Gorostieta v. People

516 P.3d 902

Enrique Ernesto GOROSTIETA, Petitioner,

v.The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Respondent.

Supreme Court Case No. 21SC441

Supreme Court of Colorado.

September 12, 2022

Attorneys for Petitioner: Megan A. Ring, Public Defender, Mackenzie Shields, Deputy Public Defender, Denver, Colorado

Attorneys for Respondent: Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Trina K. Kissel, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado

En Banc

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

CHIEF JUSTICE BOATRIGHT, joined by JUSTICE HOOD, concurred in the judgment.

JUSTICE GABRIEL delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 This case affords this court an opportunity to clarify what prosecutors must prove to establish a defendant's identity as the perpetrator of a prior crime when the defendant's conviction of that prior crime is an element or sentence enhancer of the present offense (e.g., in cases involving a charge of possession of a weapon by a previous offender ("POWPO") or a charge under the habitual criminal statute).¹

¶2 We now conclude that in order for the prosecution to prove a defendant's identity in such a case, the prosecution must establish an essential link between the prior conviction and the defendant. This, in turn, requires the prosecution to present some documentary evidence combined with specific corroborating evidence of identification connecting the defendant to the prior felony conviction. The question thus becomes whether the prosecution satisfied this standard here and therefore carried its burden of proving that Enrique Gorostieta was convicted of the prior felony alleged in this case. Like the division below, we believe that the prosecution could and should have done more to carry its burden. See People v. Gorostieta , No. 19CA1575 (May 13, 2021). Nonetheless, under the relatively lenient standard of review that applies to sufficiency of the evidence challenges, we conclude that the prosecution presented sufficient evidence to allow a reasonable jury to find that Gorostieta had been convicted of the prior felony at issue here.

¶3 Accordingly, we affirm the judgment of the division below.

I. Facts and Procedural History

¶4 One early morning in El Paso County, witnesses heard multiple gunshots being fired from a vehicle parked at a neighbor's house. Police arrived a short time later and ordered the occupants to get out of the vehicle. When the occupants did not do so, a police officer fired a rubber bullet through the back window of the vehicle. The occupants still did not emerge from the vehicle, and the police called in a SWAT unit.

¶5 Upon arriving at the scene, the SWAT unit pinned the vehicle in its position with an armored vehicle so that the occupants could not drive away. Thereafter, the police deployed a smoke canister into the back window of the vehicle, and the driver, but not the passenger, got out. The officers then fired a 40 mm nonlethal round into the back window. At this point, the passenger also got out of the vehicle.

¶6 Police officers identified Gorostieta as the driver, took him and the passenger into custody, and transported Gorostieta to a police operations center where they interviewed him. Officers also searched the vehicle and found two handguns, one of which Gorostieta admitted to purchasing.

¶7 The El Paso County prosecutor subsequently charged Gorostieta with, among other things, POWPO, alleging that Gorostieta had a prior felony conviction for possession of a controlled substance.

¶8 The case proceeded to trial, and at trial, officers testified that Gorostieta's name was Enrique Gorostieta and that he was born on January 19, 1990. In addition, one of the witnesses who had initially seen the vehicle from which the shots were fired testified that its occupants were "Mexican" or "Hispanic." And the court admitted by stipulation certain self-authenticating court records showing that a person named Enrique Ernesto Gorostieta, who had the same birth date as the defendant in the present case, had previously been convicted in El Paso County, case number 15CR5859, for possession of a controlled substance. Those court records further described the defendant in that case as a Hispanic male, 5’4? in height and weighing 192 pounds, with black hair and brown eyes. Gorostieta was present at the trial of the POWPO charge now at issue, and thus the jury was able to observe him and compare his physical appearance to the description in the records from the prior case.

¶9 The jury ultimately convicted Gorostieta of the POWPO charge, and the court sentenced him to 15 months in prison.

¶10 Gorostieta appealed, arguing that the prosecution had produced insufficient evidence to prove that he was the same person convicted of the prior drug felony. In a split, unpublished opinion, a division of the court of appeals affirmed Gorostieta's conviction. Gorostieta , ¶¶ 1, 17.

