Court Opinion

ID: 9789022
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 01:24:41.09733+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:18.737453
License: Public Domain

Justice COATS,
concurring in the judgment only.
I do not join the majority opinion, both because I believe it presumes a general right to jury agreement that does not exist in either the federal or state constitution and because I believe its interjection of the concept of a “transaction of solicitation,” apparently in contrast to a single crime of solicitation, hopelessly confuses the scope of the crime itself, as well as the law of this jurisdiction governing a defendant’s right to compel an election among separate criminal acts sufficient in themselves to satisfy a single charge or count. Because I also believe, however, that a defendant waives any right he may have to an election by failing to assert it in a timely manner, and therefore that a trial court’s failure to force such an election, sua sponte, cannot amount to error at all, much less plain error, I nevertheless concur in the majority’s ultimate decision to affirm the defendant’s conviction.
I.
I find it difficult to unravel the majority’s rationale because it appears to me to conflate so many different concepts. I consider it clear, however, that the acts evidenced at trial do not constitute a single offense of solicitation, as that crime is defined in this jurisdiction; that a defendant is no less entitled to an election of acts charged in a single count merely because they arise from the same criminal episode; and that the numerous acts of solicitation included within the terms of the lone solicitation count of the indictment in this case cannot be fairly characterized as a single “transaction,” in whatever sense the majority uses that term.
As we have previously made clear, the scope of a particular crime — or precisely what constitutes a single offense or unit of prosecution — whether it is limited to a discrete act or includes an entire course of conduct, is a matter for the legislature in defining the crime. See People v. Abiodun, 111 P.3d 462, 464-65 (Colo.2005); see also Quintano v. People, 105 P.3d 585, 590 (Colo.2005); Woellhaf v. People, 105 P.3d 209, 215-20 (Colo.2005). While some jurisdictions may define the crime of solicitation to include every act of soliciting others to accomplish the same criminal object, in effect mandating the merger of all such acts, see Model Penal Code §§ 5.02(1), 5.05(3) (1962), Colorado is not one of them.
Despite the legislature’s decision to treat as a single crime of solicitation any number of methods used to persuade another person to commit a felony, the terms of its statute simply cannot be construed to include, as a single offense, disparate acts, soliciting different people, on different occasions, over a lengthy span of time, and with different inducements, which are related to each other only by their ultimate object. And while the majority notes the possibility of a “platform” solicitation, in which a number of individuals may be solicited by a single communication, see maj. op. at 640, in no sense could all of the evidence of solicitation admitted at the defendant’s trial be explained as such a single act. Even the majority appears unwilling to find that the various acts of solicitation committed by the defendant over the period included in the charge constitute no more than a single crime of solicitation.
*643Although the majority protests that it does not determine that all of the acts of solicitation evidenced at trial constitute a single unit of prosecution, it apparently believes that as long as they all constitute a single “transaction,” the effect on the defendant’s entitlement to an election remains the same. It is far from clear, however, precisely what the majority intends by a single “transaction.” At times the majority appears to mean something akin to the evidentiary concept expressed by the term “res gestae.” See id. at 641 (“In the context of this case, the People’s statements identifying the specific individuals with whom Melina spoke regarding his intent to have Bueno killed serve as corroborating evidence of his intent, not evidence of multiple acts of solicitation.”). At times it appears to intend that the scope of a “transaction,” even understood this way, is contingent upon the prosecution’s theory of the case or its intent in introducing evidence of other crimes. See id. at 641-42 (“We conclude that the People referenced Melina’s conversations with several individuals to corroborate his intent to have someone kill Bueno, not to suggest that Melina had committed several crimes of solicitation.”). And at times it even appears to blur the distinction between a “transaction” and a “unit of prosecution” altogether, equating the lower courts’ findings of “a single ongoing solicitation” or “a single solicitation of many people” with its own “transaction of solicitation.” See id. at 687 (“Our review of the record supports the trial court’s and the court of appeals’ conclusions that the prosecution’s theory and the evidence presented amounted to a single transaction of solicitation by the defendant to kill one victim.”). In general, however, it appears to have in mind a criminal episode, comprised of an act or series of acts for which a defendant is entitled to be prosecuted in a single proceeding. See Crim. P. 8(a); § 18-1-408(2), C.R.S. (2006).
