People v. Woodyard

540 P.3d 278

2023 COA 78

2023 COA 78

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

v.Jacob Benjamin WOODYARD, Defendant-Appellant.

Court of Appeals No. 19CA0376

Colorado Court of Appeals, Div. III.

Announced September 14, 2023

Rehearing Denied November 9, 2023

Jefferson County District Court No. 16CR2265, Honorable Tamara Russell, Judge

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Frank R. Lawson, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Samler & Whitson, P.C., Hollis A. Whitson, Eric A. Samler, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant-Appellant

Opinion by JUDGE J. JONES

¶ 1 This case arose from a law enforcement investigation of illegal drug distribution. Investigators determined that defendant, Jacob Benjamin Woodyard, bought substantial quantities of various kinds of illegal drugs and resold the drugs using a number of underlings.

¶ 2 A jury found Woodyard guilty of two counts of violating the Colorado Organized Crime Control Act (COCCA), § 18-17-104(3), (4), C.R.S. 2023;¹ fourteen counts of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance; five counts of conspiring to commit money laundering; five counts of money laundering; one count of possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance (methamphetamine); and one count of possession of a controlled substance (cocaine). The district court later adjudicated Woodyard a habitual offender on six habitual offender counts, each involving a different prior felony conviction.

¶ 3 The court sentenced Woodyard to ninety-six years in the custody of the Department of Corrections on each of the COCCA convictions after applying the habitual offender multiplier. Woodyard received sentences ranging from sixty-four years to six months on the other convictions. The court ordered all the sentences to run concurrently.

¶ 4 On appeal, Woodyard attacks his convictions in total or in part on several separate grounds. He also challenges the constitutionality of his ninety-six-year sentences on his COCCA convictions. We conclude, applying the Colorado Supreme Court’s intervening decision in McDonald v. People, 2021 CO 64, 494 P.3d 1123, that the prosecution failed to prove, and the jury didn’t find, a statutory element of the offense—an "enterprise." This is because the prosecution failed to present sufficient evidence that Woodyard was part of "an ongoing organization of associates, functioning as a continuing unit, that existed] separate and apart from the pattern of racketeering activity in which it engage[d]," and the district court didn’t instruct the jury on that concept. Id. at ¶ 4; see also id. at ¶¶ 46, 59. But because the evidence was sufficient to convict Woodyard on the COCCA charges under the previously controlling formulation of the "enterprise" element, the prosecution may retry Woodyard on those charges. Id. at ¶¶ 63-68.

¶ 5 We also conclude that the evidence was insufficient to convict Woodyard of eight of the money laundering charges because there was no evidence that he transferred money to someone else. So we must vacate those convictions. Certain of Woodyard’s conspiracy convictions merge with other conspiracy convictions because the merged convictions are based on the same agreement. But we reject Woodyard’s contentions based on the admission of evidence and, because of our resolution of his challenge to his COCCA convictions, we don’t address the merits of his remaining contentions.

¶ 6 The bottom line is that we reverse Woodyard’s COCCA convictions, reverse the sentences on those two convictions, and remand the case for a new trial on the COCCA charges. We vacate eight of the ten money laundering convictions. We reverse three of the conspiracy convictions, which merge with other conspiracy convictions. In all other respects, we affirm.

I. The District Court Did Not Violate Woodyard’s Statutory Right to a Speedy Trial

¶ 7 Woodyard contends that the district court erred by denying his motion to dismiss the case because the court violated his statutory right to a speedy trial by beginning his trial beyond his statutory speedy trial deadline. See § 18-1-405(1), C.R.S. 2023. We disagree.²

¶ 8 Woodyard entered a not guilty plea on May 1, 2017, making his speedy trial deadline November 1, 2017. Trial was set for October 23, 2017.

¶ 9 On July 17, the prosecution moved to join Woodyard’s trial with that of one of his confederates, Jared Andersen. Andersen’s speedy trial deadline was October 3, 2017, and his trial had been set to begin on September 19. Following a hearing, the court granted the prosecution’s motion, over defense counsel’s objection, finding that all the evidence against one defendant would be admissible against the other, their defenses weren’t antagonistic, and trying the cases separately would be "a waste of time and effort." The court rejected defense counsel’s argument that the prosecution had waited too long to seek to join the cases.

¶ 10 Woodyard’s attorney then indicated that he could not try the case on September 19—Andersen’s trial date. Neither defendant’s counsel could try the case before September 19, one or more of the defense attorneys had conflicts between September 19 and October 23 (Woodyard’s trial date), Andersen’s counsel couldn’t try the case on October 23, and neither Woodyard’s counsel nor Andersen’s counsel could try the case before November 1.

