Angelo Emilio Montoya v. The People of the State of Colorado

Men Sentenced For Wheat Ridge Teen's Slaying

Case Number: 2017 CO 40

Judge: Linda F. Coats

Court: The Supreme Court of the State of Colorado

Plaintiff's Attorney:

Cynthia H. Coffman, Attorney General 25
John T. Lee, Assistant Attorney General

Defendant's Attorney:

Douglas K. Wilson, Public Defender 20
Elizabeth Griffin, Public Defender

Description: Angelo Montoya and his cousin were charged by grand jury indictment with
extreme indifference murder in the shooting death of a young woman at a party.1 The
two were tried together, and although both were acquitted of the charged offense of
extreme indifference murder, they were each convicted of attempted extreme
indifference murder, reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and
accessory to crime, all of which had been submitted to the jury as lesser offenses of the
charged offense. Montoya was sentenced to concurrent terms of imprisonment of
forty-eight years for attempted extreme indifference murder, the maximum sentence in
the aggravated range for a class two felony, six years for reckless manslaughter, and
three years for criminally negligent homicide, and to a consecutive term of six years for
accessory to crime.
¶4 Evidence at the trial indicated that on the night of October 23–24, 2004, Montoya
and his cousin were attending a large keg party at a house in Wheat Ridge. At some
point, after Montoya and his friends were told to leave, a fight erupted, guns were
produced, and Montoya and his friends were chased from the house. While running
for his cousin’s car, Montoya fired a number of rounds from a nine-millimeter Glock
semi-automatic handgun. While Montoya drove the car away, his cousin fired more
rounds toward the house from the same handgun. The crime scene evidence indicated
1 The indictment also charged Montoya with the attempted extreme indifference murder of another man at the party who was injured by gunshot. Montoya was acquitted of that charge, and it therefore was not involved in his appeals.


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that ten shots were fired from the Glock, one of which penetrated a bedroom window in
the house, striking a young woman, who was pronounced dead later that morning.
¶5 As pertinent to the issues before this court, the jury was instructed on the
elements of the charged homicide offense of extreme indifference murder and also
concerning the principles of complicitor liability for aiding, abetting, advising, or
encouraging another in the commission of a crime. With regard to the offense of
extreme indifference murder, the jury was further instructed as to the circumstances in
which a person would be justified in using force in his own defense, and in that regard
it was instructed that it could consider whether the defendant was justifiably acting in
self-defense in assessing whether he caused the death of another under circumstances
evidencing an attitude of universal malice manifesting extreme indifference to the value
of human life generally. Over the objection of defense counsel, the jury was not,
however, instructed that self-defense was an affirmative defense to the crime of extreme
indifference murder, which the prosecutor would then bear the burden of separately
disproving beyond a reasonable doubt.
¶6 In addition, the jury was instructed on the elements of the crime of attempting to
commit extreme indifference murder and that if it were not satisfied beyond a
reasonable doubt that the defendant was guilty of extreme indifference murder, he
could nonetheless be convicted of the lesser included offense of attempting to commit
extreme indifference murder. The jury was expressly instructed, however, that it could
not find the defendant guilty of both the extreme indifference murder and the
attempted extreme indifference murder of the same victim. The jury was further


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instructed on the elements of reckless manslaughter, its lesser included offense of
attempted reckless manslaughter, and criminally negligent homicide, as lesser offenses
of extreme indifference murder, but the jury was not similarly instructed that it could
not find the defendant guilty of these homicide offenses if it found him guilty of either
extreme indifference murder or attempted extreme indifference murder. Finally, at the
request of the defendant, the jury was instructed on the elements of the offense of
accessory to crime, as a lesser non-included offense of the charged offense.
¶7 The jury returned guilty verdicts for the offenses of attempted extreme
indifference murder, reckless manslaughter, criminally negligent homicide, and
accessory to crime with regard to both men, and the court entered judgment of
conviction and sentenced the defendants on each of those verdicts. Each defendant
appealed separately to the court of appeals. The intermediate appellate court initially
ordered that Montoya’s conviction for accessory to crime be affirmed but that his
homicide convictions be reversed, finding that he was erroneously denied an
instruction concerning the right to act in self-defense against multiple assailants.
Summarily, following this court’s intervening clarification of the right to a
multiple-assailant instruction in Riley v. People, 266 P.3d 1089 (Colo. 2011), the People’s
petition for writ of certiorari was granted, the judgment of the court of appeals was
vacated, and the case was remanded for reconsideration. On remand, all of Montoya’s
convictions and sentences were affirmed against all of his assignments of error.
¶8 Following remand and the affirmance of his convictions, we partially granted
Montoya’s petition for a writ of certiorari, agreeing to consider the viability of separate


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convictions for being both a complicitor and an accessory to the same crime, as well as
restructuring his petition to consider the sufficiency of the evidence to support his
convictions for attempted extreme indifference murder, reckless manslaughter,2 and
accessory to crime.
II.
¶9 Under the general rubric of sufficiency, Montoya raises several different but
related arguments, challenging the court of appeals’ understanding of the elements of
extreme indifference murder, as defined by statute; the adequacy, in terms of both
quantity and quality, of the evidence actually presented at trial to support his
conviction of attempted extreme indifference murder; and the constitutionality of
convicting him of attempted extreme indifference murder without requiring the
prosecution to disprove his claim of self-defense, in addition to proving beyond a
reasonable doubt the elements defining that offense. While it is at least questionable
whether all of these arguments are clearly included within the issues structured for
review by this court, they have all been fully briefed and argued by the parties, and
given their interrelation and the difficulty they apparently continue to pose for the
lower courts of the jurisdiction, we consider it important to address each and explain
2 In arguments before this court, Montoya offers no challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction for reckless manslaughter. Additionally, while Montoya indicates in his briefing that reckless manslaughter and criminally negligent homicide should have been submitted to the jury as lesser included offenses of attempted extreme indifference murder, the question whether his reckless manslaughter conviction should merge with his attempted extreme indifference murder conviction was not raised to this court.


