People v. Bohler

545 P.3d 509

2024 CO 18

The PEOPLE of the State of Colorado, Plaintiff-Appellant,

v.Brandon Mason BOHLER, Defendant-Appellee.

Supreme Court Case No. 23SA121

Supreme Court of Colorado.

April 8, 2024

Interlocutory Appeal from the District Court, Boulder County District Court Case No. 21CR447, Honorable Patrick D. Butler, Judge

Attorneys for Plaintiff-Appellant: Michael T. Dougherty, District Attorney, Twentieth Judicial District, Adam Kendall, Chief Trial Deputy District Attorney, Ryan Day, Senior Deputy District Attorney, Boulder, Colorado

Attorneys for Defendant-Appellee: Megan A, Ring, Public Defender, Samuel, Dunn, Deputy Public Defender, Carter Gee-Taylor, Deputy Public Defender, Boulder, Colorado

En Banc

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

CHIEF JUSTICE BOATRIGHT delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶1 Brandon Mason Bohler stabbed his roommate to death and then walked down a four-lane street until he encountered police officers dispatched on a welfare check. After a brief exchange, the officers arrested Bohler. He later pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity to first degree murder. After a motions hearing, the district court suppressed the statements Bohler made during the prearrest exchange.

¶2 The question before us is whether the district court erred in suppressing those statements. The answer depends on whether Bohler was in custody for Miranda purposes when he made the statements. We determine that Bohler was not in custody because a reasonable person in his position would not have believed himself to be deprived of freedom of action to the degree associated with a formal arrest. Accordingly, we reverse the portion of the district court’s order suppressing Bohler’s initial statements.

I. Facts and Procedural History

¶3 Officers’ bodycams captured the events at issue, which spanned less than six minutes.

¶4 On a March night in Boulder, Bohler walked down a four-lane street rather than the parallel sidewalk. It was snowy and icy, and he wore boots, sweatpants, and a white T-shirt stained with a concerning amount of blood. Officers Keith and Nettles, who had been dispatched on a welfare check,¹ parked their car and approached Bohler on foot. Bohler put his hands up, holding a Bible in one hand and a smartphone in the other.

¶5 Officer Keith asked Bohler to move to the sidewalk: "Hey, man, will you step out [of the road]?" At the same time, Bohler asked Officer Keith not to shoot, With his gun holstered, as it was for the entire exchange, Officer Keith replied in a conversational tone, "I’m not gonna—I don’t want to shoot you, man. Will you step out of the road, though? … Will you step on the sidewalk, bro?" Bohler clambered across the snow between the street and the shoveled sidewalk. Officer Nettles turned on her flashlight, apparently to help Bohler with his footing. The light revealed the blood on Bohler’s shirt, which extended onto his arms.

¶6 "Man, are you covered in blood?" Officer Keith asked. "I’m covered in Jesus’s blood," Bohler replied. Officer Keith approached within fifteen feet of Bohler and gestured toward the sidewalk, asking, "Hey, man, will you take a seat for me? Can you take a seat?" Bohler sat down, saying, "Yes, sir," and Officer Keith replied, "Thanks, bro." Although the officers never asked him to do anything with his arms or hands, Bohler sat cross-legged with his arms outstretched. Officer Keith asked what was going on, and Bohler repeated that he was covered in Jesus’s blood. When Officer Keith posed the question again, Bohler asked, "Are you the police officer in charge?" Officer Keith replied, "Yeah, Pm in charge right now." Bohler asked if he could kick his phone over to Officer Keith so the officer could speak with Bohler’s grandfather. Officer Keith agreed to speak with "her" shortly and asked again about the blood. Bohler corrected Officer Keith that he was referring to his "grandfather."

¶7 Officer Keith Continued to ask Bohler about the blood. Bohler did not answer directly and instead referenced religious matters (e.g., "See, if you knew the Word of God, you would know me, since you don’t know the Word of God, you don’t know me."). At the conclusion of the religious statements, he said, "I give myself up," before again asking Officer Keith to speak with his grandfather. Officer Keith said that he would do. so. While Bohler spoke with Officer Keith, a firetruck arrived behind Bohler and cast a floodlight on his back. At some point, an ambulance, medics, and additional officers arrived behind Officer Keith. Officers Nettles and Keith wondered aloud about the origin of the blood.

