Casillas v. People

2018 CO 78, 427 P.3d 804
CourtSupreme Court of Colorado
DecidedSeptember 24, 2018
Docket15SC292, Casillas
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 2018 CO 78 (Casillas v. People) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Colorado primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Casillas v. People, 2018 CO 78, 427 P.3d 804 (Colo. 2018).

Opinions

JUSTICE MÁRQUEZ delivered the Opinion of the Court.

¶ 1 Colorado law requires certain juvenile offenders to submit to collection of their DNA for testing. § 19-2-925.6(1), C.R.S. (2018). However, this requirement "shall not apply to an offender granted a deferred adjudication, unless otherwise required to submit to a sample pursuant to [ section 19-2-925.6 ] or unless the deferred adjudication is revoked and a sentence is imposed." § 19-2-925.6(1)(e).

¶ 2 In 2008, a juvenile probation officer swabbed the cheek of Petitioner Ismael Casillas, then a juvenile, to collect a DNA sample. The probation officer's collection of Casillas's DNA violated section 19-2-925.6(1) because Casillas had been granted a one-year deferred adjudication and he was not otherwise required under the statute to submit a DNA sample. His genetic markers were nevertheless uploaded to the federal Combined DNA Index System (CODIS).

¶ 3 Several months after Casillas successfully completed the terms of his deferred adjudication and his juvenile case had been dismissed, law enforcement investigators matched DNA evidence recovered from a stolen vehicle with the sample in the CODIS database taken from Casillas during his juvenile *807deferred adjudication. As a result of the DNA match, Casillas was identified and charged in connection with a carjacking.

¶ 4 Before trial, Casillas moved to suppress all evidence derived from the DNA match, arguing that evidence derived from the unauthorized cheek swab should be excluded as the fruits of an unlawful search in violation of his Fourth Amendment rights. The trial court denied the motion, and a jury later convicted Casillas of criminal mischief.

¶ 5 Casillas challenged the trial court's suppression ruling on appeal. In a published, split ruling, the court of appeals affirmed Casillas's conviction. People v. Casillas, 2015 COA 15, --- P.3d ----. The division unanimously held that the cheek swab violated both the juvenile DNA collection statute and the Fourth Amendment. See id. at ¶¶ 3, 18, 22, 41. The majority held that suppression was nevertheless unwarranted because the officer who performed the cheek swab was "performing nothing more than a supervisory function under the direction of the juvenile court," and therefore, suppression "would have no deterrent value." Id. at ¶ 38. Judge Webb dissented, concluding that Casillas's motion to suppress should have been granted. Id. at ¶¶ 42, 54 (Webb, J., dissenting).

¶ 6 We granted Casillas's petition for a writ of certiorari to review whether the exclusionary rule requires suppression of the evidence derived from the juvenile probation officer's unauthorized collection of Casillas's DNA in this case.1 We conclude that it does. Accordingly, we reverse and remand with instructions to vacate Casillas's conviction.

I. Facts and Procedural History

¶ 7 In June 2008, Petitioner Ismael Casillas, then a juvenile, entered into a stipulated, one-year deferred adjudication for drug possession. The stipulation required him to be under the supervision of the juvenile probation department. Soon thereafter, a juvenile probation officer subjected Casillas to a buccal swab (commonly referred to as a "cheek swab")2 and entered his genetic markers into CODIS.3 Why the officer took the swab remains unknown; nothing in the record sheds light on his reasons for doing so. Casillas eventually successfully completed the terms of his deferred adjudication, and his case was dismissed with prejudice in May 2009.

¶ 8 Several months later, three young men ambushed an older man and stole his car. Within hours, the victim's car was found wrecked. A crime scene investigator discovered blood stains on the inside of the front passenger door, and the police submitted samples of this blood evidence to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation (CBI) for testing against DNA profiles in CODIS. This testing revealed that the blood evidence found in the car matched the profile for Casillas.

¶ 9 In the process of comparing the blood evidence against profiles in CODIS, a CODIS administrator for the CBI learned that Casillas had not been eligible for DNA testing. The CODIS administrator nevertheless informed the detective who was investigating the carjacking of the match, noting that Casillas's DNA had been collected for previous offenses that did not qualify for CODIS entry. Based on the CODIS match, the detective proceeded to include Casillas in a photo array presented to the carjacking victim. The victim identified Casillas in the photo array *808as one of his assailants. As a result, Casillas was arrested and charged with aggravated robbery and menacing.

¶ 10 Before trial, Casillas moved to suppress the DNA and photo array identification, arguing that the collection of his DNA and uploading of his genetic markers to CODIS was statutorily unauthorized and violated his Fourth Amendment rights. At the suppression hearing, Casillas presented email correspondence showing that, when the blood evidence from the stolen car was matched with his DNA profile in CODIS, the CBI's CODIS administrator realized that Casillas's DNA profile had been improperly uploaded into the system. The CODIS administrator contacted a probation analyst with the State Court Administrator's Office to confirm, writing: "It looks like I have another CODIS hit to an offender with a deferred sentence.... It looks like he was not eligible, but I need you to confirm that." The probation analyst responded, confirming that Casillas was a juvenile "under a deferred adjudication for ... a felony drug charge," that he "successfully completed his deferred adjudication," and that Casillas therefore was "not eligible for DNA testing on this case." Casillas also presented records reflecting that the detective who included Casillas in the photo array based on the DNA match knew that the match was based on a "non-qualifying offense submission." Records admitted at the suppression hearing further showed that, the same day the CODIS administrator disclosed the match to the detective, Casillas's DNA profile was expunged from the CODIS database, apparently at the request of the probation analyst from the State Court Administrator's Office. The juvenile probation officer who took Casillas's cheek swab did not testify.

¶ 11 Casillas argued that the buccal swab conducted by the juvenile probation officer was an unlawful search under the Fourth Amendment, and that both the DNA identification and photo-array identification should be excluded as fruits of an unlawful search and seizure of his genetic markers. The People conceded that the collection of Casillas's DNA was not authorized under section 19-2-925.6, but argued that suppression was unwarranted as a remedy for the statutory violation. In so doing, the People did not contend that the probation officer took the cheek swab as the result of a good faith mistake of fact or law. See § 16-3-308, C.R.S. (2018) (permitting proponent of evidence to argue that evidence seized by a peace officer was the result of a "good faith mistake" or "technical violation" and thus should not be suppressed). Instead, the People argued that the buccal swab was justified under the "special needs" exception to the warrant requirement under the Fourth Amendment, citing People v.

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Bluebook (online)
2018 CO 78, 427 P.3d 804, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/casillas-v-people-colo-2018.