Its assumption that a defendant is not entitled to an election among acts constituting a single criminal episode, even though they may be separate crimes satisfying a single count of the charge, however, appears to be premised on a misreading of our prior holdings. See maj. op. at 641. In People v. Collins, upon which the majority primarily relies, we held simply that a defendant who is charged in separate counts, with multiple crimes arising from the same criminal episode, is not entitled to have the jury’s deliberations on each count limited to specific portions of the evidence admitted at trial. 730 P.2d 293, 301 (Colo.1986); see also People v. Jacobs, 91 P.3d 438, 443 (Colo.App.2004). A defendant is clearly entitled to have each offense arising from the same criminal episode charged in a different count of a single prosecution, Crim. P. 8(a); cf. Woellhaf, 105 P.3d at 218 (making clear that prosecution may charge separate offenses of sexual assault on a child arising from a single course of conduct or criminal episode), and we have never suggested that he could be deprived of that right without entitling him to force an election of acts or receive a special unanimity instruction, see Thomas v. People, 803 P.2d 144 (Colo.1990).
In any event, however, the acts of solicitation evidenced at the defendant’s trial cannot be fairly characterized as a single transaction, any more than they could constitute a single unit of prosecution. In determining whether various acts are part of the same criminal episode for purposes of compulsory joinder, we have typically emphasized such factors as time, place, and circumstances, as well as interrelatedness of proof. See, e.g., People v. Miranda, 754 P.2d 377, 380 (Colo.1988) (citing People v. Rogers, 742 P.2d 912 (Colo.1987)). Similarly, for purposes of the evidentiary concept of res gestae, we have emphasized relatedness in time and nature and the extent to which evidence of all of the criminal acts is essential to provide a full and complete understanding of the events surrounding a single crime. See, e.g., People v. Quintana, 882 P.2d 1366, 1373 (Colo.1994). In neither context have we been willing to categorize as a single transaction such disparate acts, committed with different people, in different locations, and spread over such a lengthy span of time. See, e.g., Miranda, 754 P.2d at 381 (not same episode where drug transactions occurred six days apart); People v. Rollins, 892 P.2d 866, 873 (Colo.1995) (three other sexual assaults on same victim not part of res gestae where they occurred over three-month period).
*644As the majority’s own summary of the evidence demonstrates, many of the acts of solicitation evidenced at the defendant’s trial, although sharing a common purpose, were distinct episodes, or “transactions,” committed at different times and places, virtually without interrelatedness of proof. Whatever the prosecution may have intended, a reasonable juror could easily have found the instructional requirement of attempting to persuade “another person” from the defendant’s separate statements to, for instance, Os-bourne or Cruickshank, not to mention his separate conversations with Lopez and Padilla. All of the defendant’s separate communications to these four individuals, as well as his many separate platform-like solicitations in general, could not possibly be related as a single transaction unless any solicitation to accomplish the same criminal objective were so characterized. I therefore could not agree that the all of the acts of solicitation evidenced at trial were part of a single criminal transaction, even if I considered that to be of consequence for resolution of the defendant’s assignment of error.
II.
I nevertheless would also hold that the trial court did not err in failing to order an election or give a special unanimity instruction in this case. Whether or not solicitation is the type of crime for which an election or unanimity instruction could ever be appropriate, I believe a criminal defendant waives any entitlement to either by not making a timely assertion of that right. Both because I could not affirm the defendant’s solicitation conviction for the reasons given by either the majority or the court of appeals, and because I believe that prior comments by this court have been misread to suggest that a failure to move for an election simply limits appellate review to a search for plain error, I write to express, in some detail, my understanding of the election doctrine that has developed in this jurisdiction for the special circumstances presented by offenses of incest and sexual assault on a child.
An information or grand jury indictment is sufficient as long as it gives the defendant enough notice of the charge against him, and the acts upon which it is premised, to enable him to prepare a defense and plead the resolution of the indictment as a bar to subsequent proceedings. People v. Tucker, 631 P.2d 162,168 (Colo.1981). Although the time frame in which a crime is alleged to have been committed may be important in notifying the accused of the particular acts he is accused of committing, the charging document itself need not specify the precise date of an offense unless it is actually a material element of the crime. Roelker v. People, 804 P.2d 1336, 1340 (Colo.1991) (citing Kogan v. People, 756 P.2d 945 (Colo.1988)). And while a bill of particulars cannot save an insufficient indictment, Tucker, 631 P.2d at 164, and is clearly not a device the purpose of which is to compel disclosure of the evidence upon which the prosecution intends to rely at trial, it is a device available to defendants to further aid them in identifying the particular criminal acts they are charged with committing; assist in the preparation of a defense against those charges; and avoid prejudicial surprise. Erickson v. People, 951 P.2d 919, 922-23 (Colo.1998); Kogan, 756 P.2d at 952; People v. Dist. Court, 198 Colo. 501, 503-04, 603 P.2d 127, 129 (1979); Balltrip v. People, 157 Colo. 108, 112-13, 401 P.2d 259, 262 (1965).