¶ 11 The court set the trial for February 12, 2018—a date acceptable to counsel for both defendants. In so doing, the court once again rejected Woodyard’s counsel’s arguments that the prosecution had unreasonably delayed in moving for joinder and rejected Woodyard’s counsel’s argument that the cases hadn’t been properly joined. It ruled that under section 18-l-405(6)(c), a new trial date could be set outside the speedy trial deadline because the inability to set a date within the deadline was attributable to defense counsel’s unavailability.

¶ 12 One week before trial, Woodyard’s counsel moved to dismiss the case for violation of speedy trial. The court denied the motion, reiterating its previous rulings.

¶ 13 Woodyard argues that the district court erred because he was not the "moving force" for the delay in conducting the trial; the prosecution’s "late" motion for joinder was. He also argues that section 18-1-405(6)(c) only authorized a delay of Andersen’s trial date to October 23—Woodyard’s trial date—and that the court never found there was good cause for not granting a severance. These arguments fail.

¶ 14 We begin with section 18-l-405(6)(c). It provides that the speedy trial deadline may be extended for "[a] reasonable period … when the defendant is joined for trial with a codefendant as to whom the time for trial has not run and there is good cause for not granting a severance."

[1,2] ¶ 15 Woodyard seems to argue initially that section 18-l-405(6)(c) shouldn’t apply to him because the prosecution "dillydallied" in seeking joinder. The district court found otherwise, and its finding is supported by the record. (Woodyard doesn’t argue in his opening brief that joinder was otherwise inappropriate.)³

¶ 16 We also reject Woodyard’s argument that section 18-l-405(6)(c) can’t apply because the district court failed to find good cause for not severing the cases. The court acknowledged this issue and said it had found there was no good cause for severance.

[3] ¶ 17 As for setting the joint trial beyond Woodyard’s speedy trial deadline, the court’s ruling was consistent with People v. Reynolds, 159 P.3d 684, 686-87 (Colo. App. 2006), and People v. Backus, 952 P.2d 846, 848-50 (Colo. App. 1998), in which divisions of this court held that delays attributable to a codefendant’s counsel’s unavailability were reasonable delays under section 18-1-405(6)(c). See also Hills v. Westminster Mun. Ct., 245 P.3d 947, 948, 950-51 (Colo. 2011) (delay attributable to defense counsel’s scheduling conflict is attributable to the defendant for speedy trial purposes). The delay beyond Woodyard’s speedy trial date was entirely attributable to defense counsel’s unavailability.⁴

[4] ¶ 18 The court’s ruling was also consistent with federal law applying a substantially identical federal statute. Recall that Andersen’s speedy trial deadline was October 3 and Woodyard’s was November 1. Under the federal counterpart to section 18-1-405(6)(c)—18 U.S.C. § 3161(h)(6)⁵—when two (or more) codefendants’ statutory speedy trial dates are different, the latest statutory speedy trial date becomes the statutory speedy trial date for all codefendants. United States v. Cortes-Gomez, 926 F.3d 699, 704-05 (10th Cir. 2019); United States v. Margheim, 770 F.3d 1312, 1318-19 (10th Cir. 2014). And if there is a delay attributable to a codefendant beyond the latest such statutory speedy trial date, that delay is attributable to all codefendants if it is reasonable. Cortes-Gomez, 926 F.3d at 705.

¶ 19 We see little daylight between our appellate courts’ approach to this issue and the federal approach. Indeed, we think the federal approach merely makes more explicit what is both explicit and implicit in section 18-1-405 and our case law interpreting that statute. Under the federal approach, when Andersen’s and Woodyard’s cases were joined, Andersen’s statutory speedy trial date was extended to Woodyard’s statutory speedy trial date—November 1—if such an extension was reasonable. That seems implicit in the language of section 18-l-405(6)(c). And when Andersen needed a continuance beyond November 1, that continuance, if reasonable, applied to extend Woodyard’s speedy trial date as well. To the extent further delays in the trial date were the result of Woodyard’s counsel’s scheduling conflicts, those delays are attributable to Woodyard. See § 18-l-405(6)(f). And under section 18-1-405(6)(c), any further delays attributable to Andersen’s counsel’s scheduling conflicts are also attributable to Woodyard if such delays were reasonable. See Reynolds, 159 P.3d at 686 (noting that a delay resulting from a codefendant’s...