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why none undermines the jury verdict finding Montoya guilty of attempted extreme
indifference murder.
¶10 First, Montoya asserts that the culpable mental state of “knowingly” in the
definition of the crime of extreme indifference murder applies not only to the
circumstances and nature of his conduct but also to the result of that conduct, such that
he could be found guilty of attempting to commit extreme indifference murder only if
there was sufficient evidence to prove that he engaged in conduct strongly
corroborative of his firmness of purpose to knowingly cause the death of another, with
an awareness of both the nature of his conduct and the circumstances under which it
must statutorily have been engaged in. Second, he asserts that in light of these
requirements, there was insufficient evidence presented at trial to support his
conviction of attempted extreme indifference murder. And finally, he asserts that in
addition to the statutorily prescribed elements of the offense of attempted extreme
indifference murder, the prosecution was also required to prove beyond a reasonable
doubt that his attempt to kill the victim was not justified as an act of self-defense, and in
this regard he asserts that were the prosecution not relieved of its burden of proof in
violation of due process of law, there would not have been sufficient evidence to
disprove his assertion of self-defense.
A.
¶11 As we have recounted in much greater detail elsewhere, the form of homicide in
this jurisdiction now referred to as extreme indifference murder has undergone
considerable evolution, in both case law and legislation, in reaching its current state.


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See People v. Jefferson, 748 P.2d 1223, 1226–30 (Colo. 1988); see also Candelaria v.
People, 148 P.3d 178, 180–83 (Colo. 2006). The statutory offense, which is defined at
section 18-3-102(1)(d) of the revised statutes, was struck down by this court in 1981 for
being insufficiently distinguishable from, but nevertheless punished more severely
than, the knowing homicide offense of second degree murder. People v. Marcy, 628
P.2d 69 (Colo. 1981); see also People v. Curtis, 627 P.2d 734, 736 (Colo. 1981) (applying
Marcy and reversing the defendant’s extreme indifference murder conviction); People
v. Lee, 630 P.2d 583, 587–88 (Colo. 1981) (same); People v. Gurule, 628 P.2d 99, 102
(Colo. 1981) (same). Following amendment by the legislature, we upheld the successor
statute, understanding it to create a crime of greater social consequence than second
degree murder by proscribing killing acts of a particularly heinous nature, rather than
by attempting to carve out a new and intermediate culpable mental state between
knowledge and intent. Jefferson, 748 P.2d 1223. In doing so, we therefore made clear
that the required mental state for extreme indifference murder, as with the crime of
second degree murder, remained simply “knowingly.” See id. at 1232.
¶12 The culpable mental state “knowingly” is statutorily defined in terms of its
applicability to a result of conduct, as well as to its applicability to the conduct itself or
to a circumstance described by a statute defining an offense. See § 18-1-501(6), C.R.S.
(2016). With respect to the former, a person acts “knowingly” when he is aware that his
conduct is practically certain to cause the result. Id. With respect to the latter, a person
acts “knowingly” when he is aware that his conduct is of such nature or that such
circumstance exists. Id. The legislature has expressly indicated that when a statute


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defining an offense prescribes as an element thereof a specified culpable mental state,
that mental state is deemed to apply to every element of the offense unless an intent to
limit its application clearly appears. § 18-1-503(4), C.R.S. (2016). The legislature has
also expressly indicated that where acting knowingly suffices to establish an element of
an offense, that element is equally established if the person acts intentionally, or with a
conscious objective to cause the proscribed result. §§ 18-1-501(5), -503(3).
¶13 Unlike second degree murder, which describes the proscribed conduct solely in
terms of its result, see § 18-3-103(1), C.R.S. (2016) (“knowingly causes the death of a
person”), extreme indifference murder describes the proscribed conduct, in addition to
specifying certain required attendant circumstances, both in terms of its nature and its
result, see § 18-3-102(1)(d) (“knowingly engages in conduct which creates a grave risk of
death to a person, or persons, other than himself, and thereby causes the death of
another”). The nature and result of the conduct proscribed in extreme indifference
murder appear in two verb clauses, conjoined in a single sentence and governed by the
same subject—“he,” referring to the defendant. See § 18-3-102(1)(d) (“he knowingly
engages . . . and . . . causes”). The question whether the adverb “knowingly,” clearly
modifying the first verb, “engages,” does not also modify the second verb, “causes,” as
it does in second degree murder, therefore turns on whether “an intent to limit its
application clearly appears.” See § 18-1-503(4). While perhaps not dispositive in itself,
it can at least be said with confidence that such an intent to limit the application of the
mental state “knowingly” would more clearly appear if the statute required that the


