Castro v. People

550 P.3d 1124

2024 CO 56

Ricardo CASTRO, Petitioner

v.The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent

Supreme Court Case No. 22SC712

Supreme Court of Colorado.

July 1, 2024

Certiorari to the Colorado Court of Appeals, Court of Appeals Case No, 18CA2389

Attorneys for Petitioner: Megan A. Ring, Public Defender, Meredith K. Rose, Deputy Public Defender, Denver, Colorado

Attorneys for Respondent: Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Frank R. Lawson, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado

En Banc

JUSTICE SAMOUR delivered the Opinion of the Court, in which CHIEF JUSTICE BOATRIGHT, JUSTICE MÁRQUEZ. JUSTICE HART, and JUSTICE BERKENKOTTER joined.

JUSTICE SAMOUR delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 Trial by jury is perhaps the most vital cog in the wheel of our criminal justice system. We have long attached "great importance to the concept of relying on a body of one’s peers to determine guilt or innocence as a safeguard against arbitrary law enforcement." Williams v. Florida, 399 U.S. 78, 87, 90 S.Ct. 1893, 26 L.Ed.2d 446 (1970). Accompanying this hallowed tradition is the right in felony cases to a fair and unanimous verdict by a jury of twelve free from outside interference. Colo. Const. art. II, § 23; Ramos v. Louisiana, 590 U.S. 83, 90–93, 140 S.Ct. 1390, 206 L.Ed.2d 583 (2020); People v. Boulies, 690 P.2d 1253, 1255–56 (Colo. 1984). Because the incapacitation of a juror in the middle of deliberations can place this right in jeopardy, our court has developed a framework to shield the right while preventing a mistrial. We now reaffirm this framework.

¶2 In the case before us, a juror became incapacitated after deliberating for approximately nine hours on felony charges brought against the defendant, Ricardo Castro. To salvage the trial, the court replaced the unavailable juror with an alternate juror. Although it acknowledged that mid-deliberations juror substitution raises a presumption of prejudice to the defendant, People v. Burnette, 775 P.2d 583, 590 (Colo. 1989), it rightly explained that such a presumption may be overcome by taking the thorough precautions developed in Burnette and Carrillo v People, 974 P.2d 478, 492 (Colo. 1999). After applying such precautions, the court instructed the reconstituted jury to begin deliberations anew.

¶3 The reconstituted jury deliberated for five and a half hours and then returned a guilty verdict. Castro appealed, arguing that the trial court had reversibly erred by replacing a regular juror with the alternate juror. But a division of the court of appeals upheld the trial court's actions. People v. Castro, No. 18CA2389, ¶¶ 6, 29, 2022 WL 3371760 (Aug. 11, 2022).

¶4 Before us, Castro maintains that whether the trial court has authority to replace a regular juror with an alternate juror after deliberations have begun presents a question of statutory interpretation subject to de novo review. Relying on that standard of review, he urges us to conclude that the controlling statute, section 16-10-105, C.R.S. (2023), does not allow for the mid-deliberations substitution of a juror and, therefore, the trial court erred. Castro then reminds us that in James v. People, 2018 CO 72, 426 P.3d 336, we adopted a harmlessness standard of reversal in a situation in which the alternate juror was inadvertently permitted to be present and briefly participate as a thirteenth juror during the first ten minutes of deliberations. This, he asserts, is also the appropriate standard of reversal in a mid-deliberations jurorsubstitution situation. Consequently, he asks us to reject the presumption-of-prejudice standard of reversal from Burnette and Carrillo. And, because in his view the People have failed to establish that the mid-deliberations substitution in this case was harmless, he argues that his conviction must be reversed.¹

¶5 We see it differently, Because section 16-10-105 is ambiguous as to whether a trial court has authority to replace a regular juror with an alternate juror during deliberations, there is no way to assess whether a trial court errs in making such a substitution. But regardless of whether substituting a regular juror with an alternate juror during deliberations is error, it is potentially prejudicial to the defendant. So, instead of delving into the appropriate standard of review to ascertain whether an error occurred here, we presume that a mid-deliberations substitution of a regular juror with an alternate juror always prejudices the defendant. It follows that the only relevant inquiry for us is whether reversal is warranted. And that question turns on whether the precautions employed by the trial court, when considered in light of the surrounding circumstances, overcome the presumption of prejudice to the defendant,

