect from them a “[djiscrimination so subtle [that it] is a feat beyond the compass of ordinary minds.” People v. Madson, 638 P.2d 18, 31 (Colo.1981), quoting Justice Cardozo in Shepard v. United States, 290 U.S. 96, 104, 54 S.Ct. 22, 25, 78 L.Ed. 196 (1933).
Evidence of Peltz’s arson conviction was highly prejudicial and would not have been admissible against him in a separate trial. Peltz’s motion for a severance, therefore, should have been granted.
II.
I also believe that a severance should have been granted to defendant Pappadiak-is. Her right to a fair trial was undermined by the extensive evidence that was admitted against Peltz but was simultaneously ruled inadmissible against her. Vest’s testimony included references to conversations, held out of the presence of Pappadiakis, in which Vest and Peltz discussed the burglary and the items taken. On several occasions the trial judge ruled such evidence inadmissible against Pappa-diakis but admissible against Peltz. The confusion inherent in such rulings was exacerbated by the numerous and conflicting limiting instructions given to the jury. Evidence which the jury was not to consider against Pappadiakis was repeated for the jury three times. As in the case of the court’s limiting instructions regarding the evidence of Peltz’s arson conviction, there is no way in which the jury could realistically have limited its consideration of the evidence in the manner it was ordered to do. The limiting instructions were simply not adequate to cure the prejudice suffered by Pappadiakis as a result of the jury being repeatedly told not to consider the evidence against her.
Since I believe that the trial court’s failure to grant a severance in such circumstances was prejudicial error to both defendants, I would reverse the judgment of the court of appeals.
I am authorized to say that Justice DU-BOFSKY and Justice LOHR join me in this dissent.