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death simply result from the conduct engaged in by the defendant rather than
requiring, as it does, that the death be caused by the defendant.
¶14 While we expressly found the mental state of “intentionally” inapplicable to the
second verb clause in a very similarly worded incarnation of extreme indifference
murder pre-dating the statute we struck down in Marcy, see People v. Castro, 657 P.2d
932, 938 (Colo. 1983), overruled on other grounds by West v. People, 2015 CO 5, 341
P.3d 520, in Marcy we found the then-extant statute, in which the mental state
“knowingly” had been substituted for “intentionally,” to require the defendant’s
awareness that his conduct was practically certain to result in another’s death, Marcy,
628 P.2d at 77–78. We did so in Marcy, however, for a somewhat different reason.
Without expressly addressing the question whether the mental state “knowingly” was
intended to modify the second verb clause—“and thereby causes the death of
another”—we found that “[i]n the context of criminal homicide, conduct that is
practically certain to cause the death of another is the semantic equivalent of conduct
creating a grave risk of death to another.” Id. at 79. In upholding the post-Marcy,
amended version of the extreme indifference murder statute in Jefferson, we did not
find fault with this equivalence drawn in Marcy, but rather upheld the amended statute
solely on the basis of its distinguishable conduct, or actus reus. See Jefferson, 748 P.2d
at 1232–33.
¶15 Furthermore, in reasoning as we did in Jefferson, we consistently described both
second degree murder and extreme indifference murder as proscribing “knowing,
killing conduct,” the latter offense being distinguished from the former by containing


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“an element in addition to those required” for the former. Id. at 1233 (emphasis added).
Perhaps even more emphatically, in Candelaria, 148 P.3d at 182, we characterized
Jefferson as concluding that extreme indifference murder had become distinguishable
from second degree murder only in the sense that the actual killing act had to be one
objectively demonstrating a willingness to take life indiscriminately. Finally, we found
there to have been sufficient evidence of extreme indifference murder in Candelaria
precisely for the reason that the jury could find from the trial evidence that the
defendant and his companions “were aware their shooting was practically certain to
cause death and was carried out under circumstances evidencing a willingness to take
the lives of others without knowing or caring who they were.” Id. at 183.
¶16 Whether or not the same conclusion could be reached solely from the
legislature’s direction in section 18-1-503(3) for understanding its intent concerning the
breadth of application of a mental state included in the definition of a crime, we have at
least never deviated from the reasoning of Marcy that conduct practically certain to
cause the death of another is the equivalent of conduct creating a grave risk of death to
another. It therefore follows that knowingly engaging in the latter conduct and thereby
causing the death of a person or persons is the equivalent of knowingly causing the
death of another. While conviction of extreme indifference murder therefore requires
proof that the defendant was practically certain his conduct would cause death, or in
other words, that he was knowingly engaging in conduct creating a grave risk of death
to another, proof that Montoya knowingly caused death was not required where the
jury returned a guilty verdict of only attempted extreme indifference murder. Rather,


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the jury was required to find, in this regard, only that Montoya knowingly engaged in
conduct strongly corroborative of his purpose to commit the crime of extreme
indifference murder.
¶17 It is now well-settled, and not challenged here, that attempt liability in this
jurisdiction does not require a specific intent, or conscious objective to accomplish a
proscribed result, and instead attaches to crimes requiring merely knowledge with
regard to the conduct, circumstances, or result defining the crime in question, see
People v. Krovarz, 697 P.2d 378, 383 (Colo. 1985) (“We hold that a culpable mental state
of knowledge suffices to support criminal attempt liability.”), and even to crimes of
recklessness, see People v. Thomas, 729 P.2d 972, 976–77 (Colo. 1986) (finding that the
index-of-dangerousness approach of Krovarz leads to the same result reached in
Thomas, with regard to crimes of recklessness, and Castro, with regard to crimes of
extreme indifference).3 For conviction of attempted extreme indifference murder, as
attempt liability has been construed to exist in this jurisdiction, there must be evidence
from which a trier of fact can find that the actor was aware he was engaging in conduct
3 Although we have previously explained the basis for upholding attempt liability for extreme indifference murder, in Castro we did so with regard to the pre-Marcy statute, which we construed not to make the mens rea applicable to the proscribed result of death at all, 657 P.2d at 938, and in People v. Ramos, although we dealt with the current extreme indifference murder statute, our judgment there pre-dated Jefferson and did not involve a challenge to either the constitutionality or construction of the new statute, see 708 P.2d 1347, 1353 (Colo. 1985) (Lohr, J., specially concurring). Accordingly, attempt liability attaches to the current crime of extreme indifference murder to the extent we found it applicable to crimes requiring a mental state of “knowingly” in Krovarz.



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strongly corroborative of the firmness of his purpose to complete the commission of the
crime of extreme indifference murder, see § 18-2-101(1), C.R.S. (2016) (defining criminal
attempt); see also People v. Lehnert, 163 P.3d 1111, 1113 (Colo. 2007); and commission
of the crime of extreme indifference murder would be complete only if the defendant
caused the death of another by knowingly engaging in conduct creating a grave risk of
death to a person or persons other than himself—meaning that he was practically
certain his conduct would cause the death of another—under circumstances evidencing
an attitude of universal malice manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human
life generally.
¶18 Further, where the trier of fact is permitted to find the defendant legally
accountable for the behavior of another constituting an attempt to commit extreme
indifference murder, by reason of his aiding, abetting, advising, or encouraging the
other person in planning or committing that attempt, with the intent to promote or
facilitate it, there must merely be evidence from which the trier of fact can find that the
defendant was legally accountable for the behavior of another actor and either the
defendant or the other actor engaged in conduct strongly corroborative of the firmness
of his purpose to complete the commission of the crime of extreme indifference murder.
See § 18-1-603, C.R.S. (2016) (defining complicity liability); see also People v. Childress,
2015 CO 65M, ¶ 34, 363 P.3d 155, 165, as modified on denial of reh’g (Jan. 11, 2016).
B.
¶19 For more than four decades we have held there to be sufficient evidence to
support a conviction if “the relevant evidence, both direct and circumstantial, when