¶6 Hence, today, we explicitly proclaim the continued vitality of the principle we first articulated over three decades ago in Burnette and then reinforced a decade later in Carrillo: Substitution of a regular juror with an alternate juror during deliberations raises a presumption of prejudice to the defendant’s right to a fair trial, but that presumption may be overcome by taking the precautions delineated in those cases.² This is the standard of reversal we apply here.³

¶7 Any contention that it is improper to use the presumption-of-prejudice standard in this factual scenario without first finding (or at least assuming) error—because it’s a standard of reversal—is an attempt to exhume a hypothesis that has been six feet under since we necessarily buried it in Carrillo. The Car- rillo court used this standard of reversal without first finding or assuming error, Irrespective of whether there was error, it felt compelled to impose a rebuttable presumption of prejudice vis-à-vis. Carrillo’s right to a fair trial.

¶8 Here, applying Burnette and Carrillo, as we must, we conclude that the trial court complied with the precautions laid out in those cases. Indeed, the trial court’s approach provides a textbook example of the proper effectuation of the teachings of Burnette and Carrillo. Because the meticulous precautions employed by the trial court were sufficient under the circumstances of this case to rebut the presumption of prejudice to Castro, we affirm the division’s Judgment.⁴

1. Facts and Procedural History

¶9 Castro lived with N.G., a child, and her grandmother for some months. During that timeframe, Castro dated N.G.’s grandmother and became close with N.G. and the rest of her family. When Castro and N.G.’s grandmother broke up, he left Denver but remained in contact with the family. Several years later, he returned to Denver, and N.G.’s grandmother allowed him to stay with her while he resettled.

¶10 Shortly after Castro's return, N.G., who was nine at the time, spent a weekend with her grandmother and slept in her grandmother’s bed. One day, Castro returned home at 5 a.m. and insisted on sleeping in the bed with the two of them, instead of in his own bed in a separate room. N.G.’s grandmother acquiesced. When the grandmother later got up to use the bathroom, Castro scooted closer to N.G., pulled down her pajama pants and underwear, and started fondling her vagina. Castro then inserted his penis into N.G.’s vagina, causing her pain, and repeatedly whispered in her ear, "It’s okay, sweetheart." When he heard the grandmother returning, he stopped and moved to the other side of the bed.

¶11 N.G. made an outcry, and the People subsequently charged Castro with sexual assault on a child and sexual assault on a child by one in a position of trust. At the end of Castro’s Jury trial, counsel delivered their closing arguments on a Thursday afternoon. The court then announced that Juror W was the alternate Juror. Before Juror W left the courtroom, the trial Judge instructed her that he was not discharging her but merely recessing her, and that she remained "under all the same admonitions that [she was] under during the trial." That is, she had to (1) keep an open mind and (2) avoid internally deliberating about the case, discussing it with anyone, and viewing any media coverage of it. The twelve regular Jurors commenced deliberations that afternoon.

¶12 On Friday, the jury continued deliberations before recessing for the weekend. Between Thursday and Friday, the jury deliberated for approximately nine hours. Unfortunately, over the weekend, Juror C suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized.

¶13 On Monday morning, the court spoke with Juror C’s daughter and learned that Juror C was "not going to be able to, at any time in the reasonable future, be part of this jury." Accordingly, Juror C was discharged without objection.

¶14 Given the circumstances, the court presented three options to the parties: (1) declare a mistrial; (2) replace Juror C with the alternate juror and start deliberations anew; or (3) proceed with the eleven remaining regular jurors if both parties agreed. The defense declined to stipulate to an elevenperson jury, and the court wanted to avoid a mistrial, if possible. So, the court decided to pursue option two and brought the eleven remaining regular jurors into the courtroom to inquire whether they thought it would be possible to restart their deliberations with the alternate juror. After explaining that this would require them to tear up or erase any notes made during deliberations thus far and to "[s]tart completely over," the court direct- ed them to return to the deliberations room to discuss whether "it would be impossible for [them] to not consider in any verdict the deliberations that [they’d] already had." The court further elaborated that the decision did not have to be unanimous, but that it wanted "to know whether any of [the jurors] ha[d] hesitations about whether [they could] do this or not after talking with each other."

¶15 The jury returned to the deliberations room and after approximately half an hour sent out the following note:

We were unanimous on the first count as of Friday, end of day. In fact, wanted an extra hour

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