As a matter of form, a defendant is also entitled to have each offense that is alleged against him charged in a separate count. See Crim. P. 8; 24 James Wm. Moore, et al., Moore’s Federal Practice § 608.04[1] (3d ed. 2006) (“[Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(a)] requires that there be a separate count for each offense. This is intended to prevent duplicity, or charging two or more separate offenses in the same count of an indictment.”). Any count charging the commission of more than one offense is therefore subject to challenge as duplicitous. Marrs v. People, 135 Colo. 458, 462, 312 P.2d 505, 508 (1957) (A duplicitous indictment “join[s] two or more distinct and separate offenses in the same count.”). It was well-settled, however, long before adoption of the rules of criminal procedure, and remains the case today, that an objection on the grounds of duplicity must be raised, at least in the absence of good cause, before trial. Russell v. People, 155 Colo. 422, 426, 395 P.2d 16,18 (1964); Warren v. People, 121 *645Colo. 118, 121, 213 P.2d 381, 383 (1949); Critchfield v. People, 91 Colo. 127, 131, 13 P.2d 270, 271 (1932); see also United States v. Technic Servs., Inc., 314 F.3d 1031, 1039 (9th Cir.2002); United States v. Buchmeier, 255 F.3d 415, 421 (7th Cir.2001) (stating that “the prohibition of duplicitous counts is embodied in [Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(a) ]” (quoting United States v. Berardi, 675 F.2d 894, 897 n. 5 (7th Cir.1982)); United States v. Elam, 678 F.2d 1234, 1251 (5th Cir.1982) (noting that Fed.R.Crim.P. 12(b), which mandates that motions alleging defects in the indictment or information “must be raised before trial,” grew out of the common law approach to duplicity). Although it has been noted that duplicity in charging can prejudice a defendant in the shaping of evidentiary rulings, in producing a conviction on less than a unanimous verdict as to each separate offense, in determining a sentence, and even in limiting review on appeal, 4 Wayne R. La-Fave, Criminal Procedure § 19.3(c), at 775 (2d ed.1999), there are nevertheless clear risks associated with objecting to a charge as duplicitous before jeopardy attaches and potential advantages in not doing so, which introduce an element of tactical choice into the exercise of timely duplicity objections.
Even though a particular count of an indictment may allege, on its face, the commission of no more than the elements of a single crime, depending upon factual specificity and the time range over which the charge is alleged, that count may nevertheless encompass the commission of more than one criminal offense. The elements of a single statutorily-defined crime can, of course, often be committed more than one time and in more than one way by the same person. See Abiodun, 111 P.3d 462. Without complying with the evidentiary limitations on uncharged criminal misconduct, see CRE 404(b), evidence of a number of unrelated criminal acts, any one of which might be adequate to satisfy the elements of the charge, may therefore be admissible at trial.
Certain crimes, by their very nature and the limited capacity of their victims, pose a greater than normal tension between the interests of defendants in knowing with specificity the charges against them and the interests of the state in protecting an especially vulnerable class of victims. With crimes like sexual assault on a child or incest, for example, it is often extraordinarily difficult, if not impossible, to identify and differentiate the individual acts of abuse of which some evidence exists, even with the aid of a bill of particulars. Rather than allow these crimes to simply go unprosecuted, we have long found defendants in these situations to be adequately protected, even when charged in counts too general in time and factual detail to be limited to a single prohibited act, as long as the defendant is given an opportunity to demand, sometime before jury deliberations begin, the election of a specific act upon which the prosecution will rely. See People v. Estorga, 200 Colo. 78, 81, 612 P.2d 520, 523 (1980); Laycock v. People, 66 Colo. 441, 444, 182 P. 880, 881 (1919).
