Peo v. Estrada

• Court: Colorado Court of Appeals
• Decided: September 19, 2024
• Docket: 23CA0669
• Status: Unknown

Opinion

23CA0669 Peo v Estrada 09-19-2024

COLORADO COURT OF APPEALS

Court of Appeals No. 23CA0669 Arapahoe County District Court No. 21CR2207 Honorable Darren L. Vahle, Judge

The People of the State of Colorado,

Plaintiff-Appellee

v.

Luis Martin Estrada,

Defendant-Appellant.

JUDGEMENT AFFIRMED

Division V Opinion by JUDGE GROVE Freyre and Lum, JJ., concur

NOT PUBLISHED PURSUANT TO C.A.R. 35(e) Announced September 19, 2024

Philip J. Weiser, Attorney General, Caitlin E. Grant, Assistant Attorney General, Denver, Colorado, for Plaintiff-Appellee

Greg D. Rawlings P.C., Greg D. Rawlings, Denver, Colorado, for Defendant- Appellant ¶1 A jury convicted defendant, Luis Martin Estrada, of first

degree murder, four counts of attempted first degree murder, two

counts of first degree assault, and three counts of menacing.1 He

appeals the judgment of conviction entered on the jury’s verdicts.

In particular, he contends that the trial court abused its discretion

by denying his motion to admit evidence of an alternate suspect’s

prior bad acts. And he contends that this ruling “hamstr[u]ng” his

defense by denying him the ability to present an alternate suspect

defense and thereby depriving him of a fair trial. We reject these

contentions and affirm.

I. Background

¶2 In October 2021, a group of friends held a birthday party in a

hotel suite. Estrada came to the party with his girlfriend. Estrada

and his girlfriend asked the host of the party if Estrada’s friend,

Ruben Mejia-Soto, could also come to the party. The host said yes,

and Mejia-Soto arrived shortly thereafter.

¶3 Witnesses all recalled Mejia-Soto wearing gray clothing and

variously recalled Estrada wearing black clothing and yellow shoes,

1 In addition, Estrada pleaded guilty to one count of possession of a

weapon by a previous offender.

1 or black and red clothing and yellow shoes. Surveillance footage

from the hotel showed Estrada wearing black clothing and yellow

shoes, and a detective who later contacted him in the parking lot of

the hotel likewise observed that he was wearing a black shirt, black

pants, and yellow shoes.

¶4 At the party, Estrada and Mejia-Soto started “acting like they

wanted a fight, like they were trying to find problems.” They calmed

down, but several guests of the party saw Estrada “flash” or pull

out a pistol that was tucked in his waistband. One guest initially

saw Mejia-Soto with the gun. [But the guest then saw Estrada take

the gun from Mejia-Soto.

¶5 One of the guests told Estrada to stop waving the gun around

because it might have a round in the chamber and Estrada was

drunk. Estrada replied, “Who doesn’t have one in the chamber?”

He then pulled a magazine from his pocket and inserted it into the

gun.

¶6 Both Estrada and Mejia-Soto told another person that they did

not know anyone at the party and were looking for a fight. At one

point, Estrada pointed the gun at other guests. The host and other

guests told Estrada to leave. When he and Mejia-Soto refused, the

2 host and several guests pushed them out of the room. The host

locked the door and, moments later, heard gunshots.

¶7 As Estrada and Mejia-Soto were being pushed out of the party,

five partygoers were approaching the party from the hallway.

Estrada was “banging on the door.” One of the partygoers, Eric

DeSantiago, told Estrada that he was “pretty sure that [those still

inside the hotel room] could hear them.” In response, Mejia-Soto

advanced on and hit DeSantiago. Estrada “pulled out a gun,”

pointed it at DeSantiago, and told him to leave. He then fired

several shots through the hotel room door. Estrada also pointed

the gun at the remaining partygoers in the hallway, following some

of them into a stairwell, waving the gun in their faces, and saying,

“Who wants it next?”

¶8 Estrada and his girlfriend left the hotel and were getting into

their car when police officers arrested them. Mejia-Soto got into a

separate car but was also apprehended and arrested.

¶9 Four people inside the hotel room suffered gunshot wounds.

One of them died as a result of a gunshot wound to his chest.