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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 a
charge beyond a reasonable doubt.” People v. Bennett, 515 P.2d 466, 469 (Colo. 1973);
see also Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 313–20 (1979) (recounting history of similar
federal standard); Clark v. People, 232 P.3d 1287, 1292 (Colo. 2010) (rejecting
requirement that under substantial evidence standard the prosecution must “exclude
every reasonable hypotheses other than that of guilt” or disprove the defendant’s
theory (quoting Bennett, 515 P.2d at 469)). Although the testimony at trial was often
inconsistent or in conflict, it was for the jury to decide which evidence to credit and how
much weight to assign that evidence, in light of all the admitted evidence, both direct
and circumstantial.
¶20 According to this standard, there was an abundance of evidence from which the
jury could find that Montoya was accountable for the commission of attempted extreme
indifference murder. The jury was presented with both real and testimonial evidence,
which, if credited, would clearly establish that both Montoya and his cousin, acting in
concert, each in turn fired five rounds from the same semi-automatic handgun,
indiscriminately, in the direction of a house, full of party-goers, from which the pair
was being pursued. Consciously firing a lethal firearm a number of times into a crowd
of people is clearly conduct from which a fact finder could reasonably determine that
the shooters were at least aware they were creating a grave risk of death or, in other
words, were practically certain they would cause death, if not that they were actually
acting with a conscious objective to cause death.


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¶21 By the same token, consciously but indiscriminately shooting into a crowd of
people presents a quintessential example of circumstances evidencing a willingness to
take life indiscriminately and therefore, in the language of the statute, evidencing
universal malice manifesting extreme indifference to the value of human life generally.
With regard to conduct, result, and circumstances, we have previously found that
shooting a number of times into a car containing a number of passengers, in retaliation
against one of them, was sufficient evidence from which to find the shooters were
practically certain they were engaging in conduct that would cause death, under
circumstances satisfying the elements of extreme indifference murder. Candelaria,
148 P.3d at 183. Although there was arguably sufficient evidence for the jury to have
found Montoya guilty of extreme indifference murder itself, either because it was one of
the rounds actually fired by him that struck the victim or because he was complicit in
the commission of the killing committed by his cousin, where the jury returned a guilty
verdict only with regard to attempt liability, assigning responsibility for performing the
actual killing act was unnecessary.
C.
¶22 Montoya asserts, however, that in addition to the elements of the crime of
attempted extreme indifference murder, as extreme indifference murder and attempt
liability are defined by statute in this jurisdiction, the prosecution bore the burden of
proving beyond a reasonable doubt that he, or presumably an actor for whose behavior
he was accountable, did not act in self-defense; that the prosecution was relieved of this
burden, in violation of the dictates of due process of law; and that being the case, there


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was insufficient evidence to satisfy this additional element. Montoya’s assertion is
premised on his understanding that our opinion in People v. Pickering, 276 P.3d 553
(Colo. 2011), permitted his conviction of attempted extreme indifference murder
without requiring the prosecution to prove that his use of physical force in killing the
victim was not justified in defense of himself or a third person, according to section
18-1-704, C.R.S. (2016), and that by doing so, our opinion in Pickering violates due
process of law, as that doctrine was applied to the proof of affirmative defenses by the
United States Supreme Court in Smith v. United States, 133 S. Ct. 714 (2013). Montoya’s
reasoning in this regard appears to stem from a misreading of both Smith and
Pickering.
¶23 Notwithstanding the prosecution’s clear constitutional obligation to prove
beyond a reasonable doubt every fact necessary to constitute the crime with which a
defendant is charged, see In re Winship, 397 U.S. 358, 364 (1970), the Supreme Court has
long held that proof of the nonexistence of all affirmative defenses has never been
constitutionally required, see Patterson v. New York, 432 U.S. 197, 210 (1977). Should
the matter have remained in any doubt, in Smith, while actually holding that due
process was not violated by requiring the defendant in that case to shoulder the burden
of proving his affirmative defense of withdrawal from a conspiracy, the Supreme Court
noted that the Government has no constitutional duty to overcome beyond a reasonable
doubt a defense that excuses otherwise punishable conduct, as long as that defense does
not also controvert any of the elements of the offense itself; and, conversely, that the


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prosecution is only foreclosed from shifting the burden of proof to the defendant when
an affirmative defense does negate an element of the crime. See 133 S. Ct. at 719.
¶24 Whatever questions may remain in federal law concerning precisely when an
affirmative defense “controverts,” or “does negate” an element of an offense, long
before the federal constitution was construed to impose limitations on the common law
rule requiring criminal defendants to prove affirmative defenses, we in this jurisdiction
interpreted the state due process clause to do so. See People ex rel. Juhan v. Dist. Court,
439 P.2d 741 (Colo. 1968) (deviating from the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the
federal due process clause in Leland v. Oregon, 343 U.S. 790 (1952), with regard to proof
of insanity, and interpreting our own due process clause to require the prosecution to
disprove insanity). For nearly a half-century, any question about the reach of our own
constitutional limitation in this regard has been rendered largely inconsequential, as is
the case in most states, by statute. Since its enactment, effective in 1972, the Colorado
Criminal Code has mandated that issues involved in affirmative defenses, once raised,
must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt by the prosecution, just as with the other
elements of the offense. § 18-1-407, C.R.S. (2016).
¶25 In 2003, in response to various case law developments, the General Assembly
amended its statutory provision recognizing a legal justification for using force in
defense of one’s person, or self-defense. Ch. 83, sec. 1, § 18-1-704, 2003 Colo. Sess. Laws
795. Over a period of years, we had distinguished defenses operating by negating, or
“traversing,” the elements of a charged crime, from defenses operating by excusing,
authorizing, or justifying in some manner, conduct that would otherwise constitute the