Recognizing that in cases involving the repeated sexual abuse of very young children, the problem of differentiating the various acts of abuse often remains even after presentation of the prosecution’s case, we have further held that in certain of those cases a defendant may also be adequately protected by a special unanimity instruction, in lieu of an election by the prosecution. In those instances in which the trial court can determine that the evidence does not present a reasonable likelihood of disagreement among jurors about which acts the defendant committed, and the prosecutor is unable or unwilling to try and designate a particular act upon which to proceed, the trial court may, in its discretion, instruct that in order to convict, the jury must either unanimously agree that the defendant committed the same act or acts or that he committed all of the acts described by the victim and included within the time period charged. Thomas v. People, 803 P.2d 144, 153-54 (Colo.1990). In allowing such a procedure in these limited cases, however, we have emphasized that the facts of the individual case must first be evaluated to ascertain whether or not an election by the prosecution is essential to accord the defendant due process.
While we have therefore sought to preserve greater flexibility in the charging of this class of offenses, by permitting the *646charge to remain more general as long as the defendant is given an opportunity after presentation of the evidence against him to further narrow it, we have never held that a criminal defendant has a constitutional right to jury agreement that he committed a particular act satisfying the charge, or even that he committed the offense in one of a number of alternate ways alleged in the charge. On the contrary, we have long accepted the adequacy of a general verdict where alternate ways of committing an offense were charged in a single count, see James v. People, 727 P.2d 850, 852-54 (Colo.1986); and although for a time we found fault with a general verdict if one of these alternatives was submitted to the jury without sufficient evidence, in light of the Supreme Court’s clarification in Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 50-51, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991) (general verdict of conspiracy adequate despite insufficient evidence of one of the several objects of the conspiracy charged in the same count of the indictment), we have abandoned even that objection. People v. Dunaway, 88 P.3d 619 (Colo.2004). By the same token, it is well established that consensus as to the defendant’s course of action or the particular conduct by which he actually committed an offense is not required. See Schad v. Arizona, 501 U.S. 624, 631, 111 S.Ct. 2491, 115 L.Ed.2d 555 (1991); see also Griffin, 502 U.S. at 56, 112 S.Ct. 466 (noting that “an indictment charging murder by shooting or drowning, where the evidence of drowning proves inadequate,” does not implicate constitutional concerns); Andersen v. United States, 170 U.S. 481, 503-04, 18 S.Ct. 689, 42 L.Ed. 1116 (1898).
The requisite degree of jury agreement on any individual count that is guaranteed by a criminal defendant’s right to a jury trial is easily confounded with his due process right to an adequately specific charge. See Griffin, 502 U.S. at 48-49, 112 S.Ct. 466 (“[Because the alleged defect here is not that a jury determination was denied but rather that a jury determination was permitted,” the question properly fell under due process rather than Sixth Amendment scrutiny.). Our decision to permit a defendant to demand an election of a specific act or a so-called unanimity instruction in the prosecution of sexual assaults of a certain nature clearly addressed the due process, rather than the Sixth Amendment, concern. See Quintano, 105 P.3d 585, 592-95 (Colo.2005). Unlike a number of other jurisdictions,7 we have found that a defendant’s right to due process can be adequately protected, at least in these kinds of cases, despite less pre-trial detail, by insuring his ability to limit the scope of jury deliberations at a later stage. Our heightened concern for the defendant’s ability to adequately prepare a defense and for jury unanimity in the context of prosecutions in which he has been more than normally restricted from focusing the charge at the pre-trial stage was never intended to imply that criminal defendants in general have a right to jury agreement on a particular act.
Whether the charging of more than one offense in a single count is apparent on the face of the charging document, and therefore clearly amounts to duplicity, United States v. Gordon, 844 F.2d 1397, 1400 (9th Cir.1988) (“[A] duplicity claim is directed at the face of the indictment and not at the evidence presented at trial.”); see Critchfield, 91 Colo. at 131, 13 P.2d at 271 (“If the information is duplicitous, that fact is patent ....”), or it becomes apparent only after presentation of the evidence that the charging language includes multiple commissions of a single charged offense, any right the defendant may have to insist upon narrowing the charge is waived unless it is timely asserted. See Laycock, 66 Colo. at 444, 182 P. at 881 (“[T]he people may, on motion, be compelled to select the transaction upon which they depend for a conviction.”) (emphasis added); cf. Thomas, 803 P.2d at 152 (“The prosecution *647may be compelled to select the transaction on which it relies for a conviction.” (paraphrasing Laycock) ); Estorga, 200 Colo. at 81, 612 P.2d at 523 (same). As we have previously suggested, a defendant’s right to an election even before putting on his case may depend upon the nature of the specific case and potentially viable defenses, but it is clear that a defendant must move for an election sometime before the jury is instructed if their deliberations are to be limited to the consideration of particular acts. Because our jurisprudence has sanctioned a special unanimity instruction of the kind to which the defendant in this case belatedly claims entitlement only if the prosecution is unable or declines to make an election after being requested to do so, see Thomas, 803 P.2d at 154, any right to such an instruction is necessarily waived by failing to timely move for an election.
