Court Opinion

ID: 9559885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 17:37:26.056975+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:50.096253
License: Public Domain

Justice VOLLACK
dissenting:
The majority finds that, because the district court improperly advised the defendant about her right to testify at trial, her waiver of that right was not knowing and intelligent. I disagree with the majority’s conclusion because I believe that the district court’s advisement satisfied the requirements and the underlying purpose of People v. Curtis, 681 P.2d 504 (Colo.1984), and its progeny. I dissent.
I.
Curtis requires the trial judge to “ensure [that] the defendant’s waiver of his right to testify is intelligently and competently made.” Roelker v. People, 804 P.2d 1336, 1338 (Colo.1991). Under Curtis, a trial judge, outside the presence of the jury, must advise a defendant as follows:
*1102[T]hat he has a right to testify, that if he wants to testify then no one can prevent him from doing so, that if he testifies the prosecution will be allowed to cross-examine him, that if he has been convicted of a felony the prosecutor will be entitled to ask him about it and thereby disclose it to the jury, and that if the felony conviction is disclosed to the jury then the jury can be instructed to consider it only as it bears upon his credibility.
Curtis, 681 P.2d at 514. However, neither Curtis nor any of its progeny have stated precisely the requirements that would establish a valid waiver of a defendant’s right to testify. We have repeatedly declined to mandate specific requirements that a trial court must follow. See, e.g., Roelker, 804 P.2d 1336; Tyler v. People, 847 P.2d 140 (Colo.1993). Indeed, as the majority opinion states, “We have explicitly recognized ... that Curtis does not prescribe a ‘litany or formula which must be followed in advising the defendant of his right to testify.’ ” Maj. op. at 1099 (quoting People v. Chavez, 853 P.2d 1149, 1152 (Colo.1993)).
II.
The advisement given to defendant Milton by the trial court is set out in the majority opinion. The majority affirms the court of appeals’ decision that the trial court erred because the trial court
failed to advise defendant that her prior convictions could be used by the prosecution to impeach her testimony. It further failed to state that if defendant did choose to testify, the jury would be instructed regarding the limited use of the impeachment evidence. , Likewise, the trial court failed to inform defendant that if she chose not to testify, then the jury would be instructed concerning her right against self-incrimination.
Maj. op. at 1100 (quoting People v. Milton, No. 90CA1474, slip op. at 2-3 (Colo.App. July 2, 1992)). Counsel for Milton did not object to the content of the advisement when it was given. Milton was convicted by a jury of reckless manslaughter and second degree assault. She appealed her convictions, contending that her waiver of her right to testify was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary because the trial court did not advise her that her prior convictions could be used by the prosecution to impeach her. She posits that her waiver was also invalid because she was not informed by the trial court that, if she did testify, the jury would be instructed to consider the evidence of her prior felony conviction only to judge her credibility. Further, she contends, the trial court should have told her that, if she chose not to testify, the jury would be instructed that this decision was not to affect their deliberations.
Milton contends that her waiver was not knowing, intelligent, and voluntary, and the record does not indicate why she decided not to testify. Nowhere does she assert, however, that her decision whether to testify was even affected by the information she was given — or not given — by the trial court in its Curtis advisement. Milton merely maintains that the reversal of her criminal convictions is warranted on the ground that the trial judge failed to deliver a technically perfect advisement, and not on the ground that she would have made a different decision regarding the right to testify had the advisement been more complete. In analyzing Milton’s decision not to testify, it is difficult to understand how the additional information — that her prior conviction could be used in cross-examining her, but only for impeachment purposes— would have changed her mind in favor of testifying. More likely it would have reinforced her decision not to testify.
Even if Milton had decided to testify, her prior felony conviction would have carried little weight for impeachment purposes. The only felony conviction on her record is one for larceny, which occurred twenty-one years before her trial in this case.1 Clearly, if a defendant had no prior felony conviction, we would not require that the trial *1103judge include in a Curtis advisement the prosecution’s ability to use a prior conviction to impeach. Similarly, here, because of the insignificance of a twenty-one-year-old conviction, Milton’s Curtis appeal should not succeed solely because she was not advised on the prosecution’s potential use of that conviction.
The majority cites Chavez, stating that “Curtis does not prescribe a ‘litany or formula which must be followed in advising the defendant of his right to testify.’ ” Maj. op. at 1099 (quoting Chavez, 853 P.2d at 1152). Ironically, that is exactly what the majority opinion prescribes. Taken together with other recent cases decided by this court, the majority encourages trial judges to resort to a ritualistic formula to meet the standards we established in Curtis. If this court is of the opinion that Curtis advisements must be delivered without technical error, then it should set forth a precise statement that trial judges must convey to a defendant. If it declines to set forth such a statement, advisements that fulfill the spirit of Curtis should not result in reversals.
III.
I find that the advisement given in this case, where the trial judge informed Milton that she had a right to testify, that the decision was hers alone, and that, if she did testify, the district attorney would be able to cross-examine her, meets the procedural standards of Curtis and its progeny. Arguments about the technical wording of an advisement, alone, presented for the first time on appeal and unaccompanied by contentions that the defendant did not know she might be impeached by her prior felony conviction, or that she would have decided to testify if she had received the warning, should not amount to reversible error. Further, even if we were to require the trial judge to specifically inform the defendant that she would, be cross-examined about prior felony convictions, the failure of the judge to do so in this case, where the felony conviction in question was twenty-one years old, was at worst harmless error.» I dissent.
I am authorized to say that Chief Justice ROVIRA and Justice ERICKSON join in this dissent.

. Reference to such a conviction is allowable in a criminal trial under § 13-90-101, 6A C.R.S. (1987).