¶11 Applying the substantial evidence test, which we discuss below, the majority concluded that, although the prosecution could and probably should have done more to carry its burden of proof, the evidence was nonetheless sufficient to support the jury's determination that Gorostieta was, in fact, the person convicted of the prior crime. Id. at ¶¶ 5, 13, 17. In support of this conclusion, the majority pointed to the prosecution's evidence showing that Gorostieta's name and date of birth matched the same information for the defendant in the prior felony case. Id. at ¶ 14. In addition, the majority observed that the jury had had the opportunity to view Gorostieta at trial and could compare him to the physical description set forth in the court packet from the prior case. Id. Finally, the majority relied on the fact that the prior felony conviction had occurred in the same county as the present POWPO offense, making it more likely that the same Gorostieta was convicted in the prior case. Id. at ¶ 16.

¶12 Judge Tow dissented. Although he agreed with the majority's recitation of the test to be applied in reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, he concluded that the evidence was not substantial and sufficient to show, and thus the prosecution did not prove beyond a reasonable doubt, that Gorostieta had committed the prior felony. Id. at ¶¶ 20, 31 (Tow, J., dissenting). In Judge Tow's view, the prosecution proved only that a conviction entered for someone using the name Enrique Ernesto Gorostieta with a particular birth date and who was a "Hispanic male of average stature and build." Id. at ¶ 23. Indeed, other than the foregoing demographic information and physical description, which Judge Tow indicated was "information that is difficult to verify and usually based on self-report," he perceived "no evidence whatsoever that tied that information to the person sitting before the jury accused of the criminal offense in the present case." Id.

¶13 In support of this conclusion, Judge Tow noted that no one testified that Gorostieta's fingerprints or signature matched those in the court file from the prior case. Id. at ¶ 24. Nor was the jury provided with (1) a photograph of the defendant from the prior case file; (2) Gorostieta's criminal history, which could have tied the prior conviction to a state identification number or some other unique identifier, such as a driver license, social security, or inmate number; or (3) information from the present offense's booking report to allow the jury to see whether Gorostieta's address here matched the address of the defendant in the prior case. Id. Judge Tow further observed that the prosecution did not call either Gorostieta's probation officer to identify Gorostieta as the person being supervised for the prior offense or any other person with personal knowledge who could have connected Gorostieta to that case. Id. at ¶ 25. In Judge Tow's view, these were all "simple and relatively obvious steps" that the prosecution could have taken. Id. at ¶ 26. But the prosecution instead provided only a document that included a name and date of birth, both of which suspects often falsify, and a "relatively nondescript" physical description "that likely matched hundreds, if not thousands, of people in El Paso County." Id. at ¶ 27. Based on the foregoing, Judge Tow concluded that the prosecution had not made the requisite connection between Gorostieta and the defendant in the prior felony conviction to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that Gorostieta had committed that prior felony. Id. at ¶ 31.

¶14 Gorostieta petitioned for certiorari, and we granted his petition.

II. Analysis

¶15 We begin by addressing the applicable standard of review. Next, we explain what prosecutors must prove to establish a defendant's identity as the perpetrator of a prior crime when the defendant's conviction of that prior crime is an element or sentence enhancer of the present offense. We then proceed to apply this test to the facts before us.

A. Standard of Review

¶16 We review de novo whether the prosecution presented sufficient evidence to sustain a conviction. Clark v. People , 232 P.3d 1287, 1291 (Colo. 2010). In doing so, we employ a substantial evidence test. Id. Under this test, we ask whether the evidence, "viewed as a whole and in the light most favorable to the prosecution, is substantial and sufficient to support a conclusion by a reasonable mind that the defendant is guilty of the charge beyond a reasonable doubt." People v. Harrison , 2020 CO 57, ¶ 32, 465 P.3d 16, 23 (quoting People v. Bennett , 183 Colo. 125, 515 P.2d 466, 469 (1973) ).

¶17 In applying the substantial evidence test, we must "give the prosecution the benefit of every reasonable inference which might be fairly drawn from the evidence." Id. (quoting People v. Perez , 2016 CO 12, ¶ 25, 367 P.3d 695, 701 ). It does not matter that we might have reached a different conclusion were we the triers of fact. Clark , 232 P.3d at 1291.

B. Proof of Commission of Prior Crime

¶18 To convict a...