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commission of that crime, see, e.g., People v. Huckleberry, 768 P.2d 1235, 1238–39
(Colo. 1989) (distinguishing defenses in the nature of traverses from affirmative
defenses, and holding that a defense of alibi constitutes the former); and with regard to
self-defense, in particular, we had found it unnecessary to provide an affirmative
defense instruction for charges of using physical force recklessly or with criminal
negligence, despite the defendant’s having produced some credible evidence of acting
in self-defense, see, e.g., Case v. People, 774 P.2d 866 (Colo. 1989) (holding that the trial
court was not required to provide jury with an affirmative self-defense instruction
because it had properly instructed the jury on reckless manslaughter and criminally
negligent homicide); People v. Fink, 574 P.2d 81, 83 (Colo. 1978), superseded by statute
in part, Ch. 83, sec. 1, § 18-1-704, 2003 Colo. Sess. Laws 795, as recognized in Pickering,
276 P.3d at 556 (stating that, “[w]hen an element of the crime charged is that the
defendant acted in a reckless or criminally negligent manner, and the trial court
properly instructs the jury as to each element, no error results from the court’s failure to
give a self-defense instruction”). In those cases, we reasoned that acting with these
culpable mental states would be inconsistent with acting reasonably, a prerequisite for
self-defense; and therefore rather than finding section 18-1-704 to impose a burden to
disprove legal justification in addition to proving the elements of a crime of recklessness
or criminal negligence, we held that the prosecution effectively disproves a claim of
self-defense to a charge of acting recklessly or with criminal negligence by simply
proving the elements of the crime itself. As we explained in Pickering, the 2003
statutory amendment codified our requirement that a defendant nevertheless be


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permitted to present evidence that he was acting in self-defense, even in cases in which
he would not be entitled to an instruction imposing an additional burden on the
prosecution to disprove an affirmative defense of legal justification. 276 P.3d at 556.
Moreover, the amendment added a requirement that in those situations, the jury not
only be instructed as to the law governing self-defense but also that it be notified that
evidence of acting in self-defense could be taken into account in determining whether
the defendant acted recklessly, with extreme indifference,4 or in a criminally negligent
manner. Id. In codifying the requirements for those cases in which self-defense
operates to traverse the elements rather than provide legal justification or excuse for the
use of otherwise proscribed physical force, we noted, however, that the General
Assembly had made clear that the instruction it intended for the former type of defense
not be an affirmative defense instruction, for the simple reason that unlike the latter,
with regard to the former there is no legal justification or excuse to be disproved. See
id. at 556–57.
¶26 In Pickering we addressed the question whether instructing the jury that the
prosecution did not bear a burden to disprove self-defense with regard to the charge of
4 While this court had never determined that the affirmative defense of self-defense would be inconsistent with engaging in conduct under circumstances evidencing universal malice manifesting an extreme indifference to the value of human life generally, the court of appeals had done so in published opinions prior to the 2003 amendment. See, e.g., People v. Fernandez, 883 P.2d 491, 493 (Colo. App. 1994) (relying on the rationale in Fink, 574 P.2d 81, to find that, “the charge of extreme indifference murder is inconsistent with the affirmative defense of self-defense”).




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reckless manslaughter conveyed to the jury the misimpression that the prosecution was
somehow absolved of its burden, of which the jury had been separately and expressly
instructed in its elemental instruction, to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the
defendant acted recklessly in causing the death of the victim. Relying heavily on
Supreme Court jurisprudence holding that even an instruction squarely placing the
burden on a criminal defendant to prove a defense that may negate an element of the
charge could nevertheless not have the effect of unconstitutionally shifting to the
defendant a burden of disproving any element of the state’s case, see Martin v. Ohio,
480 U.S. 228, 233–34 (1987) (holding that placing on the defendant the burden to prove
her assertion of self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence did not convey any
shift in the State’s burden to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all of the elements of
aggravated murder), we found that merely instructing the jury to the effect that the
prosecution did not bear a burden to disprove self-defense with regard to reckless
manslaughter did not improperly shift the burden to prove recklessness in that case,
and we overruled two court of appeals’ cases holding otherwise, Pickering, 276 P.3d at
556–57 (overruling People v. Lara, 224 P.3d 388 (Colo. App. 2009) and People v. Taylor,
230 P.3d 1227 (Colo. App. 2009)).
¶27 Specifically, Montoya asserts here that when we stated in Pickering, in
substantially the language of the statute, that the prosecution does not bear a burden to
disprove self-defense when it has been asserted as a defense to crimes of recklessness,
extreme indifference, or criminal negligence, we effectively ruled that the prosecution
need not disprove an element-negating defense, despite a federal due process mandate