Police located a gun, which matched a shell found in the hotel,

under a vehicle in the hotel parking lot.

3 ¶ 10 Police performed gunshot residue tests on Estrada and Mejia-

Soto. Estrada’s test came back positive for gunshot residue

particles. But “[n]o particles of gunshot residue were found” in

Mejia-Soto’s test. DNA analysis of the gun and magazine included

Mejia-Soto as a contributor on both; Estrada and his girlfriend were

inconclusive contributors on the gun and excluded as contributors

on the magazine.

II. Alternate Suspect and Other Act Evidence

¶ 11 Before trial, Estrada notified the trial court that he intended to

pursue an alternate suspect defense. He identified Mejia-Soto as

the alternate suspect. As part of his planned defense, Estrada

sought to offer evidence of “Mejia-Soto’s pending case” relating to

this matter, and “the plea offer he accepted from the People.” And

he sought to offer evidence that, roughly five months before the

events underlying this case, “Mejia-Soto brandished a firearm from

his front pocket while at a house party and fired it multiple times.”

This latter evidence was admissible, the defense argued, to show

Mejia-Soto’s common plan or scheme of carrying guns “at parties”

and “then fir[ing] them.”

4 ¶ 12 The court ruled on these issues at a pretrial hearing. As to the

evidence of Mejia-Soto’s behavior in this case, the court stated the

following:

[The defense] intend[s] to introduce the behavior of Mr. Mejia Soto, the Codefendant, his possession of the gun, his behavior during the party, the fact that he had the gun at some point, his DNA on the gun, and they intend to bring those in to show that he is [an] alternate suspect that he is the shooter.

The court found that this was “simply evidence” of Mejia-Soto as an

alternate suspect, which “can be presented . . . by the [d]efense.”

¶ 13 As to the other act evidence, defense counsel made an offer of

proof, which included a news article and information contained in

the prosecution’s discovery indicating that an eyewitness who was

at both parties described Mejia-Soto as “the shooter” at the prior

party.

¶ 14 The court found that this was “certainly evidence of similar

conduct.” But no proof had been offered that “there was a plan to

do this repeatedly.” And, the court found, even if it determined a

proper purpose for admitting the evidence, it was not independent

of the propensity inference that Mejia-Soto was “the kind of guy

who fires guns at parties” and “was acting in conformity with that

5 character.” Because there was nothing “signatury” — which we

take to mean as distinctive enough to suggest that the same person

likely committed both acts — about the prior act evidence and this

case, the court found, the relevance of the prior act “really comes

from propensity.” Thus, the court concluded, the test for admitting

evidence of the prior act was not met.

¶ 15 During trial, Estrada asked the court to reconsider its ruling.

The court again denied the request to admit this prior act evidence.

The court cited People v. Bueno, 626 P.2d 1167 (Colo. App. 1981),

stating that it “laid the foundation for” when other act evidence

could be admitted in establishing an alternate suspect defense. The

court distinguished Bueno, finding that there, the “high similarities”

between the prior act and the charged act made it highly likely that

the perpetrator of each crime was the same person. Here, however,

the court found the evidence of the two acts was not sufficiently

similar and therefore the prior act was not relevant:

Here, there’s a party, there’s a gun, and shots are fired. Those are the same. But those are pretty generic facts, and they are not the kind of facts that are there in Bueno. The Court simply does not find that — even if the Court were to allow in evidence that Mr. Mejia was at a party five months earlier, that he had a gun,

6 that he fired the gun, that that has any relevance towards whether he is the shooter in this case except for the propensity inference.

The court went on to say that the only way for the prior act to be

relevant is for the jury to think, “Well, he shot a gun at a party

before. He’s probably a party-shooting kind of guy, and he probably

did it again. This is evidence of character and that he acted in

conformity with that character.” Unlike Bueno and “the other cases

the Court is familiar with where this comes in,” this is not a

“signature” or “individual characteristic crime.” Thus, the court

found that the other act evidence was not relevant and that any

relevance would be outweighed by the danger of confusion of the

issues.

¶ 16 Estrada asserts that the trial court’s evidentiary ruling was

error. We disagree.