¶8 Officer Keith donned latex gloves, asking, "Where, are you bleeding from, man?" When Bohler didn’t reply, Officer Keith asked him his first name, which he provided. Officer Keith moved closer and asked, "We’re Just gonna—do you got anything behind you that’s gonna hurt us at all?" Bohler said that he had keys. Officer Keith told Bohler, "I need the medics to check you out" and asked if that was "cool." Bohler agreed.

¶9 Officer Nettles then approached Bohler from the side. She asked Bohler how he was injured, and he again referenced Jesus’s blood. Officer Keith asked for Bohler’s last name, which he provided. Officer Keith initially misspelled it, but Bohler corrected him. Officer Keith asked Bohler for his birthday, which he also provided.

¶10 Then, having apparently been notified that Bohler was a suspect for a nearby homicide, Officer Keith asked Bohler to put his hands behind his back. The officers handcuffed Bohler and placed him under arrest.

¶11 Later, the People charged Bohler with first degree murder, to which he pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Pertinent here, Bohler filed a motion to suppress the statements he made to the police before being handcuffed. The district court granted the motion after determining that Bohler was in custody based on the following considerations:

• The officers "commanded" Bohler to sit;

• "The purpose of the relative positions of the parties was to ensure law enforcement had control over [Bohler]"; and

• The officers "subject[ed]" Bohler to questions that they "should have known were reasonably likely to elicit an incriminating response."

Therefore, the district court concluded, "[Bohler’s] degree of movement was restrained to a seated position on the side of the road where a reasonable person in [Bohler’s] position would have believed that his freedom of action had been curtailed to a. degree associated with a formal arrest."

¶12 The People appealed the district court’s order to this court under C.A.R. 4.1. Bohler filed a motion to dismiss the appeal for lack of jurisdiction. We now address both the jurisdictional sufficiency of the appeal and the merits of whether the district court erred in suppressing Bohler’s pre-arrest statements.

II. Analysis

¶13 We first address the threshold C.A.R. 4.1 jurisdictional question and determine that we have jurisdiction. Turning to the merits, we conclude that a reasonable person in Bohler’s position would not have believed they were deprived of freedom of action to the degree associated with a formal arrest. Therefore, Bohler was not in custody before he was handcuffed, and his statements should not have been suppressed.

A. Jurisdiction via C.A.R. 4.1 Certification

¶14 When a district court grants a defendant’s motion to suppress, the People may appeal that decision to this court, "provided that the state certifies … that the appeal is not taken for purposes of delay and that the evidence is a substantial part of the proof of the charge pending against the defendant." C.A.R. 4.1(a); § 16-12-102(2), C.R.S. (2023). Bohler doesn’t dispute that the People facially complied with Rule 4.1’s certification requirement. He contends, however, that we must independently review whether the suppressed evidence constitutes a substantial part of the prosecution’s proof, and that the People failed to clear that threshold in this case.

[1] ¶15 We have not squarely addressed whether Rule 4.1 requires mere facial compliance or whether it also compels a substantiality analysis of the suppressed evidence., See People v. Thompson, 2021 CO 15, $ 14, 500 P.3d 1075, 1078 (acknowledging that our caselaw "reflects some inconsistency in our approach to jurisdiction in interlocutory appeals," but declining to resolve it without notice to the parties). Either this court has "no authority … to review the materiality of evidence" certified as substantial by the People, id. at ¶ 44, 500 P.3d at 1083 (Boatright, C. J., dissenting), or this court should, "where the defendant has raised a serious challenged … independently review[ ] the sufficiency of the certification to satisfy ourselves of our power to entertain the appeal," id. at ¶ 56, 500 P.3d at 1086–87 (Marquez, J., dissenting). But we need not resolve that issue today. Even assuming that the rule requires us to independently analyze the suppressed evidence, we conclude that the record supports the People’s certification.

¶16 Specifically, the People argue that the suppressed evidence is substantial because it goes to Bohler’s state of mind, and his insanity defense requires them to disprove under section 16-8-101.5(1)(a), C.R.S. (2023), that he was "so diseased or defective in mind … as to be incapable of distinguishing right from wrong." That is, the People contend that Bohler’s avoidance of questions about the blood, juxtaposed against his willingness and ability to answer the officers’ other questions, indicates intent after deliberation and legal sanity during the homicide. Further, the People aver that their two proffered expert witnesses determined that Bohler’s suppressed statements were material to their finding that he was sane at the time of the murder. We see no reason to second-guess these contentions, which contain record...