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that it do so. Initially, neither Smith, nor any of the Supreme Court’s jurisprudence
preceding it, even remotely suggests that federal due process requires a state to
disprove an element-negating defense, in any manner other than merely proving those
elements of the crime that would be negated by that defense. Smith merely addresses,
and largely restates, Supreme Court jurisprudence specifying when the burden of proof
concerning an affirmative defense may, and when it may not, be shifted to the criminal
defendant asserting the defense. See 133 S. Ct. at 718–20. Smith nowhere purports to
address the circumstances, or particular kinds of instructions, that might be understood
to shift the prosecution’s burden to prove the elements of the offense with which the
defendant is charged, nor does the Court retreat from its holding in Martin, upon which
we relied in Pickering. Martin squarely held that even unequivocally placing a burden
on the criminal defendant to prove self-defense by a preponderance of the evidence
could not have had the effect of relieving the prosecution of its burden to prove the
elements of the homicide crime with which she was charged. 480 U.S. at 235–36.
¶28 Of equal importance, however, Montoya simply misreads both the 2003
amendment and our opinion in Pickering. Section 18-1-704 provides legal justification
for using physical force in defense of one’s person, under specified circumstances, and
section 18-1-710 designates that legal justification, for what would otherwise be
punishable conduct, an affirmative defense. Subsection (4) of section 704, added in
2003, expressly addresses the situation “in which the defendant is not entitled to a jury
instruction regarding self-defense as an affirmative defense,” (emphasis added), and
with regard to that situation, the amendment nevertheless entitles the defendant to


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present evidence that he or she was acting in self-defense and to have the jury
instructed on self-defense law, including the relevance of that law to the jury’s
resolution of the question whether the defendant in fact acted recklessly, with extreme
indifference, or in a criminally negligent manner. By simply clarifying that in this
limited situation, “the prosecuting attorney shall not have the burden of disproving
self-defense,” the statute cannot reasonably be understood to relieve the prosecution of
its burden to prove all the statutory elements of the offense, including any element of
the offense that would be traversed by the defendant’s acting in self-defense. In the
clear context of the subsection as a whole, it can only be understood to mean that where
proof of the crime at issue necessarily establishes that the defendant did not act in
self-defense, as is the case with crimes of extreme indifference, recklessness, or criminal
negligence, the prosecution bears no separate, or additional, burden with regard to
self-defense, as it would with regard to an affirmative defense of legal justification or
excuse.
¶29 By the same token, our exegesis of the 2003 amendment to section 18-1-704 in
Pickering, as well as our holding there that a carrying instruction using the language of
section 18-1-704(4) is not unconstitutionally erroneous, cannot be reasonably
understood as relieving the prosecution of a burden to disprove an element-negating
defense, as Montoya asserts. Quite the contrary, our entire rationale in Pickering is
premised on the well-established proposition that a defense operating solely by
traversing, or negating, elements of the crime itself is disproved, at one and the same
time, by proving those elements. See, e.g., Huckleberry, 768 P.2d at 1238–39 (holding


23
that a defense of alibi does not merit an affirmative defense instruction because proof
that the defendant committed the crime itself necessarily disproves the defendant’s
assertion that he was somewhere else). The question before us in Pickering was simply
whether instructing the jury that the prosecution did not bear a burden of disproving
self-defense with regard to the crime of reckless manslaughter could be expected to
convey to the jury, contrary to all its other instructions, that the defendant, rather than
the prosecution, bore the burden of proof as to the element of causing death recklessly,
and we found that it could not.
¶30 In the instant case, unlike in Pickering, the defendant was not charged with, and
the jury was not instructed concerning, any other offense for which self-defense could
operate as a legal justification or excuse. In this case, unlike Pickering, it was therefore
unnecessary to distinguish for the jury the prosecution’s burden of proof relative to
legal justification or excuse from its burden relative to a traverse, or element-negating
defense. Consequently, unlike in Pickering, the jury below was never instructed that
the prosecution did not bear a burden to disprove self-defense, and therefore the jury
was never provided with an instruction as to which any suggestion of shifting or
relieving the prosecution of its burden might even colorably be asserted. In the absence
of instructional error, Montoya is left with no more than the assertion that the
prosecution failed to produce sufficient evidence to disprove self-defense. Because
there was sufficient evidence, as we have already made clear, for the jury to reasonably
find all of the elements of the crime of attempted extreme indifference murder, there


24
was necessarily sufficient evidence to disprove Montoya’s claim that he acted
reasonably, in self-defense.
III.
¶31 Montoya also asserts a number of different but related claims under the rubric of
sufficiency of the evidence, challenging his conviction for being an accessory to crime.
Because, however, Montoya expressly made the tactical choice to request that the
charge of accessory to crime be added to the existing charges against him and submitted
to the jury, as is permitted in this jurisdiction, in the hope that the jury would convict
him of that lesser offense in lieu of the homicide itself, he is effectively estopped from
asserting on appeal that, notwithstanding his representation at trial, there was actually
insufficient evidence to reach the jury and support conviction of that charge.
¶32 Although the practice is clearly not required by the federal constitution, and has
in fact been criticized by the Supreme Court as injecting a “kind of distortion” into the
trial process by permitting consideration of a charge the prosecution did not even
attempt to prove, see Hopkins v. Reeves, 524 U.S. 88, 99 (1998), we continue to entitle a
criminal defendant in this jurisdiction to have the jury presented with the option to
convict of a lesser non-included offense, as long as a rational basis exists to
simultaneously acquit of the charged offense and convict of that lesser offense, People
v. Rivera, 525 P.2d 431, 434 (1974); People v. Aragon, 653 P.2d 715, 720 n.5 (Colo. 1982).
In adopting this policy, we feared that juries might convict of a greater crime if they
lacked the option to convict of a lesser crime they actually believed to have been proved
by the evidence, whether included in the charged offense or not, and we opined that