A. Standard of Review and Controlling Law

¶ 17 We review a trial court’s evidentiary rulings for an abuse of

discretion. People v. Elmarr, 2015 CO 53, ¶ 20. A court abuses its

discretion if, among other things, its ruling is manifestly arbitrary,

unreasonable, or unfair. Id.

7 ¶ 18 A criminal defendant is constitutionally entitled “to all

reasonable opportunities to present evidence that might tend to

create doubt” as to his guilt. Id. at ¶ 26 (citing Bueno, 626 P.2d at

1169). However, the right to present a defense is constrained by

well-established rules governing the admissibility of evidence. Id. at

¶ 27. Alternate suspect evidence must be relevant. Id. But even

relevant evidence may be excluded “if its probative value is

substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice,

confusion of the issues, or misleading the jury, or by considerations

of undue delay, waste of time, or needless presentation of

cumulative evidence.” Id. (quoting CRE 403).

¶ 19 When evidence “concerns other acts by the alternate suspect,

a court must look to whether all the similar acts and

circumstances, taken together, support a finding that the same

person probably was involved in both the other act and the charged

crime.” Id. at ¶ 23. CRE 404(b) principles guide this analysis. Id.

However, concerns regarding prejudice to the defendant that gave

rise to the common law rule underpinning CRE 404(b) do not exist

when the defendant offers other acts evidence of an alternate

suspect. Id. at ¶ 36. Nonetheless, nothing in Colorado’s caselaw

8 “suggests that evidence of an alternate suspect’s other acts is

admissible purely for the inference that the alternate suspect acted

in conformity with his bad character.” Id. at ¶ 39. Other act

evidence that is insufficiently “distinctive or unusual” will typically

not support a finding that the same person probably committed

both acts. Id.; People v. Salazar, 2012 CO 20, ¶ 26.

B. Analysis

¶ 20 We cannot conclude that the trial court abused its discretion

in excluding evidence of Mejia-Soto’s prior act. That is, the court’s

determination that the evidence of the prior act was “pretty generic”

and therefore not “signature” or uniquely “characteristic” was not

manifestly arbitrary, unreasonable, or unfair. Given that the prior

act evidence was not distinctive or unusual, the court did not abuse

its discretion by determining that the only relevance of the prior act

was for the inference that the alternate suspect acted in conformity

with his bad character, and therefore inadmissible. Elmarr, ¶ 39;

see People v. Trusty, 53 P.3d 668, 675 (Colo. App. 2001) (concluding

that no abuse of discretion occurred in exclusion of alternate

suspects’ criminal histories where the defendant “proffered no

evidence indicating any distinctive or unusual similarities between

9 the offense with which he was charged and the prior offenses of

[alternate suspects]”); People v. Ornelas, 937 P.2d 867, 872 (Colo.

App. 1996) (same). Under these circumstances, the danger of

confusion of the issues was high.

¶ 21 In any event, we agree with the People that, even if we assume

evidentiary error, such error was harmless. An evidentiary error

precluding a defendant from presenting evidence may be of

constitutional magnitude “only where the defendant was denied

virtually his [or her] only means of effectively testing significant

prosecution evidence.” People v. Brown, 2014 COA 155M-2, ¶ 6,

(quoting Krutsinger v. People, 219 P.3d 1054, 1062 (Colo. 2009)).

Otherwise, reversal is required only if the error “substantially

influenced the verdict or affected the fairness of the trial.” Id.

¶ 22 Here, the trial court did not preclude Estrada from cross-

examining Mejia-Soto or arguing his theory of the case. Thus, he

was not denied his only means of testing the prosecution’s evidence.

Further, the evidence of Estrada’s guilt was overwhelming. Tevlin v.

People, 715 P.2d 338, 342 (Colo. 1986). Four partygoers testified

that the man dressed in black — undisputedly Estrada — was the

person who shot repeatedly at the door to the hotel room and

10 menaced some of those who were in the hallway. Further, the

gunshot residue test results corroborated those witness accounts

that Estrada was the shooter. Under these circumstances, we

cannot say that the court’s decision to exclude prior act evidence of

the alternate suspect substantially influenced the verdict or fairness

of the trial.

III. Disposition

¶ 23 The judgment is affirmed.

JUDGE FREYRE and JUDGE LUM concur.