Upon waiver of the right to either an election by the prosecution or agreement of the jurors on the specific act upon which its verdict is based, a trial court obviously has no duty to so instruct the jury, and a failure to do so is therefore not error at all, plain or otherwise. While we have never before had occasion to distinguish so directly a defendant’s right to narrow the charge within a single count and his right to jury agreement of his guilt as to that count, our reference to the plain error standard in two cases involving a trial court’s failure to force an election has sown confusion among the judgments of the intermediate appellate court. See Woertman v. People, 804 P.2d 188, 192 (Colo.1991); Roelker, 804 P.2d at 1339-40. In neither case, however, did we find plain error for merely failing to force an election or give a special unanimity instruction, in the absence of a timely request.
In Woertman, we reversed the defendant’s convictions for sexual assault on a child after announcing that we were reviewing for plain error, but we did so only because the trial court also admitted evidence of over fifty separate acts, despite a bill of particulars limiting the charges to three specific acts, and not only failed to limit the purpose for which the additional acts could be considered but actually instructed the jury that it would be sufficient for conviction to find any act that was committed within the three-year statute of limitations period. Because we were concerned about the jury’s inability to distinguish charged from uncharged misconduct, we did not address the trial court’s failure to order an election, separate and apart from its unobjeeted-to instruction on timing and its failure to limit, sua sponte, the jury’s reliance on uncharged acts. Although our opinion is therefore silent regarding any defense motion for election, the published court of appeals opinion makes clear that such a motion was actually made and denied. People v. Woertman, 786 P.2d 443, 446 (Colo.App.1989) (“Thus, we hold that the trial court did not err in denying the defendant’s motion to require that the People elect specific acts.”).
In Roelker, the defense counsel filed a motion prior to trial to compel the prosecution to individualize and select specific acts, which was partially granted. In response to the motion, the prosecution was required before trial to limit its proof to a period of several months and, later at trial, to a single month. Because no objection was made to the court’s ruling in response to the defendant’s motion to elect, we indicated that it would be reviewed for plain error; however, rather than reviewing solely for plain error, we immediately found the error to be harmless, in light of the trial court’s ultimate restriction of the evidence to a narrow time frame that included only the events surrounding a single transaction. As we would later do in Quintano, 105 P.3d at 592-95, we clearly treated the defendant’s pre-trial motion to select specific acts as an adequate invocation of his right to further narrow the charge against him. Our fleeting reference to plain error therefore did not set a standard of review for failing to order an election in the absence of a request to do so, but at most indicated the proper standard for challenging an unobjected-to ruling purporting to grant a motion to narrow the charge.
The defendant asserts that the single solicitation count with which he was charged includes at least two independent acts of solicitation that were evidenced at trial, and therefore he was entitled to a special unanimity instruction to insure juror agreement *648as to one or both of these acts. Although I agree that there was evidence at trial of more than one crime of solicitation, from which the jury could have found the defendant guilty of the single charge of solicitation, the trial court had no duty to specially instruct the jury in this case because the defendant’s right to an election, even if one existed, would have been waived by his failure to timely assert it. In the absence of any right to demand unanimous jury agreement on a particular act of solicitation, the trial court’s failure to so instruct the jury was not error at all, much less plain error.
Although I do not join the majority’s opinion, I therefore concur in its judgment to affirm.
I am authorized to state that JUSTICE RICE joins in this concurrence.

. See, e.g., Cooksey v. State, 359 Md. 1, 752 A.2d 606, 618 (2000) (holding that a single count charging multiple sex offenses, other than in course of single criminal episode of relatively brief temporal duration, cannot be sustained as non-duplicitous and rejecting State’s suggestions that elections or unanimity instructions can cure duplicity). After Cooksey, the Maryland legislature passed Md.Code Ann., Crim. Law § 3-315 (West 2006), defining "continuing course of conduct against child” as a single criminal offense. Lynn McLain, Reforming the Criminal Law: University of Baltimore Law Group Goes to Annapolis, 34 U. Balt. L.F. 2, 9-10 (2003).