25
allowing defendants to offer juries such an option, at their choice, would insure better
trials and fairer verdicts. See Rivera, 525 P.2d at 434. Both at the time and since, we
have recognized that permitting a jury to convict of an offense neither charged nor
included in a charged offense would be tantamount to adding a charge against the
defendant, and therefore such a procedure could be permissible only as a tactical and
strategic choice made by defense counsel. See Rivera, 525 P.2d at 434; Arko v. People,
183 P.3d 555, 558–59 (Colo. 2008).
¶33 The policy considerations supporting the various doctrines limiting a party from
changing its position on appeal are too obvious and well-accepted to merit great
discussion. We have expressly characterized the doctrine of invited error as a species of
the equitable doctrine of estoppel, and more narrowly as a “cardinal rule of appellate
review . . . prevent[ing] a party from inducing an inappropriate or erroneous [ruling]
and then later seeking to profit from that error.” See Horton v. Suthers, 43 P.3d 611, 618
(Colo. 2002) (second alteration in original) (quoting Roberts v. Consolidation Coal Co.,
539 S.E.2d 478, 488 (W. Va. 2000)); see also People v. Zapata, 779 P.2d 1307, 1309 (Colo.
1989) (“[A] party may not complain on appeal of an error that he has invited or injected
into the case; he must abide by the consequences of his acts.”); United States v.
Rodebaugh, 798 F.3d 1281, 1304 (10th Cir. 2015) (invited error doctrine “precludes a
party from arguing [on appeal] against a proposition it willingly adopted [at trial]”).
With regard to instructing the jury, in particular, we have found on multiple occasions
that a party is precluded from arguing instructional error on appeal at least when the
instruction at issue was requested by that party. See, e.g., People v. Gross, 2012 CO


26
60M, ¶¶ 8–12, 287 P.3d 105, 109–10; Zapata, 779 P.2d at 1308–10; Gray v. People,
342 P.2d 627, 630 (Colo. 1959); cf. Hansen v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 957 P.2d
1380, 1385 (Colo. 1998) (holding that invited error barred the defendant from
challenging on appeal the trial court’s failure to give a particular instruction where
defense counsel actively participated in the jury instruction conference, was notified by
the trial court of its concerns with the defense’s proposed version of that instruction,
and expressly declined to redraft the instruction).
¶34 Whether or not a meaningful distinction could be made, for some purpose,
between challenging a lesser offense instruction as unsupported by the evidence and
challenging a guilty verdict on the lesser offense thus presented, as unsupported by the
evidence, in either case, the error, if any, would have been invited equally by a
defendant asserting his entitlement to have the jury presented with the option to
convict him of an offense less serious than the one with which he was charged. Because
a trial court may only instruct the jury on a lesser non-included offense if there is some
evidence in the record to rationally support conviction for that offense, Aragon, 653
P.2d at 720 n.5, a defendant who requests instruction on such an offense necessarily
represents to the trial court that the evidence rationally supports conviction for the
offense, a position that would be wholly contradicted by the defendant’s later argument
on appeal that the evidence supporting conviction for this offense is insufficient, see
Bennett, 515 P.2d at 469. The rationale supporting the preclusive effect of invited error
can no more permit a criminal defendant to challenge a jury’s ability to convict him of
an offense he has invited it to consider than it can permit him to request a tactically


27
advantageous instruction and then assert the trial court has reversibly erred by granting
his request.
¶35 Nor does the constitutional requirement that the prosecution prove the elements
of a crime beyond a reasonable doubt foreclose a criminal defendant’s loss of the right
to demand such proof, as a result of his own conduct. In Jackson v. Virginia, although
the Supreme Court broadly upheld a criminal defendant’s right to challenge the
sufficiency of a state conviction by motion for writ of habeas corpus, it there determined
only the standard of sufficiency required by the federal due process clause. 443 U.S. at
318–20. It did not consider, and did not purport in any way to alter, the impact of
preclusive doctrines like forfeiture, estoppel, or waiver on a criminal defendant’s right
to assert a claim of insufficient evidence following his conviction.
¶36 Quite the contrary, it is widely-accepted for example, even after Jackson, that by
entering a guilty plea a defendant waives his right to insist that the prosecution
establish his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., Patton v. People, 35 P.3d 124,
128 (Colo. 2001); Smith v. McCotter, 786 F.2d 697, 702–03 (5th Cir. 1986) (reaffirming the
holding of Kelly v. Alabama, 636 F.2d 1082, 1083–84 (5th Cir. 1981), to the effect that
“[t]he Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307 (1979), mandate that sufficient evidence exist
from which a rational fact finder could find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt is
inapplicable to convictions based on a guilty plea”). Just as the Supreme Court’s
holding in Jackson does not preclude a defendant’s waiver of his right to challenge the
sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction, neither does it preclude him from
being estopped, as the result of his taking a contrary position in the trial court, from


28
doing so. A criminal defendant’s due process right to insist that there be substantial
evidence supporting a conviction is therefore not violated by forbidding him from
taking a position on appeal contrary to the one he successfully urged upon the trial
court.
¶37 In addition to portending nothing about the due process implications of
accepting a criminal defendant’s concession of sufficient evidence at trial, it is
abundantly clear that the Supreme Court in Jackson implied nothing about a criminal
defendant’s ability to challenge as erroneous his own representations in requesting that
a lesser non-included offense be presented to the jury, for the simple reason that such a
request is not sanctioned by the federal constitution at all.
IV.
¶38 Finally, separate and apart from the sufficiency of the evidence to convict him of
being an accessory to crime, Montoya asserts that he may not be convicted both of being
complicit in the commission of a crime and of being an accessory to that same crime,
and he asserts that his conviction of accessory to crime must therefore be vacated. In
doing so, Montoya not only fails to assert, as a matter of either constitutional necessity
or Colorado statute, that “accessory to crime” is the same as or a lesser included offense
of the crime to which he was convicted of being an accessory, or even that the two
offenses are related in some other way that would statutorily bar conviction of more
than one of the two for the same conduct, see Schneider v. People, 2016 CO 70, ¶¶ 11–
13, 382 P.3d 835, 838-39 (explaining the General Assembly’s limitations on multiple
convictions in this jurisdiction and the relationship between the provisions of section


29
18-1-408 and constitutional protections against being twice placed in jeopardy for the
same offense); rather, he expressly concedes that “accessory to crime” is not included in
the greater offense, and he relies entirely on the authority of case law, none of which is
from or binding on this court, largely interpreting either vastly different statutory
schemes or simply relying on the common law doctrine of “parties to a crime.”
¶39 Although perhaps not universally so, it was largely accepted at common law that
one could not be both a principal and accessory after the fact of a single crime. See
generally Wayne R. LaFave, 2 Substantive Criminal Law § 13.6 (2d ed. 2003); see also
id., § 13.1(a)–(c) (discussing the common law treatment of what were formerly
categorized as principals in the first and second degree and accessories before and after
the fact). As we have recounted elsewhere, although we had altered these common law
categories by statute well before statehood, with the adoption of the Colorado Criminal
Code in 1972, the General Assembly abandoned the common law notion of distinct
“parties to a crime” entirely, largely in favor of the Model Penal Code approach of more
expressly defining the liability of one person for the behavior of another. See Childress,
¶¶ 7–9, 363 P.3d at 156–57. In addition to eliminating any distinction among what
formerly had been principals in the first and second degree and accessories before the
fact, based on the Model Penal Code concept of “complicity,” see §§ 18-1-601 to -603,
C.R.S. (2016); Childress, ¶ 7, 363 P.3d at 156, the Colorado Criminal Code also followed
the lead of the Model Penal Code in rejecting the common law notion that one who
helps an offender avoid justice becomes in some sense an accomplice in the original
crime. Much like the Model Penal Code, the Colorado Criminal Code therefore “rejects


30
the theory of accessorial liability for those who aid the offender after the consummation
of the crime and adopts the alternative theory of prosecution for obstruction of justice.”
Model Penal Code and Commentaries § 242.3, cmt. 1 (Am. Law Inst., Official Draft &
Rev. Comments 1985). As distinguished from both the common law scheme and our
modern complicity provision, which we have characterized as a mere theory of liability
rather than a separate crime itself, see Childress, ¶¶ 7–9, 363 P.3d at 156–57, “accessory
to crime” is now a separate crime, independent of any crime committed by a person to
whom assistance is rendered, see § 18-8-105, C.R.S. (2016) (proscribing accessory to
crime under title 18, article 8, part 1, which governs “Obstruction of Public Justice”).
¶40 Montoya erroneously asserts that the court of appeals has held that a defendant
cannot be convicted of both a charged offense and being an accessory to that offense,
even under our current statutory scheme. See People v. Broom, 797 P.2d 754 (Colo.
App. 1990). While the court of appeals in Broom did hold that evidence of the same act
cannot serve as a predicate for conviction both as a complicitor to a crime and as an
accessory, for rendering assistance in concealing that same crime, it appears that even
so it may have said too much. By statute in this jurisdiction, when any conduct of a
defendant establishes the commission of more than one offense, he may be prosecuted
for each such offense. § 18-1-408(1). He may not, however, be convicted of more than
one offense if one is included in the other, as broadly defined by the statute, or if they
are related in any of the other statutorily enumerated ways barring multiple
convictions. Id. The statute does not limit multiple separate convictions of any kind
that a defendant may suffer as a result of their being predicated on the same conduct or


31
evidence, much less preclude separate convictions for being complicit in the
commission of a crime and rendering assistance to another committing the same crime.
¶41 However, for crimes charged by separate counts in a single prosecution, as
required by section 408(2), the statute does require concurrent sentences when these
crimes are based on the same act or series of acts arising from the same criminal episode
and they are supported by identical evidence. § 18-1-408(3). Montoya does not assert
that his six-year sentence for accessory to crime must run concurrently with his
homicide-related sentences but only that his conviction for accessory to crime must be
vacated. In any event, there was clearly evidence from which the jury could find that
Montoya aided, abetted, advised, or encouraged his cousin to shoot, separate and
distinct from evidence that Montoya rendered assistance to his cousin intending to
prevent his apprehension. See People v. Muckle, 107 P.3d 380, 383–84 (Colo. 2005)
(concurrent sentences required only when evidence will support no other reasonable
inference than that both convictions were based on identical evidence).

Outcome: